London has been ranked as the world’s most high-tech city snatching the top spot from New York, according to new research shared exclusively with City A.M.
The capital scored top marks for its world-leading financial services, deep talent pool as well as the quality of its business environment and international reputation, according to Z/Yen Group’s seventh edition of the Smart Centres Index.
Florida governor @GovRonDeSantis says on @clayandbuck if he’s elected president that on his first day in office he will consider pardoning any January 6th defendant he believes was politically prosecuted from a member of the public all the way up to President Trump himself.
What a bloody weasel. Adding 'believes was politically prosecuted' is just pointless, either he thinks what they did was ok, or he doesn't, and he obviously does and like many GOPers will pardon those who sought to overthrow the established process of government. Patriotism!
DeSantis would be even worse than Trump. I’m not sure he’d have the beating of Biden either.
Checking the markets, Kennedy is still shortening - as tight as 14/1, insanely (91/5 on the exchanges).
I agree with the previous header that Haley (and probably Harris) are where the value bets are.
Courthouse News Service - Attorney in Kari Lake voting machine lawsuit asks to be spared from sanctions
Alan Dershowitz says he spent only three or four hours working on Lake’s case, providing her attorneys with advice on an issue that ultimately has no connection to a federal judge’s imposition of sanctions against her legal team.
An attorney who worked on Kari Lake’s 2022 lawsuit aiming to ban the use of electronic vote machines in Arizona says he shouldn’t face sanctions along with the rest of Lake’s counsel because of his "little involvement” in the case.
Alan Dershowitz says he was mistakenly listed as the lead attorney in Lake’s suit against the Arizona secretary of state and supervisors of both Maricopa and Pima Counties. Rather than leading the legal effort to disrupt trust in Arizona’s elections, Dershowitz says he spent “merely three or four hours” on the case as an advisor to Lake’s attorneys on a matter of constitutionality.
In a Wednesday afternoon hearing in Arizona federal court, he and his attorney Dennis Wilenchik distanced themselves from the “army of attorneys” Wilenchik said is trying to undo the 2020 General Election.
“I do not like Miss Lake,” Dershowitz told U.S. District Judge John Tuchi. “I would never have voted for her. I would never in a million years be part of any campaign to influence or affect the election. . . .
If a judge finds an attorney violated Rule 11, the federal law that requires legal contentions to be filed with factual supporting evidence and warranted by existing law, they may issue a directive against them or their law firm that discourages them from future misconduct. Sanctions may or may not include financial punishment.
Dershowitz says he shouldn’t be included in the sanctions because he made an “honest mistake” in listing himself as “of counsel,” rather than “as counsel.” He said he intended the distinction to make clear that he was there only as an advisor to the law firm representing Lake, and did not represent Lake herself in any way, as he doesn’t know her nor has he met her. But the clerk’s office, and subsequently the county’s legal team, interpreted his signature on the court documents as him serving as counsel for Lake. . . .
SSI - so the excuse of the Great Attorney, Scholar and Pundit of The Law is, he fucked up on a point that a 1st-year law school student would get right 99 times out of 100?
Makes sense to me, as Alan Dershowitz has about as much credibility these days as Rudy Giuliani.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
Our problem is we gold plate due-process and have loads of cynics and curmudgeonly types who are all too happy to invest all their time and energy in gaming the already turgid system to make it as slow as possible.
It's too much hard work to do the opposite and no-one can be arsed.
It comes back to a central point: judicial review is a truly terrible idea that should be abandoned. The focus on process rather than substance is both intellectually dishonest and fundamentally pointless. What we need to focus on are substantive appeals. Was the decision actually right? Not correctly arrived at, with every box ticked, but right? If it was get on with it. If not look at it again.
With JR in planning you can have a terrible decision that is completely unconvincing but legally sound, whereas you could alternatively have an outstandingly reasoned and convincing decision that becomes voided through a single typo. In practice it is basically the tool of those with deep pockets, most decisions have some flaw, you just need hundreds of thousands of quid that you can afford to lose to be able to participate.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
Pre-Ukraine it was about 40p/therm. Now 58p - the futures top out at 130p.
Don’t expect domestic energy bills to go back to where they used to be, though. Sunak’s bright idea is taxing us, via our bills in order to subsidise Tata.
It's not just a subsidy for Tata - the new 'energy security' bill before parliament will add £118 to household energy bills to pay for carbon capture and other green bollocks. Absolute 'Let them eat cake' nuts during a cost of living crisis.
“Delivering on the ‘British Industry Supercharger’, we will ensure that Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs) remain profitable by compensating them for a portion of their network charging costs.”
Why is it UK government policy to ensure that Tata makes a profit for their shareholders?
This is insane.
The insanity lies in the fact that the Government's own emissions trading/green taxes would drive these industries out of business/overseas, and therefore the Government needs to introduce a subsidy to ensure that they can remain in business. So yes, it is insane, but the subsidy is marginally less insane than the green taxes without the subsidy. What would actually be *sane* would be to scrap the emissions trading scheme (we can now that we have left the EU - oh look, another Brexit benefit), and therefore we wouldn't need the farcical tax/subsidy merry-go-round. Domestic energy is the same situation. Ludicrous parody socialism. From a Tory Government.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
Note immigration has fallen below 100, 000 for EU net immigration post Brexit, it is non-EU immigration where it has reason substantially to now over 500,000. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-65669832
"Note immigration has fallen below 100, 000 for EU net immigration post Brexit, it is non-EU immigration where it has risen substantially to now over 500,000".
Remain should have put that on the side of a bus.
It couldn't have done pre referendum. It is Brexit and the end of EU free movement that has reduced net EU immigration.
Though I take the view it was Blair's failure to impose transition controls on Eastern European migration for 7 years in 2004 like Germany that won it for Leave. Had he done so it would probably have been Remain 52% Leave 48% rather than the reverse
It's ok - you are on the right side of history on this one. Sometimes it is worth being on a particular side just because of who is on the other side.
Despite all the PB Leavers falling over themselves to say how much they welcome immigration, nevertheless they hitched their trailer to quite a racist undertaking in the campaigns to leave the EU.
The official Vote Leave campaign made a point, quite a good one, that by controlling immigration we could end discrimination against non-Europeans and increase non-EU migration.
Which is exactly what has happened.
Yes Farage and co may have been racist shitbags, but so what? If a racist told you not to cross a level crossing while the red lights were flashing and a train was approaching would you say "well if you're telling me not to, I better had"?
Plus who cares about the "official Vote Leave campaign". Leave won because of racist shitbags. And the official Vote Leave campaign knew perfectly well and adapted their message to suit the racist shitbags. Or in certain cases the racist shitbags who wanted to appear as though they weren't actually racist shitbags.
You can applaud as much as you like the increase in non-EU immigration but your fellow travellers most certainly did not want more immigration.
Perhaps you, @Richard_Tyndall and six others purport to welcome immigration. The vast majority of Leave voters voted Leave to end/reduce immigration.
But whatever gets you through the day.
The same bullshit that got Enoch Powell supporters through the day. Mealy mouthed excuses are just that and they know it.
“I voted for a more-immigration Brexit” is the new “I vos fighting on ze Eastern front.”
Western Front shirly? Just a few 'policing actions' that got out of hand and massacres in the heat of action* compared to the full fat Faragist race war in the east.
*For the sake of clarity these were the bromides that the self deceiving twats fed themselves.
Yes, but if you're telling a British person that you fought on the Eastern front, it's polite - less chance that you killed their Dad or bombed their granny.
Has been on the antivaxxer grift longer than most. ...Since 2005, he has promoted the scientifically discredited link between vaccines and autism... (Wikipedia)
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
But conditions that would have no foreseeable end. So what do they do? Build, or go out of business?
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
There's a long way to eat into developers' profits before it becomes remotely unprofitable imo - so my Dad assures me, and he spent most of his career working for them and is now on the local Government side. The hope would be that taxing unbuilt plots would turn housebuilding into a high turnover, lower profit exercise. After all, if they decided to stop applying for planning, someone else could just swoop in and build on the land.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
But conditions that would have no foreseeable end. So what do they do? Build, or go out of business?
But it depends on them building to create the oversupply, and they won't, because it would go against their interests. The POS article has the usual graph in it, the housebuilders have for the last 80 or so years built around 150k houses per year, which is understood to be the extent of the demand for newbuilds in the private market.
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Not sure what maths is required to know that IMF forecasts are always wrong. They're shit.
Got better ones? Start up a forecasting service with BigG, you’ll make a mint.
Everyone with a blindfold, a pin and a picture of a donkey has better ones. The failure of their predictions is a matter of public record. You may choose to politely ignore that they can't forecast for shit but why should anybody else?
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
There's a long way to eat into developers' profits before it becomes remotely unprofitable imo - so my Dad assures me, and he spent most of his career working for them and is now on the local Government side. The hope would be that taxing unbuilt plots would turn housebuilding into a high turnover, lower profit exercise. After all, if they decided to stop applying for planning, someone else could just swoop in and build on the land.
How are you going to incentivise builders to deliver more houses in a falling market ? I don't see how it happens.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
There's a long way to eat into developers' profits before it becomes remotely unprofitable imo - so my Dad assures me, and he spent most of his career working for them and is now on the local Government side. The hope would be that taxing unbuilt plots would turn housebuilding into a high turnover, lower profit exercise. After all, if they decided to stop applying for planning, someone else could just swoop in and build on the land.
How are you going to incentivise builders to deliver more houses in a falling market ? I don't see how it happens.
Allow councils to charge council tax on unbuilt plots held by developers.
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Pathetic response
He is quoting the IMF
So what?
Why are you so worked up about IMF? Do you think you can do better than the IMF? Or do you hold an epistemological view that all forecasting is essentially futile?
Or are you trying to make some obscure point that Rachel Reeves shouldn’t use international economic forecasts to make political points?
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Pathetic response
He is quoting the IMF
So what?
Why are you so worked up about IMF? Do you think you can do better than the IMF? Or do you hold an epistemological view that all forecasting is essentially futile?
Or are you trying to make some obscure point that Rachel Reeves shouldn’t use international economic forecasts to make political points?
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
There's a long way to eat into developers' profits before it becomes remotely unprofitable imo - so my Dad assures me, and he spent most of his career working for them and is now on the local Government side. The hope would be that taxing unbuilt plots would turn housebuilding into a high turnover, lower profit exercise. After all, if they decided to stop applying for planning, someone else could just swoop in and build on the land.
How are you going to incentivise builders to deliver more houses in a falling market ? I don't see how it happens.
Allow councils to charge council tax on unbuilt plots held by developers.
I don't believe that putting a £200k per annum tax on an unimplemented 100 unit consented scheme would incentivise its delivery when the market is falling. The obvious thing for a developer to do would be to try and find a loophole, which they are generally quite good at doing.
Great Coastal Railway Journeys with Portillo is on BBC2. Episodes 3, 4 & 5 - especially episode 4 - is Cyclefree country. He goes on the lines which go through the station in our village - and for the railway enthusiasts on here - you have to hail the train when it arrives. It's a two-carriage train and I can see it pootling around the Duddon estuary from my living-room window.
Worth catching - it really shows off the beauty of the coastline.
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Pathetic response
He is quoting the IMF
So what?
Why are you so worked up about IMF? Do you think you can do better than the IMF? Or do you hold an epistemological view that all forecasting is essentially futile?
Or are you trying to make some obscure point that Rachel Reeves shouldn’t use international economic forecasts to make political points?
She should use the correct ones
Again pathetic response
They were the correct ones when she made her statement. Or are you damning Reeves because she lacks the ability to predict the future?
I’m afraid this latest meme from Tory HQ is another pile of guff.
Maybe it’s worked though as you successfully avoided talking about the substance of her speech today.
“Our planning system is a dead hand on the tiller... Housebuilding, infrastructure, and business investment all grind to a halt... If Britain is to rebuild its industrial might, we must stop red tape from standing in the way of new industries and new jobs."
Spot on.
Shit. You would hope that senior Labour MPs would have some concept of what planning permisison is and the effect it has on infrastructure and housebuilding (clue - fuck all). Another one looking for cheap points to score that will have absolutely no effect on how quickly things get built.
You're so full of shit that planning permission has fuck all effect on housebuilding. Because you think after 10 years of planning appeals a housebuilder might be able get permission does not mean that it has no impact on the development.
You have been shot down over this so many times BR that I am amazed you have the audacity to even raise it again. You always talk bollocks over planning and get hauled up for it I would have thought you would have learnt your lesson by now.
LOL "shot down". Your definition of "shot down" is that developers can eventually get approval if they relentlessly drag this through the courts and appeals process for years.
I've said before and I'll say it again, that's not good enough. That means small developers, competition for the large ones, are stymied as they aren't able to do that.
If there is to be a permission process it needs to be resolved in days or weeks, not years or decades.
But while I respect you, you're so transparent. I find it utterly hilarious that when we started discussing this you were appalled at the idea of relaxing planning permission as it would lead to 'green' spaces being 'concreted' over and apparently I know 'the value of nothing'.
After we've all been back and forth on this topic many times, the simple reality is you know that morally now you don't have a leg to stand on. You know that those of us on my side of the argument are right. That the shortage of housing is a serious problem, a more serious problem than having more development. But you still don't want the development, but you won't advance an argument you know to be morally wrong - which I respect - so now you cling to this notion that planning is not the problem.
In a short space of time we've gone from dealing with planning reform being a terrible idea that would see mass developments you don't want, to planning not being an impediment to developments at all so its not responsible or needing to be resolved for the problem to be fixed.
I'm not the one who has been shot down. Your argument has - and you are a good man, you know it has too. Hence this fig leaf. You may be convincing yourself that planning is not the problem, but you're not convincing anyone else.
It's a reasonable criticism. Amis was a great stylist and humorist but his books are a bit Oxbridge-clever-clever and empty.
Have you read any of Eagleton's stuff ? Similar criticism might apply.
Entertaining lecturer back in the day.
Yeah, writing is hard. I sometimes wonder where literary critics get off. Still, I think the criticism is broadly valid. Amis, McEwan, Barnes etc, I like all of them but there is a kind of controlled, limited quality to their work that leaves you wanting more, wondering, is this it? Is this the very best there is? I really loved the Rachel Papers and Metroland, which I guess were probably quite heavily autobiographical in both cases. McEwan I find a bit meh, I find it hard to get emotionally caught up in some of his books. I liked Atonement, which I did find very sad, but I think I preferred the film to the book. One thing I've noted as I've got older is that I've become more drawn to work by women for some reason. In writing and music. Perhaps as you get older you feel less need to see yourself reflected on the page or in the song and more interested in hearing other stories?
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
Our problem is we gold plate due-process and have loads of cynics and curmudgeonly types who are all too happy to invest all their time and energy in gaming the already turgid system to make it as slow as possible.
It's too much hard work to do the opposite and no-one can be arsed.
I can’t blame cynics and curmudgeons, they are present in every society at all times.
We just have a “system” that provides the wrong incentives and vetos.
Tyndall thinks it is the housebuilders, but he hasn’t seemed to realise yet that “planning system” and “housebuilding industry” are highly symbiotic…
Look at the figures I quoted. Every year there are far more planning permissions given than the Government requires and the developers only utilise 60% of them. 9 out of 10 applications for development are granted by councils without the need for appeal.
Bury your head in the sand if you like but the numbers speak gor themselves.
No, they don’t.
Planning permission volume says nothing about the time and complexity of achieving permission, nor the incentives thereby delivered to house builders.
But the other figures explicitely say that. Of course you are not interested in facts, only your own uninformed opinions
Has been on the antivaxxer grift longer than most. ...Since 2005, he has promoted the scientifically discredited link between vaccines and autism... (Wikipedia)
And married to Cheryl Hines, who plays Larry David’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Not sure it’s worth laying him right now - it’s a long time before it pays off.
"Allies of Boris Johnson have been accused of preparing to block a motion to suspend the disgraced Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier, leading the government to postpone the vote in parliament.
It is believed that supporters of the former prime minister feared that a vote to suspend Ferrier for 30 days over a breach of Covid-19 rules could set a precedent if Johnson faced a similar vote."
Rather transparent stuff.
He might not even get recommended a suspension that would prompt a recall.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
Our problem is we gold plate due-process and have loads of cynics and curmudgeonly types who are all too happy to invest all their time and energy in gaming the already turgid system to make it as slow as possible.
It's too much hard work to do the opposite and no-one can be arsed.
I can’t blame cynics and curmudgeons, they are present in every society at all times.
We just have a “system” that provides the wrong incentives and vetos.
Tyndall thinks it is the housebuilders, but he hasn’t seemed to realise yet that “planning system” and “housebuilding industry” are highly symbiotic…
Look at the figures I quoted. Every year there are far more planning permissions given than the Government requires and the developers only utilise 60% of them. 9 out of 10 applications for development are granted by councils without the need for appeal.
Bury your head in the sand if you like but the numbers speak gor themselves.
But let's think about why that happens.
I can think of two ways that behaviour is rational. There may be others. One of them is probably healthy- get permission for a while neighbourhood at once the build it over a decade so that a local housing market isn't swamped. The other is more cynical- if you know housing supply is constrained, why not wait until 5 years time when you expect to sell your new houses for more?
If people (housebuilders here) are behaving badly, you can either force them to be nicer or work out why and tweak the incentives. The first only really works if you're Britain's Strictest Headmistress.
Don't forget if you have a large site you can go slow on it, screw the housing land supply figures for the authority, who then have to give less weight to local plans and allocations (or see an inspector do it), which can free up sites that would otherwise be refused and are easier or more profitable to build on.
Planning permission volume says nothing about the time and complexity of achieving permission, nor the incentives thereby delivered to house builders.
Precisely, our flawed planning system means that the experts at handling the system (the large developers) play it to the best of their interest, rather than everyone else's - and because the system is broken, regardless of what Mr Tyndall reckons, small competitors struggle to take them on by doing small alternative projects instead.
In a free and healthy market, there would be a lot more developments happening by small developers. As there are in almost every country in the world with a better planning system. But they get stymied at the start and so we are left with what we're left with.
Besides, the fact that 60% of homes given permission are built is not necessarily a failing. There will be plenty of homes that are going to be built but haven't had the time to be built yet, but also not all homes that get permission perhaps should be built either.
In any industry, in any walk of life, companies investigate or start projects that then never get completed. Because the company concerned runs into financial difficulties, or problems occur, or the market changes, or a better alternative option becomes available instead which is proceeded with instead, or a plethora of other factors. There are problems with land banking and those problems are entirely caused by the broken planning system, but the fact that some projects fail is not something that should never happen.
Who here has gone their career without ever seeing a project that was started with the best of intentions having had the plug pulled on it before completion?
I have to say that the LOB stage show sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, as does a new version of Fawlty Towers.
My dad is a huge FT fan, and a lot of the time seemes like he would agree with much of what Cleese says these days, but even he when he heard the news was distinctly underwhelmed by the idea.
If that core demographic of FT fans aren't up for it, who is?
It's a reasonable criticism. Amis was a great stylist and humorist but his books are a bit Oxbridge-clever-clever and empty.
Have you read any of Eagleton's stuff ? Similar criticism might apply.
Entertaining lecturer back in the day.
Eagleton may be a bit dull but he has something to say and is serious about it. Amis, like his dad, is amusing and empty. Neither will be taken seriously in the longer run. Style will never make up for lack of vision.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
Our problem is we gold plate due-process and have loads of cynics and curmudgeonly types who are all too happy to invest all their time and energy in gaming the already turgid system to make it as slow as possible.
It's too much hard work to do the opposite and no-one can be arsed.
I can’t blame cynics and curmudgeons, they are present in every society at all times.
We just have a “system” that provides the wrong incentives and vetos.
Tyndall thinks it is the housebuilders, but he hasn’t seemed to realise yet that “planning system” and “housebuilding industry” are highly symbiotic…
Look at the figures I quoted. Every year there are far more planning permissions given than the Government requires and the developers only utilise 60% of them. 9 out of 10 applications for development are granted by councils without the need for appeal.
Bury your head in the sand if you like but the numbers speak gor themselves.
No, they don’t.
Planning permission volume says nothing about the time and complexity of achieving permission, nor the incentives thereby delivered to house builders.
But the other figures explicitely say that. Of course you are not interested in facts, only your own uninformed opinions
The figures say nothing of the sort.
A large majority of potential homes with permission are completed.
Some are not. That could be due to the fact:
A: They're going to be but it hasn't happened yet as it takes time (not a problem). B: They're not going to be built due to legitimate reasons (not a problem). C: They could and should be built but are being landbanked by large firms who value the permission the property has and want to hold onto it without doing anything (a problem created entirely by the planning system).
You act as if its all C, but even if you're right which isn't the case, the solution is to reform the planning system to make it easier for other firms to compete with the large firms who have teams of planning lawyers, wallets to bank land, and the ability to wait out the planning system for the years or decades it can take.
Great Coastal Railway Journeys with Portillo is on BBC2. Episodes 3, 4 & 5 - especially episode 4 - is Cyclefree country. He goes on the lines which go through the station in our village - and for the railway enthusiasts on here - you have to hail the train when it arrives. It's a two-carriage train and I can see it pootling around the Duddon estuary from my living-room window.
Worth catching - it really shows off the beauty of the coastline.
Hello. I was on part (not that part) of that line last week.
I have to say that the LOB stage show sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, as does a new version of Fawlty Towers.
My dad is a huge FT fan, and a lot of the time seemes like he would agree with much of what Cleese says these days, but even he when he heard the news was distinctly underwhelmed by the idea.
If that core demographic of FT fans aren't up for it, who is?
Courthouse News Service - Attorney in Kari Lake voting machine lawsuit asks to be spared from sanctions
Alan Dershowitz says he spent only three or four hours working on Lake’s case, providing her attorneys with advice on an issue that ultimately has no connection to a federal judge’s imposition of sanctions against her legal team.
An attorney who worked on Kari Lake’s 2022 lawsuit aiming to ban the use of electronic vote machines in Arizona says he shouldn’t face sanctions along with the rest of Lake’s counsel because of his "little involvement” in the case.
Alan Dershowitz says he was mistakenly listed as the lead attorney in Lake’s suit against the Arizona secretary of state and supervisors of both Maricopa and Pima Counties. Rather than leading the legal effort to disrupt trust in Arizona’s elections, Dershowitz says he spent “merely three or four hours” on the case as an advisor to Lake’s attorneys on a matter of constitutionality.
In a Wednesday afternoon hearing in Arizona federal court, he and his attorney Dennis Wilenchik distanced themselves from the “army of attorneys” Wilenchik said is trying to undo the 2020 General Election.
“I do not like Miss Lake,” Dershowitz told U.S. District Judge John Tuchi. “I would never have voted for her. I would never in a million years be part of any campaign to influence or affect the election. . . .
If a judge finds an attorney violated Rule 11, the federal law that requires legal contentions to be filed with factual supporting evidence and warranted by existing law, they may issue a directive against them or their law firm that discourages them from future misconduct. Sanctions may or may not include financial punishment.
Dershowitz says he shouldn’t be included in the sanctions because he made an “honest mistake” in listing himself as “of counsel,” rather than “as counsel.” He said he intended the distinction to make clear that he was there only as an advisor to the law firm representing Lake, and did not represent Lake herself in any way, as he doesn’t know her nor has he met her. But the clerk’s office, and subsequently the county’s legal team, interpreted his signature on the court documents as him serving as counsel for Lake. . . .
SSI - so the excuse of the Great Attorney, Scholar and Pundit of The Law is, he fucked up on a point that a 1st-year law school student would get right 99 times out of 100?
Makes sense to me, as Alan Dershowitz has about as much credibility these days as Rudy Giuliani.
Utterly pathetic some of these attorneys, making flagrantly ridiculous claims on TV a lot of the time then making slightly less but still ridiculous claims in court, in some cases possibly ruining their legal careers for the brief possibility of being shat upon by Trump at some point.
If Dershowitz is truthful his biggest mistake was being careless about hiring out his name for a bogus lawsuit, since even I've heard of him so he must be very famous, and it seems pretty obvious Lake and co just wanted a big name for a press release.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
There's a long way to eat into developers' profits before it becomes remotely unprofitable imo - so my Dad assures me, and he spent most of his career working for them and is now on the local Government side. The hope would be that taxing unbuilt plots would turn housebuilding into a high turnover, lower profit exercise. After all, if they decided to stop applying for planning, someone else could just swoop in and build on the land.
If developments are so extremely profitable then why don't small firms compete with the large developers? Why do we get most developments in large estates rather than smaller ones being built by smaller firms?
There are plenty of skilled trades people in this country who could be capable of constructing homes and managing the projects. Small business entrepreneurialism is a key to economic success.
So if the sector is so profitable, why aren't good tradies turning their hand into the sector - as happens in almost every other economy?
The answer of course is the planning system. It is such a mess, that its not worth a good tradesperson turning their hand to construction, because they're good at what they do but they're not lawyers and they don't have the money, time or ability to buy land and spend years wading through the planning system and appeals processes.
"Welcome back, weary traveller. It is the year 4037. I know this will be a shock to you, as you expected to be awakened after only 5 years, but we have a very important question for you, one which splits out society in two:
Was the bus about £350m a week a key factor in the Brexit campaign?"
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Not sure what maths is required to know that IMF forecasts are always wrong. They're shit.
All forecasts are almost always wrong.
How much analysis is there of economic forecast accuracy?
For example, has anyone taken the OBR/IMF/whoever forecasts of economic growth at a 12-month lead time and plotted that against the outturn? If you were to calculate a skill score, would they show any skill?
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
It’s always someone else’s fault with this rancid government.
The arxehole Jenrick blaming universities for the alleged audacity of trying to get foreign students who might have family who want to come with them .
I mean what an outrage ! Doing something that is within current immigration rules !
Great Coastal Railway Journeys with Portillo is on BBC2. Episodes 3, 4 & 5 - especially episode 4 - is Cyclefree country. He goes on the lines which go through the station in our village - and for the railway enthusiasts on here - you have to hail the train when it arrives. It's a two-carriage train and I can see it pootling around the Duddon estuary from my living-room window.
Worth catching - it really shows off the beauty of the coastline.
Hello. I was on part (not that part) of that line last week.
Which part?
It's a shame they didn't show more of the beaches at Silecroft and Haverigg, which are simply glorious.
"The British planning system implemented in 1947 created the worst possible incentives for the political groups it was trying to placate."
I'd recommend this by the planning officers society. Goes beyond the idea of 'burn it all down and start again' and suggests things that can actually be delivered and could work. It is written by the most senior and experienced planners in local government.
Plenty of sensible stuff in there. I'm not 100% convinced by the "increasing supply won't reduce prices" idea, but since my suggestion for increasing supply is the same "government should get the wallet out and build a lot more council houses" policy they recommend, we arrive at the same destination anyway.
There is probably some truth in the idea that increasing supply would depress prices but then this poses the question how would that happen, why would housebuilders keep building houses if there was an oversupply and, in consequence, prices were going down. It would create unfavourable market conditions for housebuilding.
There's a long way to eat into developers' profits before it becomes remotely unprofitable imo - so my Dad assures me, and he spent most of his career working for them and is now on the local Government side. The hope would be that taxing unbuilt plots would turn housebuilding into a high turnover, lower profit exercise. After all, if they decided to stop applying for planning, someone else could just swoop in and build on the land.
How are you going to incentivise builders to deliver more houses in a falling market ? I don't see how it happens.
Allow councils to charge council tax on unbuilt plots held by developers.
I don't believe that putting a £200k per annum tax on an unimplemented 100 unit consented scheme would incentivise its delivery when the market is falling. The obvious thing for a developer to do would be to try and find a loophole, which they are generally quite good at doing.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
Just to add, the Telegraph headline tomorrow is exactly this, what you raised Mex in answer to Big_G, fears the BoE has lost control of inflation, the Truss era pain and chaos such fear is beginning to threaten. All it needs is world markets fear UK has lost control of inflation to act as a spark, who knows what size of bonfire builtfrom poor hedging is out there waiting.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
You and @Mexicanpete are trying to turn a positive into a negative, and for political reasons. If UK consumer spending is holding up unexpectedly, that is a positive, not a negative - it shows that consumers believe, all other things being equal, that their personal situation remains positive. If consumers reduce their spending - as in Germany - it shows they are more pessimistic.
I know you both have political reasons for pushing your view but your arguments simply do not make sense.
There's another reason that our messed up planning system encourages landbanking and the large housebuilders is that land with permission is worth much more than land without it, thanks to the planning system. So holding onto land with permission, even you're not developing it, means you have a valuable asset.
Whereas if a small developer is thinking of building some homes, they need to buy the land, hope to get permission quickly and easily, then they can start building. But why buy land that might have permission rejected and then be worthless to you, if you only have enough money as a small businessman to buy one bit of land? That could put you out of business, so small businesses are put off entirely.
A sensible zonal planning system allows planning considerations but eliminates the premium to planning permission. A developer can buy any land within the zone and know they will have permission even before they purchase the land so they can get on with doing their job, instead of wrestling with uncertainty, appeals and lawyers.
It would also eliminate the premium on land with permission, which will eliminate landbanking.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
Just to add, the Telegraph headline tomorrow is exactly this, what you raised Mex in answer to Big_G, fears the BoE has lost control of inflation, the Truss era pain and chaos such fear is beginning to threaten. All it needs is world markets fear UK has lost control of inflation to act as a spark, who knows what size of bonfire builtfrom poor hedging is out there waiting.
Maybe Rishi and Jeremy will achieve the double six roll of the dice by end 2023?
It’s always someone else’s fault with this rancid government.
The arxehole Jenrick blaming universities for the alleged audacity of trying to get foreign students who might have family who want to come with them .
I mean what an outrage ! Doing something that is within current immigration rules !
The Mail and Times front pages are not remotely interested in this news story like you are. Only the Mirror, using an ignorant/inexcusable photo of boat arrivals to support its headline, who want to take up issue with todays fantastic multicultural economy boosting news for UK.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
Just to add, the Telegraph headline tomorrow is exactly this, what you raised Mex in answer to Big_G, fears the BoE has lost control of inflation, the Truss era pain and chaos such fear is beginning to threaten. All it needs is world markets fear UK has lost control of inflation to act as a spark, who knows what size of bonfire builtfrom poor hedging is out there waiting.
Maybe Rishi and Jeremy will achieve the double six roll of the dice by end 2023?
6% inflation 6% interest rates
😡😡😡
Inflation could still remain that high throughout 2023, underlying inflation is now nudging 7 going up.
I don’t think we could get remotely near 6% interest rates without the government surrounding the BoE with the armies tanks to take back control.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
Just to add, the Telegraph headline tomorrow is exactly this, what you raised Mex in answer to Big_G, fears the BoE has lost control of inflation, the Truss era pain and chaos such fear is beginning to threaten. All it needs is world markets fear UK has lost control of inflation to act as a spark, who knows what size of bonfire builtfrom poor hedging is out there waiting.
Maybe Rishi and Jeremy will achieve the double six roll of the dice by end 2023?
6% inflation 6% interest rates
😡😡😡
Inflation could still remain that high throughout 2023, underlying inflation is now nudging 7 going up.
I don’t think we could get remotely near 6% interest rates without the government surrounding the BoE with the armies tanks to take back control.
Yes fair point bearing in mind it took the Bank of England a year to wake up to the fact that inflation was getting out of control!
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Not sure what maths is required to know that IMF forecasts are always wrong. They're shit.
All forecasts are almost always wrong.
How much analysis is there of economic forecast accuracy?
For example, has anyone taken the OBR/IMF/whoever forecasts of economic growth at a 12-month lead time and plotted that against the outturn? If you were to calculate a skill score, would they show any skill?
There is a fair amount of analysis of forecast accuracy out there. The BOE regularly publishes analysis of its forecasts alongside those of outside forecasters. The OBR does too, IIRC. People have looked at the IMF forecasts, they're not that great but not especially bad, IIRC they are kind of in the pack compared alongside private sector forecasters. People on here get very riled up about IMF forecasts because the IMF is seen as part of the Remainer blob/globalist conspiracy, and so every upwards revision to the forecast is presented as a Gotcha moment and Brexit vindication. In reality, the energy shock has reversed more quickly than expected and European economies have proven more adaptable than expected, and that explains why, alongside other people, the Fund has revised up its UK forecast. At this point Brexit is mainly a supply side phenomenon in most people's forecasts, I would have thought, and won't be a major factor in near term growth forecasts either way.
On the effects of environmental regulations: Years ago I recall reading about a study of what happened to building in Southern California, after a slew of environmental regulations were enacted. Turns out that it took an average of five years to actually get through the paper work and build a house, starting with the initial proposal. The economists who made the study observed that five-year delay knocked almost all the small contractors out of the business -- and they were where the price competition came from.
Big contractors could set up a pipeline, and dedicate some employees to monitoring the pipeline, and clearing up any clogs in it; small contractors, for the most part, couldn't do that.
(Sorry to be vague. It's been a while. But the finding seemed plausible at the time, and even more so, now.)
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
You and @Mexicanpete are trying to turn a positive into a negative, and for political reasons. If UK consumer spending is holding up unexpectedly, that is a positive, not a negative - it shows that consumers believe, all other things being equal, that their personal situation remains positive. If consumers reduce their spending - as in Germany - it shows they are more pessimistic.
I know you both have political reasons for pushing your view but your arguments simply do not make sense.
Oh I relish this argument with you. Prepare to be blasted out the pond. Have you never heard of Lady Thatchers great success beating inflation and how she did it? You have, because I just explained it to you.
I am not politically spinning at all, I actually called it “a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?”
For political support, if it’s a party political question in your head, tomorrows Daily Telegraph is up now to support me, what actually happens if the markets fear we have lost control of inflation, fear it’s getting set in and self perpetuating like what destroyed us in the 70s?
So you are on the side of rejoicing that, without growth to speak off we avoided a technical recession, despite we don’t have hideous inflation, food inflation under control? That this is a moment to rejoice? That’s how you answer the question I set?
If anyone wants a break from putting the world to rights they might find this interesting. At the Edinburgh festival I went to see a show which was a Scottish artist painting a nude in four different positions. They had some musicians there and they filmed it. Apparently it won the experimental award at the Film Arte in Berlin. The password is FLOW2023
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
Just to add, the Telegraph headline tomorrow is exactly this, what you raised Mex in answer to Big_G, fears the BoE has lost control of inflation, the Truss era pain and chaos such fear is beginning to threaten. All it needs is world markets fear UK has lost control of inflation to act as a spark, who knows what size of bonfire builtfrom poor hedging is out there waiting.
Maybe Rishi and Jeremy will achieve the double six roll of the dice by end 2023?
6% inflation 6% interest rates
😡😡😡
Inflation could still remain that high throughout 2023, underlying inflation is now nudging 7 going up.
I don’t think we could get remotely near 6% interest rates without the government surrounding the BoE with the armies tanks to take back control.
Yes fair point bearing in mind it took the Bank of England a year to wake up to the fact that inflation was getting out of control!
You are spot on pubman. BoE didn’t spot inflation from covid reboot coming at all, they were too slow to start raising rates, they also QE’d for too long too.
When the war kicked off, there was more inflation pain coming for UK than some other places due to our greater exposure to gas imports - what are they employed for and paid for if it’s not to know this, see what’s coming, and tackle it more promptly than they did?
MoonRabbit - Sorry to hear about your restaurant closing. It's across the continent from me, so I haven't had a chance to try it out, but it looks as if it was an interesting place to dine.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
You and @Mexicanpete are trying to turn a positive into a negative, and for political reasons. If UK consumer spending is holding up unexpectedly, that is a positive, not a negative - it shows that consumers believe, all other things being equal, that their personal situation remains positive. If consumers reduce their spending - as in Germany - it shows they are more pessimistic.
I know you both have political reasons for pushing your view but your arguments simply do not make sense.
Oh I relish this argument with you. Prepare to be blasted out the pond. Have you never heard of Lady Thatchers great success beating inflation and how she did it? You have, because I just explained it to you.
I am not politically spinning at all, I actually called it “a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?”
For political support, if it’s a party political question in your head, tomorrows Daily Telegraph is up now to support me, what actually happens if the markets fear we have lost control of inflation, fear it’s getting set in and self perpetuating like what destroyed us in the 70s?
So you are on the side of rejoicing that, without growth to speak off we avoided a technical recession, despite we don’t have hideous inflation, food inflation under control? That this is a moment to rejoice? That’s how you answer the question I set?
Happy to have the argument with you. A few things:
- The Telegraph is not the omnipotent bearer of truth - it gets things wrong. - The issue with inflation is not inflation in general but core inflation i.e. food prices primarily. Some of that is a lag effect (i.e. crops were planted in 2023 using fertilizer bought in 2022 at massively inflated prices) but a good amount of it is CPG companies thinking of locking in price rises now while the consumer will accept it - it is a permanent margin uplift effect for them if these prices stick. - Thatcher and inflation was an entirely different thing, namely a wage-price inflation spiral, with unions being the main cause. This time round, real wage inflation (i.e. adjusted for inflation) is below headline inflation. - The current inflation issue is not being caused by QE etc solely. QE may be part of this but much has to do with extraneous factors which raising interest rates won't solve - e.g. commodities coming from Russia, lingering adjustments to supply chains etc/
Russian Su-34 jets bombing Russia proper. Maybe their hearts weren't in it - the turf took a pounding, the Liberty of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps? Not so much.
If anyone wants a break from putting the world to rights they might find this interesting. At the Edinburgh festival I went to see a show which was a Scottish artist painting a nude in four different positions. They had some musicians there and they filmed it. Apparently it won the experimental award at the Film Arte in Berlin. The password is FLOW2023
- Thatcher and inflation was an entirely different thing, namely a wage-price inflation spiral, with unions being the main cause. This time round, real wage inflation (i.e. adjusted for inflation) is below headline inflation.
May I politely suggest that instead of "the unions", the quadrupling of fuel prices in 1973/4, the IMF loan in the 1970's and the rise in GBP as USD was allowed to fall, may actually have been the driver?
And unlike 2023, when HMG worked out that the solution was to import more and more migrant workers to suppress wages (oh, lucky us!), the 1970s unions were allowed to pursue higher salaries to preserve their members' standards of living due to an exogenous inflation pulse.
Off topic, but some of you may be as intrigued as I was around noon today. While grocery shopping, I spotted 2 signs saying: "Semi Bird for governor" and, below that, "Republican".
The incumbent Democrat, Jay Inslee*, has announced that he will retire at the end of his current term, and people are lining up to replace him, but this is the first Republican I have seen.
The election isn't until November 2024, so Bird is early -- though not the earliest.
Germany has formally entered a recession after its economy suffered an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3% in the period from January to March, data released by the Federal Statistical Office shows.
The figures will be a blow to the government, which last month boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year, saying GDP will rise by 0.4% - up from a 0.2% expansion predicted in late January.
Economists said high inflation hit consumer spending, with prices in April 7.2% higher than a year ago.
GDP reflects the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
I am not sure your post is as clever as you think it is. Reduced consumer spending as you say has tipped Germany into a one quarter technical recession, we have avoided that, just. Reduced German consumer spending is beneficial for reducing inflation, perhaps their interest rates will remain more stable than ours. UK consumer spending remains buoyant which is why we are having to increase interest rates to suppress consumer spending. That in turn has potential for all sorts of recessionary pressures.
It’s a good spot of thinking from you Mex, and a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - Lady Thatcher used a recession with added monetary tightening (two fingers to a Keynesian approach) to drive the inflationary poison out our system, that Labour government just couldn’t get to grips with. Is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?
You and @Mexicanpete are trying to turn a positive into a negative, and for political reasons. If UK consumer spending is holding up unexpectedly, that is a positive, not a negative - it shows that consumers believe, all other things being equal, that their personal situation remains positive. If consumers reduce their spending - as in Germany - it shows they are more pessimistic.
I know you both have political reasons for pushing your view but your arguments simply do not make sense.
Oh I relish this argument with you. Prepare to be blasted out the pond. Have you never heard of Lady Thatchers great success beating inflation and how she did it? You have, because I just explained it to you.
I am not politically spinning at all, I actually called it “a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?”
For political support, if it’s a party political question in your head, tomorrows Daily Telegraph is up now to support me, what actually happens if the markets fear we have lost control of inflation, fear it’s getting set in and self perpetuating like what destroyed us in the 70s?
So you are on the side of rejoicing that, without growth to speak off we avoided a technical recession, despite we don’t have hideous inflation, food inflation under control? That this is a moment to rejoice? That’s how you answer the question I set?
Happy to have the argument with you. A few things:
- The Telegraph is not the omnipotent bearer of truth - it gets things wrong. - The issue with inflation is not inflation in general but core inflation i.e. food prices primarily. Some of that is a lag effect (i.e. crops were planted in 2023 using fertilizer bought in 2022 at massively inflated prices) but a good amount of it is CPG companies thinking of locking in price rises now while the consumer will accept it - it is a permanent margin uplift effect for them if these prices stick. - Thatcher and inflation was an entirely different thing, namely a wage-price inflation spiral, with unions being the main cause. This time round, real wage inflation (i.e. adjusted for inflation) is below headline inflation. - The current inflation issue is not being caused by QE etc solely. QE may be part of this but much has to do with extraneous factors which raising interest rates won't solve - e.g. commodities coming from Russia, lingering adjustments to supply chains etc/
I’m glad you are back, because I’m not nearly finished with you yet.
You can rubbish the Telegraph article as much as you like, truth is it’s based on reporting facts from today that exist today, and remain in play regardless how much you deny or seek to avoid they are very much part of the bigger picture here. See attached, and compare with what I posted you thought was actually lefty talking UK down simply because we have Tory government. A recession would not have been ideal, though impact lessoned by unemployment is still very low and impact would it have had on monetary tightening being used to reign in inflation, help or hinder? Food prices are not part of the core inflation rate, like energy costs being too volatile, they are removed to produce core inflation measure. I wouldn’t agree with you the inflation Lady Thatcher fought and beat is all that different than what we fight today. And my reference to QE is of more relevance to the huge bonfire of tinder waiting for the spark of chaos to set it alight - not cause of continued high inflation, but fuel on any market crash from greedy hedging.
So questions to you, you believe what sent inflation up, energy costs and you talk crops and fertiliser, so you expect inflation to calmly come down as energy and fertiliser costs come back to normal? You don’t see inflation staying high for other reasons? I’ll give you some clues, if input prices are at 4% inflation, why would output prices be at 5.5% inflation or higher?
Russian Su-34 jets bombing Russia proper. Maybe their hearts weren't in it - the turf took a pounding, the Liberty of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps? Not so much.
I have no idea how difficult that is to do - what would be the accuracy for RAF pilots on the Cape Wrath range?
If it is pretty bad then I'd imagine that fear of being shot down by a MANPAD would have had something to do with it, particularly coming so soon after the losses over Bryansk.
Off topic, but some of you may be as intrigued as I was around noon today. While grocery shopping, I spotted 2 signs saying: "Semi Bird for governor" and, below that, "Republican".
The incumbent Democrat, Jay Inslee*, has announced that he will retire at the end of his current term, and people are lining up to replace him, but this is the first Republican I have seen.
The election isn't until November 2024, so Bird is early -- though not the earliest.
Russian Su-34 jets bombing Russia proper. Maybe their hearts weren't in it - the turf took a pounding, the Liberty of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps? Not so much.
Comments
https://www.cityam.com/london-takes-global-tech-capital-crown-from-new-york/
London has been ranked as the world’s most high-tech city snatching the top spot from New York, according to new research shared exclusively with City A.M.
The capital scored top marks for its world-leading financial services, deep talent pool as well as the quality of its business environment and international reputation, according to Z/Yen Group’s seventh edition of the Smart Centres Index.
His exquisite style hid a squalid sense of morality
Terry Eagleton"
https://unherd.com/2023/05/the-liberal-complacency-of-martin-amis/
Tempted to lay the hell out of him.
Courthouse News Service - Attorney in Kari Lake voting machine lawsuit asks to be spared from sanctions
Alan Dershowitz says he spent only three or four hours working on Lake’s case, providing her attorneys with advice on an issue that ultimately has no connection to a federal judge’s imposition of sanctions against her legal team.
An attorney who worked on Kari Lake’s 2022 lawsuit aiming to ban the use of electronic vote machines in Arizona says he shouldn’t face sanctions along with the rest of Lake’s counsel because of his "little involvement” in the case.
Alan Dershowitz says he was mistakenly listed as the lead attorney in Lake’s suit against the Arizona secretary of state and supervisors of both Maricopa and Pima Counties. Rather than leading the legal effort to disrupt trust in Arizona’s elections, Dershowitz says he spent “merely three or four hours” on the case as an advisor to Lake’s attorneys on a matter of constitutionality.
In a Wednesday afternoon hearing in Arizona federal court, he and his attorney Dennis Wilenchik distanced themselves from the “army of attorneys” Wilenchik said is trying to undo the 2020 General Election.
“I do not like Miss Lake,” Dershowitz told U.S. District Judge John Tuchi. “I would never have voted for her. I would never in a million years be part of any campaign to influence or affect the election. . . .
If a judge finds an attorney violated Rule 11, the federal law that requires legal contentions to be filed with factual supporting evidence and warranted by existing law, they may issue a directive against them or their law firm that discourages them from future misconduct. Sanctions may or may not include financial punishment.
Dershowitz says he shouldn’t be included in the sanctions because he made an “honest mistake” in listing himself as “of counsel,” rather than “as counsel.” He said he intended the distinction to make clear that he was there only as an advisor to the law firm representing Lake, and did not represent Lake herself in any way, as he doesn’t know her nor has he met her. But the clerk’s office, and subsequently the county’s legal team, interpreted his signature on the court documents as him serving as counsel for Lake. . . .
https://www.courthousenews.com/attorney-in-kari-lake-voting-machine-lawsuit-asks-to-be-spared-from-sanctions/
SSI - so the excuse of the Great Attorney, Scholar and Pundit of The Law is, he fucked up on a point that a 1st-year law school student would get right 99 times out of 100?
Makes sense to me, as Alan Dershowitz has about as much credibility these days as Rudy Giuliani.
(sarcasm).
Similar criticism might apply.
Entertaining lecturer back in the day.
Has been on the antivaxxer grift longer than most.
...Since 2005, he has promoted the scientifically discredited link between vaccines and autism... (Wikipedia)
In the short term, it’s more a factor of interest rates.
Got any Reddit or Pornhub links?
I suspect he does not, in fact, “do the math” on per capita growth.
Start up a forecasting service with BigG, you’ll make a mint.
He is quoting the IMF
Why are you so worked up about IMF?
Do you think you can do better than the IMF?
Or do you hold an epistemological view that all forecasting is essentially futile?
Or are you trying to make some obscure point that Rachel Reeves shouldn’t use international economic forecasts to make political points?
Again pathetic response
Worth catching - it really shows off the beauty of the coastline.
I’m afraid this latest meme from Tory HQ is another pile of guff.
Maybe it’s worked though as you successfully avoided talking about the substance of her speech today.
I've said before and I'll say it again, that's not good enough. That means small developers, competition for the large ones, are stymied as they aren't able to do that.
If there is to be a permission process it needs to be resolved in days or weeks, not years or decades.
But while I respect you, you're so transparent. I find it utterly hilarious that when we started discussing this you were appalled at the idea of relaxing planning permission as it would lead to 'green' spaces being 'concreted' over and apparently I know 'the value of nothing'.
After we've all been back and forth on this topic many times, the simple reality is you know that morally now you don't have a leg to stand on. You know that those of us on my side of the argument are right. That the shortage of housing is a serious problem, a more serious problem than having more development. But you still don't want the development, but you won't advance an argument you know to be morally wrong - which I respect - so now you cling to this notion that planning is not the problem.
In a short space of time we've gone from dealing with planning reform being a terrible idea that would see mass developments you don't want, to planning not being an impediment to developments at all so its not responsible or needing to be resolved for the problem to be fixed.
I'm not the one who has been shot down. Your argument has - and you are a good man, you know it has too. Hence this fig leaf. You may be convincing yourself that planning is not the problem, but you're not convincing anyone else.
Hibernation artificially triggered in potential space travel breakthrough
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/25/hibernation-artificially-triggered-in-potential-space-travel-breakthrough
One thing I've noted as I've got older is that I've become more drawn to work by women for some reason. In writing and music. Perhaps as you get older you feel less need to see yourself reflected on the page or in the song and more interested in hearing other stories?
Not sure it’s worth laying him right now - it’s a long time before it pays off.
He might not even get recommended a suspension that would prompt a recall.
In a free and healthy market, there would be a lot more developments happening by small developers. As there are in almost every country in the world with a better planning system. But they get stymied at the start and so we are left with what we're left with.
Besides, the fact that 60% of homes given permission are built is not necessarily a failing. There will be plenty of homes that are going to be built but haven't had the time to be built yet, but also not all homes that get permission perhaps should be built either.
In any industry, in any walk of life, companies investigate or start projects that then never get completed. Because the company concerned runs into financial difficulties, or problems occur, or the market changes, or a better alternative option becomes available instead which is proceeded with instead, or a plethora of other factors. There are problems with land banking and those problems are entirely caused by the broken planning system, but the fact that some projects fail is not something that should never happen.
Who here has gone their career without ever seeing a project that was started with the best of intentions having had the plug pulled on it before completion?
If that core demographic of FT fans aren't up for it, who is?
A large majority of potential homes with permission are completed.
Some are not. That could be due to the fact:
A: They're going to be but it hasn't happened yet as it takes time (not a problem).
B: They're not going to be built due to legitimate reasons (not a problem).
C: They could and should be built but are being landbanked by large firms who value the permission the property has and want to hold onto it without doing anything (a problem created entirely by the planning system).
You act as if its all C, but even if you're right which isn't the case, the solution is to reform the planning system to make it easier for other firms to compete with the large firms who have teams of planning lawyers, wallets to bank land, and the ability to wait out the planning system for the years or decades it can take.
If Dershowitz is truthful his biggest mistake was being careless about hiring out his name for a bogus lawsuit, since even I've heard of him so he must be very famous, and it seems pretty obvious Lake and co just wanted a big name for a press release.
There are plenty of skilled trades people in this country who could be capable of constructing homes and managing the projects. Small business entrepreneurialism is a key to economic success.
So if the sector is so profitable, why aren't good tradies turning their hand into the sector - as happens in almost every other economy?
The answer of course is the planning system. It is such a mess, that its not worth a good tradesperson turning their hand to construction, because they're good at what they do but they're not lawyers and they don't have the money, time or ability to buy land and spend years wading through the planning system and appeals processes.
Was the bus about £350m a week a key factor in the Brexit campaign?"
You would not believe the number of ways to measure the degree of wrongness and the arguments that can be had when using them
For example, has anyone taken the OBR/IMF/whoever forecasts of economic growth at a 12-month lead time and plotted that against the outturn? If you were to calculate a skill score, would they show any skill?
Compare and contrast to:
Ron Paul 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcypAC2VHew
!Tom Cruise 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Btb8gLy3-E
https://interestingliterature.com/2020/06/curates-egg-phrase-meaning-origins/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgrfHB6QXtA
B__x_t
The arxehole Jenrick blaming universities for the alleged audacity of trying to get foreign students who might have family who want to come with them .
I mean what an outrage ! Doing something that is within current immigration rules !
It's a shame they didn't show more of the beaches at Silecroft and Haverigg, which are simply glorious.
I know you both have political reasons for pushing your view but your arguments simply do not make sense.
Whereas if a small developer is thinking of building some homes, they need to buy the land, hope to get permission quickly and easily, then they can start building. But why buy land that might have permission rejected and then be worthless to you, if you only have enough money as a small businessman to buy one bit of land? That could put you out of business, so small businesses are put off entirely.
A sensible zonal planning system allows planning considerations but eliminates the premium to planning permission. A developer can buy any land within the zone and know they will have permission even before they purchase the land so they can get on with doing their job, instead of wrestling with uncertainty, appeals and lawyers.
It would also eliminate the premium on land with permission, which will eliminate landbanking.
6% inflation
6% interest rates
😡😡😡
I don’t think we could get remotely near 6% interest rates without the government surrounding the BoE with the armies tanks to take back control.
Big contractors could set up a pipeline, and dedicate some employees to monitoring the pipeline, and clearing up any clogs in it; small contractors, for the most part, couldn't do that.
(Sorry to be vague. It's been a while. But the finding seemed plausible at the time, and even more so, now.)
I am not politically spinning at all, I actually called it “a rather open question I wouldn’t expect a perfect answer posted back - is it better for UK to go into recession in 2023 and see off this inflation, or carry on overheating as revealed this week, with no control over inflation, especially food inflation, despite interest rates already up to where they are now?”
For political support, if it’s a party political question in your head, tomorrows Daily Telegraph is up now to support me, what actually happens if the markets fear we have lost control of inflation, fear it’s getting set in and self perpetuating like what destroyed us in the 70s?
So you are on the side of rejoicing that, without growth to speak off we avoided a technical recession, despite we don’t have hideous inflation, food inflation under control? That this is a moment to rejoice? That’s how you answer the question I set?
https://filmfreeway.com/Flow299
When the war kicked off, there was more inflation pain coming for UK than some other places due to our greater exposure to gas imports - what are they employed for and paid for if it’s not to know this, see what’s coming, and tackle it more promptly than they did?
- The Telegraph is not the omnipotent bearer of truth - it gets things wrong.
- The issue with inflation is not inflation in general but core inflation i.e. food prices primarily. Some of that is a lag effect (i.e. crops were planted in 2023 using fertilizer bought in 2022 at massively inflated prices) but a good amount of it is CPG companies thinking of locking in price rises now while the consumer will accept it - it is a permanent margin uplift effect for them if these prices stick.
- Thatcher and inflation was an entirely different thing, namely a wage-price inflation spiral, with unions being the main cause. This time round, real wage inflation (i.e. adjusted for inflation) is below headline inflation.
- The current inflation issue is not being caused by QE etc solely. QE may be part of this but much has to do with extraneous factors which raising interest rates won't solve - e.g. commodities coming from Russia, lingering adjustments to supply chains etc/
https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1661819276439724046
See: https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1973-74
And unlike 2023, when HMG worked out that the solution was to import more and more migrant workers to suppress wages (oh, lucky us!), the 1970s unions were allowed to pursue higher salaries to preserve their members' standards of living due to an exogenous inflation pulse.
The incumbent Democrat, Jay Inslee*, has announced that he will retire at the end of his current term, and people are lining up to replace him, but this is the first Republican I have seen.
The election isn't until November 2024, so Bird is early -- though not the earliest.
If you are curious about Bird, here's the campaign site: https://www.birdforgovernor.com/
(*SS2 would probably disagree with me, but I think Inslee peaked as a basketball player in high school.)
You can rubbish the Telegraph article as much as you like, truth is it’s based on reporting facts from today that exist today, and remain in play regardless how much you deny or seek to avoid they are very much part of the bigger picture here. See attached, and compare with what I posted you thought was actually lefty talking UK down simply because we have Tory government. A recession would not have been ideal, though impact lessoned by unemployment is still very low and impact would it have had on monetary tightening being used to reign in inflation, help or hinder?
Food prices are not part of the core inflation rate, like energy costs being too volatile, they are removed to produce core inflation measure.
I wouldn’t agree with you the inflation Lady Thatcher fought and beat is all that different than what we fight today.
And my reference to QE is of more relevance to the huge bonfire of tinder waiting for the spark of chaos to set it alight - not cause of continued high inflation, but fuel on any market crash from greedy hedging.
So questions to you, you believe what sent inflation up, energy costs and you talk crops and fertiliser, so you expect inflation to calmly come down as energy and fertiliser costs come back to normal? You don’t see inflation staying high for other reasons?
I’ll give you some clues, if input prices are at 4% inflation, why would output prices be at 5.5% inflation or higher?
If it is pretty bad then I'd imagine that fear of being shot down by a MANPAD would have had something to do with it, particularly coming so soon after the losses over Bryansk.
Sounds like the best - and just about only - argument he's got!
The only hope is a Ron DeSantis inspired fightback against Left-wing institutional capture'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/24/woke-blobs-final-triumph-near/
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1661819867941445649