Most potential Conservative voters will agree with Braverman's rhetoric on immigration and Jihadi chants, that is less of a problem than cost of living.
Overall Sunak has improved on Truss. Most polls have the current Labour lead around 15-20%, before Truss resigned the average Labour lead was 30-35%. He is still doing worse than Boris though, given the average Labour lead was only 5-10% before he resigned.
Reform UK is also doing better under Sunak on 5-8% when under Truss and Boris it was generally under 5%
The last six polls have Labour leads between 18 and 22 points.
Nothing has changed since January - the Redfield & Wilton on 2-3 January had the Conservatives on 27% trailing Labour by 20. Tonight's has the Conservatives on 26% trailing Labour by 18. Yes, Sunak is better than some of the Truss polling (not all) but an 18-point deficit is still a big gap.
Labour's biggest danger is the law of gravity and their direction; they have done so well and so quickly that it is hard to believe there is any further upside - as the stasis of this year also suggests.
The only other direction is down, and they are very likely to go down over the next few months. It is much harder to campaign when the votes are moving against you.
For this reason alone (betting post), NOM is still in with a respectable chance.
Europe would be pretty screwed. Another reason his far from a US only problem.
Why? Western European militaries, Canada and Turkey and Poland and Ukraine combined are comfortably stronger than the Russian military.
The US would be needed to contain China but that is not our continent and not a NATO problem anyway
If, and it is a very big if, USA went AWOL on NATO one immense effect would be that France and the UK would suddenly be looked at very differently by our fellow liberal democracies.
I think Canada would bail too as they are safe inside NORAD but would not want to be on the hook for any European unpleasantness.
London and Warsaw (and to a lesser extent Paris) would be the medium-sized swinging dicks in the new NATO.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Off topic, but I thought you* might like some good news from the US: "Nikki Haley is increasingly threatening to supplant Ron DeSantis as the principal GOP presidential rival to Donald Trump, escalating frictions between the two candidates that are playing out before voters on the campaign trail and behind closed doors with wealthy donors. . . . Haley rose to third in a Washington Post average of national polling from October, with 8 percent support to DeSantis’s 14 percent. She’s pulled into third in Iowa, where DeSantis’s support is still noticeably stronger, and jumped ahead of DeSantis in recent surveys of New Hampshire and South Carolina." source $: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2023/10/21/haley-desantis-trump-presidential-race/
And I like the fact that she can do arithmetic. (She was doing the books for her family's business, as a teenager.) Too many of our politicians can't.
*Well, most of you, anyway.
For someone so comprehensively re-elected recently DeSantis seems to have been a bit of a damp squib as a candidate. Not that he would have been expected to come out swinging against Trump right from the off, nor has Haley, but even on those terms he's seems lacklustre, uncompelling, and trying to hard to be like Trump whilst telling people not to vote Trump.
Ron DeSantis is trying to out-asshole Donald Trump.
Now RDS is indeed a Class-A A-hole. But he ain't in the same league as DJT.
Nor is Ted Cruz, who's arguably an even bigger asshole than DeSantis. Who isn't smart enough to have noticed, that Ted tried to out-asshole Trump back in 2016, proving already that THAT is indeed Mission Impossible.
Anyway, American political history is littered with the remains of politicos who were serially successful on their own state or locality, but who proved to be flops on the national stage.
Nelson Rockefeller and Hillary Clinton both spring to mind.
De Santis and Pence are right of Trump on domestic and social issues and De Santis and Ramaswamy not much different to him on his largely isolationist foreign policy either.
The idea Trump is some huge extreme outlier compared to the rest of the GOP does not stand up, only Haley and Christie are more moderate than Trump. He is only an outlier in his reluctance to accept election results and the criminal charges he faces
There has been a small but noticeable tick up in Trump's support v Biden. That (generally) holds even when Kennedy and West are included, although one poll did suggest Kennedy hurt Trump more than Biden.
Why doesn't he put himself forward as a presidential candidate again?
I wish he could do 3 terms.
I know it's beyond impossible to change the Constitution but if it was, the rule should be changed to say you can only do two terms in a row.
That way the advantage of incumbency doesn't allow someone to stay in power for too long - but gives someone the chance to come back and win again when not the incumbent.
Do you really believe that UK bond market prices are not principally set by participants future expectations of inflation?
I believe that in any market, if a large holder of something is racing to offload that thing, that reduces its value. The Bank insists that the impact of its sell off on yields is minimal - it's reasonable then to ask why the Bank's intervention to stabilise the markets by buying bonds worked, and why when it stopped they continued to rise, despite Sunak/Hunt giving an avowedly professional and reassuring performance.
Great quote from Andrew Sullivan on young progressive types.
“Of course they support Hamas. Palestinians are merely punching up — and that exonerates them of any moral culpability. Just as African-Americans cannot commit a hate crime, so Hamas definitionally cannot commit terror. Once you see the world in this way — as groups of the oppressed and oppressors, with the oppressed always justified in their resistance to the oppressors — the rights of individual Jews, or whites, or Asians, or even dissident non-whites are irrelevant. It’s all about “power structures” and “systems” and “context”. All morality is relative to privilege. There is not a trace of universalism among the woke left, not a single objective measurement of morality except what is justified in response to “oppression”.
What a fabulous quote.
And a massive straw man...
It contains a lot of sense. Then uses the word woke. And you realise it’s coming from a sense-free place.
As always with ideological types the writer takes a reasonable point and then reductioes it ad absurdum.
But there is definitely a point under all that. People are able to support hideous crimes when they feel sanctimonious enough on behalf of the oppressed.
That tendency certainly exists on the left, but Sullivan's rhetoric is disappointing hyperbole. Some time back, he was a much more nuanced political observer.
Even the Khmer Rouge didn’t drown people. They were so brutal and austere they refused to waste bullets on their victims and instead bludgeoned them with spades and hoes
Why not just drown people in a barrel? Odd
These are the thoughts that occur to you after 3 days alone in Catania, Sicily
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I’ve no doubt that “Islamophobia” is your tediously middlebrow answer
Let’s accept your terms
1. Islamophobia means an irrational fear of Islam. For many Jews the fear is entirely rational. Significant parts of the Islamic world apparently want them all dead
2. Islamophobia has never, in history, led to a serious attempt to kill every Muslim on earth, just for being Muslim
So I don’t think your comparison stands even if we accept it (despite its fatuity)
That IS middlebrow. Are you trying to get on my level? No but seriously, I doubt the feeling that Palestinians are somehow inferior to Israelis is caused by Islamophobia. Truth is, I don't know what it's caused by. I thought you might have some thoughts on it.
Even their fellow arabs dont like them or want them, so I cant see it as islam based. They are a PTSD nation and everyone seems happiest leaving the Rochesters in the attic.
Ok but I was more trying to understand why some right wing people over here (and it's a fair number) are so pro Israel as to be blase about Palestinian suffering and see no weight or validity to their cause. Where's that coming from? We rightly talk a lot about antisemitism but we don't probe that so much. Any offers?
If all the hostages were released tonight, everyone in Gaza stopped firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities, and the Hamas leadership surrendered unconditionally, Israel would immediately cease firing at Gaza, international aid would resume, the blockade would end and Israel would eventually also reopen the border to allow Gazans with work permits to resume their jobs in Israel. Assuming the violence out of Gaza stopped, there is also a decent chance of the area moving towards proper autonomy - it's a much less controversial issue than the West Bank, since Israel has no meaningful territorial ambitions towards it, and there are no historical sites of any significance.
There is no possibility whatsoever of the same happening if Israel stops firing unilaterally. None. The terrorist groups in Gaza would simply be encouraged and increase the barrage of rockets fired hourly at Israel, with incursions at regular intervals aimed at murdering as many Jews as possible.
That's why the two sides are treated differently. Is that clear enough for you?
Trouble with this is it’s the same situation ordinary decent Germans were in in 1944-45. The allies kept pulverising cities in the expectation that any sensible populace would overthrow the Nazi regime and sue for peace. Yet they couldn’t, as the regime would happily execute any Germans who tried this, and did. Hamas is the same. Ideally ordinary decent Palestinians will round up Hamas and hand them over, but that’s just not possible.
So here we are with Harris sending more bombs in one night than the Luftwaffe sent to London in months, just as Israel is dumping more ordinance in Gaza each night than Hamas will ever fire back.
There's simply no alternative when you're fighting a state power. Civilians are always going to suffer to an extent.
The rules of war that we have are to prevent suffering of civilians from being the purpose of military action, but they can't be rid of it entirely. It's simply not possible, for example, for Israel to fight a war against Hamas and to simultaneously supply fuel to Hamas-controlled Gaza. There's been no conflict in history where a government has done that.
I just saw a very powerful pro-Israel advert about kidnapped children, with a tag of something like 'Hamas=Isis'.
It was powerful, but I'd give one criticism: the voices were not in English with English subtitles, and I was listening to something, rather than watching the screen, which meant I missed some of the context.
Still, powerful stuff.
The language probably reflects the target audience. The Israeli foreign ministry has uploaded several videos to Youtube and is paying for some to be shown as adverts. The Halloween one has a lot of gore. Its Youtube channel is:- https://www.youtube.com/@IsraelMFA/videos
The Hamas = ISIS thing is common to a lot of these, and is also something I've remarked on before. Once the fighting stops and the judge-led inquiries start, it will be interesting to know if Hamas has been taken over by ISIS.
It is clearly not. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organisation, but it is quite obvious from what we see in Gaza that it is nothing like ISIS Islamism. No Burkas, women out without male escorts, functioning churches and Christian hospitals.
Not a liberal government at all, but not out of line with other Arab regimes, including those like Saudi that we call allies.
I meant the incursion into Israel, which even the IDF has described as ISIS-like.
Why doesn't he put himself forward as a presidential candidate again?
I wish he could do 3 terms.
I know it's beyond impossible to change the Constitution but if it was, the rule should be changed to say you can only do two terms in a row.
That way the advantage of incumbency doesn't allow someone to stay in power for too long - but gives someone the chance to come back and win again when not the incumbent.
San Marino has a similar law re: its Captains General.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Firing Squad is probably the most humane of the options out there at the moment:
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
Another meaningless term of abuse, which absolves its user of intelligent thought.
Do you really believe that UK bond market prices are not principally set by participants future expectations of inflation?
I believe that in any market, if a large holder of something is racing to offload that thing, that reduces its value. The Bank insists that the impact of its sell off on yields is minimal - it's reasonable then to ask why the Bank's intervention to stabilise the markets by buying bonds worked, and why when it stopped they continued to rise, despite Sunak/Hunt giving an avowedly professional and reassuring performance.
Approximately what percentage of transactions do you think were BoE during the period? And how much do you think that differed from normal?
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Well, it was used against women of course. So perhaps it wasn't seen as a manly enough way to die?
The most practical reason is due to lack of visibility. The crowd sees a person drowned, but can they be sure it was the person they came to see executed? A bit less doubt when it comes to hanging and the chopping block.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
Another meaningless term of abuse, which absolves its user of intelligent thought.
I’ve noticed that it’s always people who are Woke or members of The Blob, who get most irked by and are haughtily dismissive of the terms “woke” and “the blob”
Her rosette is slightly too large to pin on properly. Apart from that she should pass pretty unnoticed both on the election night stage and the House of Commons.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
Another meaningless term of abuse, which absolves its user of intelligent thought.
I’ve noticed that it’s always people who are Woke or members of The Blob, who get most irked by and are haughtily dismissive of the terms “woke” and “the blob”
Another sign: they normally ask what "Woke" means because they are looking to dismiss the answer to what it means.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Well, it was used against women of course. So perhaps it wasn't seen as a manly enough way to die?
The most practical reason is due to lack of visibility. The crowd sees a person drowned, but can they be sure it was there person they came to see executed? A bit less don't when it comes to hanging and the chopping block.
Yes that makes sense when you need some theatre
But private executions or mass killings? Drownings are in all ways cheaper and easier
However I think I’ll shut up now. The times is dark enough as is
Even the Khmer Rouge didn’t drown people. They were so brutal and austere they refused to waste bullets on their victims and instead bludgeoned them with spades and hoes
Why not just drown people in a barrel? Odd
These are the thoughts that occur to you after 3 days alone in Catania, Sicily
They used boats with trap doors in the bottom for the mass and fully deserved execution of noble families during La Terreur.
Her rosette is slightly too large to pin on properly. Apart from that she should pass pretty unnoticed both on the election night stage and the House of Commons.
No poppy. Why doesn't she fucking join Hamas and be done with it.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Firing Squad is probably the most humane of the options out there at the moment:
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
OTOH, more people doing the job, and being affected by PTSD or worse. It's not like the army where you could round up a trained squad in 3 minutes.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Firing Squad is probably the most humane of the options out there at the moment:
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
What's wrong with the guillotine, if we're going to reintroduce barbarism ?
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
And capital punishment is only legal now in Belarus, some US states, Guyana and parts of Africa and much of Asia
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
"...There’s limited gore..."
There's your answer. The best form of execution is guillotining, but few countries use it.
Why doesn't he put himself forward as a presidential candidate again?
I wish he could do 3 terms.
Oh God, no - the man was a disaster as President, we are reaping the actions of what he sowed.
Another Democratic President?
Ukraine for a start and then Iran in the Middle East - in both cases, he allowed the west's opponents to think he was gullible (which he was) which has fed through to what is happening now
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Even the Khmer Rouge didn’t drown people. They were so brutal and austere they refused to waste bullets on their victims and instead bludgeoned them with spades and hoes
Why not just drown people in a barrel? Odd
These are the thoughts that occur to you after 3 days alone in Catania, Sicily
You arrive in Sicily and immediately begin an internal monologue in the style of Inspector Montalbano.....
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
Her rosette is slightly too large to pin on properly. Apart from that she should pass pretty unnoticed both on the election night stage and the House of Commons.
No poppy. Why doesn't she fucking join Hamas and be done with it.
Do you really believe that UK bond market prices are not principally set by participants future expectations of inflation?
I believe that in any market, if a large holder of something is racing to offload that thing, that reduces its value. The Bank insists that the impact of its sell off on yields is minimal - it's reasonable then to ask why the Bank's intervention to stabilise the markets by buying bonds worked, and why when it stopped they continued to rise, despite Sunak/Hunt giving an avowedly professional and reassuring performance.
Approximately what percentage of transactions do you think were BoE during the period? And how much do you think that differed from normal?
The Bank announced its sell off in the days leading up to the minibudget announcement, and the markets were digesting that news.
Why did the Bank's bond-buying initiative work to stabilise the market immediately when you imply that doing the opposite has no impact?
By the way, I am not saying that the broader economic outlook doesn’t matter, or that some investors didn’t get jitters over the mini-budget (mainly the energy price guarantee, not the tax stuff which was minor), especially the leaked (wrong) forecast by the OBR - I am saying we need to look at the full picture, not have the Bank hiding behind Liz Truss's skirts, when they have serious questions of their own to answer.
Even the Khmer Rouge didn’t drown people. They were so brutal and austere they refused to waste bullets on their victims and instead bludgeoned them with spades and hoes
Why not just drown people in a barrel? Odd
These are the thoughts that occur to you after 3 days alone in Catania, Sicily
They used boats with trap doors in the bottom for the mass and fully deserved execution of noble families during La Terreur.
Quick and easy with no bodies to get rid of.
Yawn.
No-one believes any of your faux Robespierre shit anymore.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
Another meaningless term of abuse, which absolves its user of intelligent thought.
I’ve noticed that it’s always people who are Woke or members of The Blob, who get most irked by and are haughtily dismissive of the terms “woke” and “the blob”
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
Another meaningless term of abuse, which absolves its user of intelligent thought.
I’ve noticed that it’s always people who are Woke or members of The Blob, who get most irked by and are haughtily dismissive of the terms “woke” and “the blob”
Another sign: they normally ask what "Woke" means because they are looking to dismiss the answer to what it means.
It has been an interesting example of how language is used to exert power.
Some Israeli outlets are reporting that, as well as two Israeli hostages being released that the negotiation to release upto 50 dual nationals has come to fruition and they'll be handed over somewhere in the south of Gaza. Wait to see.
Meanwhile the impression is that Netanyahu is still holding up a ground assault saying the Israeli military needs more prep time.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
Another meaningless term of abuse, which absolves its user of intelligent thought.
I’ve noticed that it’s always people who are Woke or members of The Blob, who get most irked by and are haughtily dismissive of the terms “woke” and “the blob”
Course you have. Care to explain what that means in my case ?
I think this Gaza Israel debate is possibly even more depressing than discussing proportional representation
I know. Controversial take
The correct take. It's ruining PB.
And yet it fires up debate - worldwide - like no other geopolitical issue. Especially in proportion to its numerical scale
Why? - is a fascinating question. I am pretty sure the deep rooted mental fungus of anti Semitism is partly to blame. If you analyse most ardent pro Palestinians hard enough you will find fear and hatred of Jews. As we have seen this last week; many of the sufferers won’t even realise it
And I wonder what 'urges' drive the more exuberant of the pro-Israel brigade? And will they admit to or even realize it?
I’ve no doubt that “Islamophobia” is your tediously middlebrow answer
Let’s accept your terms
1. Islamophobia means an irrational fear of Islam. For many Jews the fear is entirely rational. Significant parts of the Islamic world apparently want them all dead
2. Islamophobia has never, in history, led to a serious attempt to kill every Muslim on earth, just for being Muslim
So I don’t think your comparison stands even if we accept it (despite its fatuity)
That IS middlebrow. Are you trying to get on my level? No but seriously, I doubt the feeling that Palestinians are somehow inferior to Israelis is caused by Islamophobia. Truth is, I don't know what it's caused by. I thought you might have some thoughts on it.
Even their fellow arabs dont like them or want them, so I cant see it as islam based. They are a PTSD nation and everyone seems happiest leaving the Rochesters in the attic.
Ok but I was more trying to understand why some right wing people over here (and it's a fair number) are so pro Israel as to be blase about Palestinian suffering and see no weight or validity to their cause. Where's that coming from? We rightly talk a lot about antisemitism but we don't probe that so much. Any offers?
If you think some right wing people over here are pro Israel as to be blase about Palestinian suffering, then do you also think that some left-wing people are so pro-Palestinian as to be blase about Israeli suffering?
Where's that coming from? In this case, there's an obvious answer...
Racism in BOTH cases.
I think so. But I don't want to ape Andrew Sullivan and do smeary amateur mass psychiatry on who I disagree with.
Is it smeary only because it is 'mass' and thus not as widely applicable as he thinks, or smeary because it is wrong? Because I've definitely see lots of comments online with people unironically saying the same things about oppression and oppressors. So the critique is probably not fair on the scale of where he applies it, not that that argument is not indeed used at all (which again, is why the strawman dismissal is lazy, since is it still a strawman if you can find real examples).
It's the 'can't be racist towards x' view, based on power structures rather than, well, actual racism, taken to its conclusion.
Yes ok I went a bit high bp there because I took it personally. I'm what he was trying to do a rhetorical number on. A young progressive. 63 is the new 25.
Re your question earlier about why those here on the right favour Israel (to paraphrase it) I thought I would give you my answer. It’s not a very nuanced answer, it’s not deep in facts but it’s my truthful answer and the answer isn’t anti-Islam.
Since I first learned about World War 2 and because of that, what the Nazis did to the Jews I have been absolutely firm that it can never happen again, even in a smaller way.
When I learnt more history I learned about what the English did to the Jews (Hugh of Lincoln and all that jazz) and the fact that it conveniently was a good way for the powers that be to blame “the other” whilst handily stealing their gold. And the Jews have consistently been that “other”.
I remember watching Ivanhoe as a kid and seeing how the Jewish father and daughter were treated.
I learnt about Israel being decided on as a homeland for the Jews after WW2 because really I think they sort of had justification for needing their own “safe place” after what had just happened, never mind the centuries of shit. And why not the place where they had lived for millennia, before Islam even existed no less.
I learnt how the surrounding countries tried multiple times to wipe Israel off the map and tiny Israel fought them off. Much much respect but when the choice is fight or be wiped out what else do you do.
I see a small country, surrounded by other countries with combined much larger populations who have historically, biblically even in Egypt’s case, wanted to wipe them out. Not even a case of “we want that land so we are invading and you will live under our power”. Wiping out the Israelis because they are Jewish.
This small middle eastern country has been relatively successful compared to its neighbours which also gets jealousy. It doesn’t have oil but it’s done well.
This small country has been a light of democracy in a region of dictators, coups, theocracies. It hasn’t had a Khomeini, and Assad, a Saddam Hussein, not even a Mohammed Bin Salman.
It’s a country that, if peaceful, any of the posters here could live whether male, female, gay, straight, whatever without being chucked in a prison, whipped publicly, hands removed, hanged from a crane.
And still people want it destroyed and these people, who’ve made the best of a very bad lot in history, destroyed.
If the Palestinians managed to overrun Israel tomorrow with whatever outside help do you believe they will set up a state where they live side by side with the Israelis? Do you think it will stay a democracy? Will it turn into an economic shithole pdq?
So, despite the current gov being a bunch of arseholes, I will continue to support Israel doing what it needs to defend itself, punish those who commit atrocities against it and deterring others who might consider it.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
So the international bond markets are part of “the blob” then?
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
If I was told to choose the manner of my execution, I'd opt for firing squad.
I particularly liked “No 10 said to be 'bruised' that conference, particularly HS2, did not shift dial.” I mean, it did shift the dial, just not in the direction they expected it to.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Firing Squad is probably the most humane of the options out there at the moment:
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
OTOH, more people doing the job, and being affected by PTSD or worse. It's not like the army where you could round up a trained squad in 3 minutes.
I'm rereading Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones (again) and it seems one of the main reasons they devised a 'technical' final solution was because of the strain that the constant shooting put on the shooters, most were alkie wrecks after a few months of it. Much as we'd prefer to think of them as ideological monsters unflinchingly doing their leaders' will, the truth as ever was a bit more complicated. The ones that really enjoyed it tended to be exceptional.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
And capital punishment is only legal now in Belarus, some US states, Guyana and parts of Africa and much of Asia
Informally, capital punishment is far more widely practised around the world.
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
Any proof the coup de grace was that common? Sure it is a movie staple but, in reality?
This paper suggests zero, although it also highlights two cases (one from 1879 and one from 1951) where there were claims it was botched:
Meanwhile the impression is that Netanyahu is still holding up a ground assault saying the Israeli military needs more prep time.
Come on! I even bought a HUGE bucket of popcorn specially!
I know, you'll need to keep it in an airtight container for freshness but in all reality the question is whether this is just plain fact or someone is looking to politically damage him further.
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
Any proof the coup de grace was that common? Sure it is a movie staple but, in reality?
This paper suggests zero, although it also highlights two cases (one from 1879 and one from 1951) where there were claims it was botched:
My own special insight into capital punishment comes from having achieve adulthood in county which conducted last public hanging in state of West Virginia.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
And capital punishment is only legal now in Belarus, some US states, Guyana and parts of Africa and much of Asia
Informally, capital punishment is far more widely practised around the world.
Well technically it is in the UK too if you interpret it widely enough to include armed police shooting to kill potential terrorists, armed robbers etc
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
So the international bond markets are part of “the blob” then?
The minibudget would not have been thrown into reverse without the leaked forecast from the OBR (presumably blobby enough to qualify) which (totally wrongly in the event) alleged a £60-70bn black hole. Also opposing the minibudget were Joe Biden, the IMF, and the Bank.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
So the international bond markets are part of “the blob” then?
The minibudget would not have been thrown into reverse without the leaked forecast from the OBR (presumably blobby enough to qualify) which (totally wrongly in the event) alleged a £60-70bn black hole. Also opposing the minibudget were Joe Biden, the IMF, and the Bank.
So 'blob' means any bits of the world which fail to cooperate with your favoured plans, however daft.
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Firing Squad is probably the most humane of the options out there at the moment:
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
OTOH, more people doing the job, and being affected by PTSD or worse. It's not like the army where you could round up a trained squad in 3 minutes.
I'm rereading Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones (again) and it seems one of the main reasons they devised a 'technical' final solution was because of the strain that the constant shooting put on the shooters, most were alkie wrecks after a few months of it. Much as we'd prefer to think of them as ideological monsters unflinchingly doing their leaders' will, the truth as ever was a bit more complicated. The ones that really enjoyed it tended to be exceptional.
Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, RONA, the Ustase, and various local militias *loved* their work.
The Einsatzgruppen, OTOH, comprised a lot of “ordinary men”, for whom killing Eastern Jewish adult males was not a problem, but who felt increasing distress at killing (a) women and children (b) killing German Jews, sent East, who they saw as human beings.
Why doesn't he put himself forward as a presidential candidate again?
I wish he could do 3 terms.
Oh God, no - the man was a disaster as President, we are reaping the actions of what he sowed.
Another Democratic President?
Ukraine for a start and then Iran in the Middle East - in both cases, he allowed the west's opponents to think he was gullible (which he was) which has fed through to what is happening now
I think he would win easily if more than 2 terms were allowed. Don't you agree(I know it's not possible)
Why doesn't he put himself forward as a presidential candidate again?
I wish he could do 3 terms.
Oh God, no - the man was a disaster as President, we are reaping the actions of what he sowed.
Another Democratic President?
Ukraine for a start and then Iran in the Middle East - in both cases, he allowed the west's opponents to think he was gullible (which he was) which has fed through to what is happening now
I think he would win easily if more than 2 terms were allowed. Don't you agree(I know it's not possible)
Yes, he would. I think he’d have grown into the job a bit more. He was too young and inexperienced when he started.
The total mass, number, and distribution of immune cells in the human body https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308511120 The immune system is a complex network of cells with critical functions in health and disease. However, a comprehensive census of the cells comprising the immune system is lacking. Here, we estimated the abundance of the primary immune cell types throughout all tissues in the human body. We conducted a literature survey and integrated data from multiplexed imaging and methylome-based deconvolution. We also considered cellular mass to determine the distribution of immune cells in terms of both number and total mass. Our results indicate that the immune system of a reference 73 kg man consists of 1.8 × 1012 cells (95% CI 1.5–2.3 × 1012), weighing 1.2 kg (95% CI 0.8–1.9). Lymphocytes constitute 40% of the total number of immune cells and 15% of the mass and are mainly located in the lymph nodes and spleen. Neutrophils account for similar proportions of both the number and total mass of immune cells, with most neutrophils residing in the bone marrow. Macrophages, present in most tissues, account for 10% of immune cells but contribute nearly 50% of the total cellular mass due to their large size...
Interesting German poll including the new left wing party that suggests they could challenge the SPD:
More likely challenge the Greens on that poll
Yes, an interesting development. Die Linke - the classical ex-Communists - have become very green, pro-Ukraine and generally hard to distinguish from Guardian-reading left-wingers, and they struggle to get over 5% since the actual Greens are in the way. Sabine Wagenknecht (the BSW leader and their only well-known figure) mixes left-wing social policies with opposition to mass immigration and opposition to Ukraine. They aren't yet sure if they'll stand in elections, but polls like that will obviously encourage them, and they may take votes from the AfD as well as the SPD and their old party. It's basically about East German populism, but she's quite a formidable figure.
Actually, Cathy McMorris Rodgers has a considerable list of accomplishments, among them: "Cathy McMorris married Brian Rodgers on August 5, 2006, in San Diego. Brian Rodgers is a retired Navy commander and a Spokane native. He is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and the son of David H. Rodgers, the mayor of Spokane from 1967 to 1977. In February 2007, she changed her name to Cathy McMorris Rodgers.[111] Having long resided in Stevens County–first Colville, then Deer Park–she now lives in Spokane.
In April 2007, McMorris Rodgers became the first member of Congress in more than a decade to give birth while in office, with the birth of a son.[112] The couple later announced that their child had been diagnosed with Down syndrome.[113] A second child, a daughter, was born in December 2010, and a second daughter in November 2013.[114][115]
At one time I thought she might even be Speaker some day, like an earlier 5th district congressman. And, if she had, she would have treated urban areas better than Pelosi treated rural areas.
As I understand it "the blob" refers to members of the reality based community, who believe that solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality.
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
Non-trivial risk of screwing up. In any case, it was as much to put him out of his agony as to kill him - he'd usually be pretty badly wounded, but might take some time to die.
British Army Regs 1950 said for the MO to check, and the APM [not the officer commanding the firing squad, which was taken from the prisoner's unit] to get his pistol out if needed. [Assistant PM = Assistant Provost Marshal, i.e. a Military Police officer]
'If the medical officer indicates to the A.P.M. that the prisoner is not dead, it is his duty to administer the “coup de grace” with his revolver.
Immediately after the firing party has fired the men will be ordered to ground arms and turn about, they will then be marched back a short distance until the A.P.M. has again changed the position of, and unloaded the rifles, when they will return, take up arms and march away to their unit.'
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
Firing Squad is probably the most humane of the options out there at the moment:
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
OTOH, more people doing the job, and being affected by PTSD or worse. It's not like the army where you could round up a trained squad in 3 minutes.
I'm rereading Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones (again) and it seems one of the main reasons they devised a 'technical' final solution was because of the strain that the constant shooting put on the shooters, most were alkie wrecks after a few months of it. Much as we'd prefer to think of them as ideological monsters unflinchingly doing their leaders' will, the truth as ever was a bit more complicated. The ones that really enjoyed it tended to be exceptional.
On the We have ways of making you talk podcast (Al Murray and James Holland) there was a story about a German who could only shoot children after their parents had been shot, as he putting them out of their misery of being and orphan. Twisted and weird, but just one of the ways people got through it.
I particularly liked “No 10 said to be 'bruised' that conference, particularly HS2, did not shift dial.” I mean, it did shift the dial, just not in the direction they expected it to.
I have a theory the HS2 cancellation has inadvertently ratnered the Tories’ big Brexit message.
Not that voters weren’t coming round to the idea that Brexit had been naffed up and possibly wasn’t a great idea in the first place, mind.
But think about what the mood music was around Boris and Brexit - it was the idea that we could recapture a Britain that made things, that built things, that projected power and influence and progress. I can quite easily see why some voters (who might even have been against HS2 in the first place) would be appalled by its cancellation, because it suggests an impotent, weak, bankrupt Britain. The very antithesis of what the Brexit campaign, and Boris, tried to sell.
From another place; cannot speak for its veracity. It refers to the Russians launching their Adivka adventure.
"They (the Russians) started the offensive at the exact same time HAMAS attacked Israel , to the hour."
If true (and depending on time zones, it might be, as they were both on the 6/7 October), then it cannot really be a coincidence, can it? Especially given Iran's hand in both.
More good news about the US, and the Internet, from Youyou Zhou: "My boyfriend and I first met on a dating app. I’m Asian, and he is White. Before using dating apps, I had exclusively dated guys of my own background and didn’t give it too much thought. I wondered how much my past choice in partners was shaped by my overwhelmingly Asian social milieu. Looking back, it seems to me that if I hadn’t used dating apps, the chances of me meeting my partner would have been vanishingly small. . . . Couples that first meet online are more likely to be interracial and interethnic than those who first meet offline, according to one 2020 study that analyzed data on more than 3,000 U.S. couples from 2009 to 2017." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/online-dating-interracial-diversity/ Overall, about 20 percent of US marriages are now interracial, but 30 percent are interracial for those who met on line.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
So the international bond markets are part of “the blob” then?
The minibudget would not have been thrown into reverse without the leaked forecast from the OBR (presumably blobby enough to qualify) which (totally wrongly in the event) alleged a £60-70bn black hole. Also opposing the minibudget were Joe Biden, the IMF, and the Bank.
So 'blob' means any bits of the world which fail to cooperate with your favoured plans, however daft.
For me, it means a series of ideological fellow travellers working toward the expansion of the powers and resources of states and supranational bodies as opposed to individuals.
Seattle Times ($) - WA state senator arrested in Hong Kong
OLYMPIA — State Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, was arrested in Hong Kong Friday for possessing a firearm not licensed there, and related charges, a spokesperson confirmed Monday.
Wilson could not immediately reached for comment via phone, but he said in a statement that “it was an honest mistake. And I expect the situation to be resolved shortly.”
Wilson was embarking on a five-week personal vacation to Southeast Asia when he departed Portland International Airport, said spokesperson Erik Smith, who could not confirm the date of departure or the airline Wilson used.
Smith said Wilson inadvertently packed a pistol in his carry-on bag. The gun was not spotted by security at the airport and Wilson only realized he had packed it when he was midflight and reached for some gum in his bag, Smith said.
Once Wilson landed in Hong Kong, he alerted customs authorities to the gun, and was arrested. He was jailed and later posted bail that was set at 20,000 of a currency that Smith could not confirm, though news outlet The Standard reported bail was HK$20,000. Wilson has surrendered his passport and the firearm, Smith said. He is awaiting a hearing scheduled for Oct. 30 and has legal counsel.
Smith said the gun is properly licensed and registered in the United States, and that Wilson is taking the vacation at his personal expense and is not representing the state Senate. However, Wilson was planning to meet with certain officials, such as officials with the port of Shanghai, Smith said. Wilson also sits on the commission of the Port of Longview.
“We are learning about the incident with Sen. Wilson at the same time as the press and public here in America,” Senate Republican Leader John Braun, of Centralia, said in a statement. “As I understand it, this was an honest mistake. I do not have any additional information to share at this point, but we are watching the situation closely. That said, I hope that this can be resolved in a timely manner.”
SSI - This clown is NOT what yours truly would call a responsible gun owner.
At least she had ideas, even if you disagreed with them, and the reaction to her was out of all proportion to what what actually announced, led by the Sunakites in the PCP and media.
Led by the bond markets really.
Nonsense. Take a look at US bonds markets now. The rise in gilt yields was not a lot to do with Truss and her tax cuts and everything to do with a historic reversion to norm of monetary policy globally. It was a hysterical media feeding frenzy.
In the Uk it was fed particularly that week by the blowing up of poorly regulated LDI pensions that almost no one seemed to realise was happening. The bloke responsible for that still in his job. He’s a “technocrat” you see.
With all due respect, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng made it clear that their plan was to cut taxes and increase spending, in order to get the economy moving again. And that absolutely did have an impact on bond prices.
You can see this my looking at UK bond yields during the Truss Premiership and comparing them to peers. The UK yield premium absolutely blew out.
For your theory to be true UK bond yields simply reverted to normal levels before everyone else. But that clearly didn't happen: UK bond yields went out during the Truss premiership, came back in when she was defenestrated, and then moved largely in lockstep with our peers.
I contend that it was largely a coincidence of timing. The feedback loop from ldi gilt liquidation was already in full swing before kwarteng announced the “growth funded” cuts. And was backstopped by the BoE on more or less the same day as Kwarteng was fired.
By the way what’s the difference between the deficit plan of Kwarteng vs Biden’s IRA. What’s the latest forecast of the Federal deficit this year, 6%? 7%?
I don’t claim that the Truss/Kwaeteng presentation and timing were ideal. But I do think had she ridden out the headlines and stood by his chancellor and his budget, uk yields wouldn’t look so different to today. But there’s a reasonable chance the polls would look pretty different .
Two things can be simultaneously true:
(1) The initial spike in UK bond yields was caused by Truss/Kwarteng (2) Had they stayed, then there probably wouldn't be a big difference in bond yields
It is also important to remember, though, that over the past five years Uk bond yields have averaged about 75 bps below the US. During Truss/Kwarteng, they want from more than 100bps below the US to well above. That wasn't caused by LDI pensions.
A trading friend of mine was like a kid at Xmas that week. He didn’t realise at first why but he (correctly) sensed that selling gilts was a one way bet. A couple of days later the terrible truth within ldi emerged to a broader audience, combined with the narrative of a chaotic govt flying by the seat of its pants. That last bit was true actually given the hasty and in my view unnecessary reverse ferret.
Still, my hypothesis is not one that can reasonably tested. We can both only infer what we will from historic data. I am just bitter, resigned to working much longer, given no political party will dare test the consensus of taxation to fund electorally motivated transfer payments for perhaps a generation.
With all due respect, the hypothesis can very easily be tested. Let's look at the yield gap on a day-by-day basis, and overlay events that happened.
Ldi forced selling and media hysteria over 45% tax cut et al were happening simultaneously. Perhaps an economics professor one day might try and tease it out. Don’t know about you but I’ve not got the time nor motivation to do it myself.
The LDI forced selling was caused by the spiking yields, you can't disaggregate them.
The Kwartang announcement was communicating change planned for his future Budget (rather than an immediate change) and this plan was reversed very swiftly.
If the markets reacted due to these planned changes wouldn't they have re-corrected when they were withdrawn shortly thereafter?
Yields shot up, came partly back when Kwarteng (who I would note is a friend of mine) was defenestrated and the changes were rolled back, and then returned to roughly the same position relative to other developed nations after Truss herself stepped down.
Why did yields spike?
Because Mr Market thought that the Truss/Kwarteng changes were adding inflationary fire to an economy that was already running quite hot. Wage growth in 2022 had been steadily climbing through the year (source), and had reached 6% in June, heading for 6.5%.
It was generally considered that increasing aggregate demand via lower tax (and a bit of higher spending) due to a focus on growth was likely to cause wage growth to continue to run hot. It was also considered unwise to throw fiscal fire on the economy at a time when the country was facing external inflationary pressures due to the Ukraine war.
Now, did the markets overreact? Quite possibly. But they were not behaving irrationally. Truss was elected on a platform of throwing away balanced budget orthodoxy and making a dash for growth.
Not growth grounded on supply side reforms and fiscal restraint; but instead driven by the belief that the reason growth had been modest was because of excessive levels of taxation.
We can argue this one to death. I'm a believer that you get to lower taxes by lower spending; Ms Truss believed that a more buoyant economy would generate more taxes.
But one cannot credibly claim that spiking bond yields - that only happened in the UK - was somehow a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the government's avowed change of direction.
This argument is really quite bizarre in its evasion. The simultaneous nature of the Bank's round of QT and Kwasi's minibudget announcement has already been discussed. But what about the Bank's 'intervention' to stabilise the bond markets (successfully) by buying back a load of its own bonds? If the markets were fretting about a few billion in tax cuts, and didn't care about the fact that the Bank was ridding itself of UK Government bonds, why did a temporary reversal of the Bank's policy work to stabilise bond markets, but a reversal of the Government's policy didn’t?
And furthermore, why, when we now have safe, responsible Sunak/Hunt, have bond yields continued to rise, now the Bank's QT has been resumed?
No, @Luckyguy1983, this is not "evasion", it is simple reality.
To paraphrase the old song, Liz Truss fought reality . . . and reality won.
'The Blob' scans better.
So the international bond markets are part of “the blob” then?
The minibudget would not have been thrown into reverse without the leaked forecast from the OBR (presumably blobby enough to qualify) which (totally wrongly in the event) alleged a £60-70bn black hole. Also opposing the minibudget were Joe Biden, the IMF, and the Bank.
So 'blob' means any bits of the world which fail to cooperate with your favoured plans, however daft.
For me, it means a series of ideological fellow travellers working toward the expansion of the powers and resources of states and supranational bodies as opposed to individuals.
Waiting at Logan Airport to return from New England having visited 7 States in the last few weeks. As this seems to be a travel site I thought I should give my review. No photos as they are mainly of my wife standing next to different coloured fire hydrants for reasons too bizarre to explain.
Contrary to what Leon would have you believe it is only slightly woke. Quite a few rainbow flags, but nearly all on churches and about 3 black lives matter signs. No other indicators.
American beer was interesting. I sampled a lot and visited several breweries and tried a few flights of beer. Quite a variety of stouts, white and fruit beers. However I am looking forward to getting back to beer that isn't cold and fizzy. Twice I was given beer with cinnamon sugar around the rim. Beer is not a cocktail. Whoever thought that up should be shot.
Recommend hotels: Rabbit Hill Inn in Vermont and Brenton in Newport.
As I understand it "the blob" refers to members of the reality based community, who believe that solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality.
I don't think it really means anything. It's purposefully opaque. It provides a way of saying I'm having to fight an internal enemy without having to define who that enemy is. Quite convenient when you want an excuse for not achieving your objectives.
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
That was the Vendee Genocide,* not the Terror per se.
Mostly used for monks and nuns.
In terms of drowning, there was famously the execution of Clarence in 1478, who was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine (apparently at his own request).
*Wikipedia says it wasn't a genocide as its editors can't get their heads round the first major genocide of the modern era being a genocide of Catholics by atheists.
Waiting at Logan Airport to return from New England having visited 7 States in the last few weeks. As this seems to be a travel site I thought I should give my review. No photos as they are mainly of my wife standing next to different coloured fire hydrants for reasons too bizarre to explain.
Contrary to what Leon would have you believe it is only slightly woke. Quite a few rainbow flags, but only nearly all on churches and about 3 black lives matter signs. No other indicators.
American beer was interesting. I sampled a lot and visited several breweries and tried a few flights of beer. Quite a variety of stouts, white and fruit beers. However I am looking forward to getting back to beer that isn't cold and fizzy. Twice I was given beer with cinnamon sugar around the rim. Beer is not a cocktail. Whoever thought that up should be shot.
Recommend hotels: Rabbit Hill Inn in Vermont and Brenton in Newport.
In terms of travel writing…. Don’t give up the day job quite yet. Glad you had fun
Waiting at Logan Airport to return from New England having visited 7 States in the last few weeks. As this seems to be a travel site I thought I should give my review. No photos as they are mainly of my wife standing next to different coloured fire hydrants for reasons too bizarre to explain.
Contrary to what Leon would have you believe it is only slightly woke. Quite a few rainbow flags, but only nearly all on churches and about 3 black lives matter signs. No other indicators.
American beer was interesting. I sampled a lot and visited several breweries and tried a few flights of beer. Quite a variety of stouts, white and fruit beers. However I am looking forward to getting back to beer that isn't cold and fizzy. Twice I was given beer with cinnamon sugar around the rim. Beer is not a cocktail. Whoever thought that up should be shot.
Recommend hotels: Rabbit Hill Inn in Vermont and Brenton in Newport.
In terms of travel writing…. Don’t give up the day job quite yet. Glad you had fun
Cheers. I'm retired. Had to think of something to do during my 3 hour wait.
More good news about the US, and the Internet, from Youyou Zhou: "My boyfriend and I first met on a dating app. I’m Asian, and he is White. Before using dating apps, I had exclusively dated guys of my own background and didn’t give it too much thought. I wondered how much my past choice in partners was shaped by my overwhelmingly Asian social milieu. Looking back, it seems to me that if I hadn’t used dating apps, the chances of me meeting my partner would have been vanishingly small. . . . Couples that first meet online are more likely to be interracial and interethnic than those who first meet offline, according to one 2020 study that analyzed data on more than 3,000 U.S. couples from 2009 to 2017." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/online-dating-interracial-diversity/ Overall, about 20 percent of US marriages are now interracial, but 30 percent are interracial for those who met on line.
Cinderella this is not, but girl meets boy in any form beats all the other stories. Online has much improved things for many people in these way; but for readability Jane Austen's position in the pantheon is secure.
I particularly liked “No 10 said to be 'bruised' that conference, particularly HS2, did not shift dial.” I mean, it did shift the dial, just not in the direction they expected it to.
I have a theory the HS2 cancellation has inadvertently ratnered the Tories’ big Brexit message.
Not that voters weren’t coming round to the idea that Brexit had been naffed up and possibly wasn’t a great idea in the first place, mind.
But think about what the mood music was around Boris and Brexit - it was the idea that we could recapture a Britain that made things, that built things, that projected power and influence and progress. I can quite easily see why some voters (who might even have been against HS2 in the first place) would be appalled by its cancellation, because it suggests an impotent, weak, bankrupt Britain. The very antithesis of what the Brexit campaign, and Boris, tried to sell.
And that's the Sunak/Hunt vision for the UK. A punishment beating, without end, and without hope.
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
That was the Vendee Genocide,* not the Terror per se.
Mostly used for monks and nuns.
In terms of drowning, there was famously the execution of Clarence in 1478, who was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine (apparently at his own request).
*Wikipedia says it wasn't a genocide as its editors can't get their heads round the first major genocide of the modern era being a genocide of Catholics by atheists.
As I understand it "the blob" refers to members of the reality based community, who believe that solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality.
The best recent exposition of the ‘blob’ came from Rory Stewart describing how he was given the runaround by the civil service and prevented from taking an action that he deemed necessary as the responsible minister, and was later proved correct.
More good news about the US, and the Internet, from Youyou Zhou: "My boyfriend and I first met on a dating app. I’m Asian, and he is White. Before using dating apps, I had exclusively dated guys of my own background and didn’t give it too much thought. I wondered how much my past choice in partners was shaped by my overwhelmingly Asian social milieu. Looking back, it seems to me that if I hadn’t used dating apps, the chances of me meeting my partner would have been vanishingly small. . . . Couples that first meet online are more likely to be interracial and interethnic than those who first meet offline, according to one 2020 study that analyzed data on more than 3,000 U.S. couples from 2009 to 2017." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/online-dating-interracial-diversity/ Overall, about 20 percent of US marriages are now interracial, but 30 percent are interracial for those who met on line.
Interracial porn is hugely popular, in the former Confederacy.
Re: the "benefits" of drowning, IIRC at height of Reign of Terror, there was such a backlog that condemned prisoners were dispatched, by jamming 'em onto river barges, and pulling the plug.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
That was the Vendee Genocide,* not the Terror per se.
Mostly used for monks and nuns.
In terms of drowning, there was famously the execution of Clarence in 1478, who was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine (apparently at his own request).
*Wikipedia says it wasn't a genocide as its editors can't get their heads round the first major genocide of the modern era being a genocide of Catholics by atheists.
I particularly liked “No 10 said to be 'bruised' that conference, particularly HS2, did not shift dial.” I mean, it did shift the dial, just not in the direction they expected it to.
I have a theory the HS2 cancellation has inadvertently ratnered the Tories’ big Brexit message.
Not that voters weren’t coming round to the idea that Brexit had been naffed up and possibly wasn’t a great idea in the first place, mind.
But think about what the mood music was around Boris and Brexit - it was the idea that we could recapture a Britain that made things, that built things, that projected power and influence and progress. I can quite easily see why some voters (who might even have been against HS2 in the first place) would be appalled by its cancellation, because it suggests an impotent, weak, bankrupt Britain. The very antithesis of what the Brexit campaign, and Boris, tried to sell.
They've cut a gaping wound across England and walked away from it, inviting our applause.
Comments
Do you really believe that UK bond market prices are not principally set by participants future expectations of inflation?
The only other direction is down, and they are very likely to go down over the next few months. It is much harder to campaign when the votes are moving against you.
For this reason alone (betting post), NOM is still in with a respectable chance.
ADDENDUM - though he COULD (in theory) be elected Speaker of the House. Same as his fellow POTUS-ineligible George W. Bush.
London and Warsaw (and to a lesser extent Paris) would be the medium-sized swinging dicks in the new NATO.
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/alp-support-plunges-after-the-defeat-of-the-voice-referendum-alp-49-5-down-4-5-cf-l-np-coalition-50-5-up-4-5
Why hasn’t drowning been used more often as a form of capital punishment?
It’s pretty quick. It’s cheap as chips. It’s guaranteed. It’s easy. There’s limited gore. If you do it in a river or the sea you even get the corpse disposed of - should you want
My only qualifying thought might be that we deem it too unnatural and cruel - but then people used to be burned alive and America still uses the electric chair
What’s wrong with drowning? You can do it in a bucket if needs be
Perhaps that is the problem. It is TOO easy and there ain’t enough theatre?
That way the advantage of incumbency doesn't allow someone to stay in power for too long - but gives someone the chance to come back and win again when not the incumbent.
Why not just drown people in a barrel? Odd
These are the thoughts that occur to you after 3 days alone in Catania, Sicily
The rules of war that we have are to prevent suffering of civilians from being the purpose of military action, but they can't be rid of it entirely. It's simply not possible, for example, for Israel to fight a war against Hamas and to simultaneously supply fuel to Hamas-controlled Gaza. There's been no conflict in history where a government has done that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/11/firing-squad-execution-gaining-ground
"It’s an almost instantaneous death, it’s the cheapest, it’s the simplest, it has the lowest ‘botch’ rate,” said Corinna Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond. (Federal judges have made similar points.) At the same time, it’s “more honest”, she said."
The most practical reason is due to lack of visibility. The crowd sees a person drowned, but can they be sure it was the person they came to see executed? A bit less doubt when it comes to hanging and the chopping block.
But private executions or mass killings? Drownings are in all ways cheaper and easier
However I think I’ll shut up now. The times is dark enough as is
Quick and easy with no bodies to get rid of.
There's your answer. The best form of execution is guillotining, but few countries use it.
Re: the "benefits" of shooting, if it's so reliable, then why are commanders of firing squads not infrequently compelled to deliver the coup de grace to finish off the guest of honor?
Why did the Bank's bond-buying initiative work to stabilise the market immediately when you imply that doing the opposite has no impact?
By the way, I am not saying that the broader economic outlook doesn’t matter, or that some investors didn’t get jitters over the mini-budget (mainly the energy price guarantee, not the tax stuff which was minor), especially the leaked (wrong) forecast by the OBR - I am saying we need to look at the full picture, not have the Bank hiding behind Liz Truss's skirts, when they have serious questions of their own to answer.
No-one believes any of your faux Robespierre shit anymore.
Meanwhile the impression is that Netanyahu is still holding up a ground assault saying the Israeli military needs more prep time.
Care to explain what that means in my case ?
Since I first learned about World War 2 and because of that, what the Nazis did to the Jews I have been absolutely firm that it can never happen again, even in a smaller way.
When I learnt more history I learned about what the English did to the Jews (Hugh of Lincoln and all that jazz) and the fact that it conveniently was a good way for the powers that be to blame “the other” whilst handily stealing their gold. And the Jews have consistently been that “other”.
I remember watching Ivanhoe as a kid and seeing how the Jewish father and daughter were treated.
I learnt about Israel being decided on as a homeland for the Jews after WW2 because really I think they sort of had justification for needing their own “safe place” after what had just happened, never mind the centuries of shit. And why not the place where they had lived for millennia, before Islam even existed no less.
I learnt how the surrounding countries tried multiple times to wipe Israel off the map and tiny Israel fought them off. Much much respect but when the choice is fight or be wiped out what else do you do.
I see a small country, surrounded by other countries with combined much larger populations who have historically, biblically even in Egypt’s case, wanted to wipe them out. Not even a case of “we want that land so we are invading and you will live under our power”. Wiping out the Israelis because they are Jewish.
This small middle eastern country has been relatively successful compared to its neighbours which also gets jealousy. It doesn’t have oil but it’s done well.
This small country has been a light of democracy in a region of dictators, coups, theocracies. It hasn’t had a Khomeini, and Assad, a Saddam Hussein, not even a Mohammed Bin Salman.
It’s a country that, if peaceful, any of the posters here could live whether male, female, gay, straight, whatever without being chucked in a prison, whipped publicly, hands removed, hanged from a crane.
And still people want it destroyed and these people, who’ve made the best of a very bad lot in history, destroyed.
If the Palestinians managed to overrun Israel tomorrow with whatever outside help do you believe they will set up a state where they live side by side with the Israelis? Do you think it will stay a democracy? Will it turn into an economic shithole pdq?
So, despite the current gov being a bunch of arseholes, I will continue to support Israel doing what it needs to defend itself, punish those who commit atrocities against it and deterring others who might consider it.
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1716371065079763313
I particularly liked “No 10 said to be 'bruised' that conference, particularly HS2, did not shift dial.” I mean, it did shift the dial, just not in the direction they expected it to.
This paper suggests zero, although it also highlights two cases (one from 1879 and one from 1951) where there were claims it was botched:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions
Bit before MY time. But the folk memory lingered.
@YouGov
After 1 year as PM, how has Rishi Sunak's reputation changed? % of Britons who say he is...
Competent: 34% (-16 from Oct 2022)
Decisive: 30% (-23)
Honest: 27% (-8)
Authentic: 23% (-8)
Strong: 20% (-19)
Trustworthy: 20% (-10)
In touch: 9% (-4)
Of course who knows with SK ("Israel has that right" ) fookin S
The Einsatzgruppen, OTOH, comprised a lot of “ordinary men”, for whom killing Eastern
Jewish adult males was not a problem, but who felt increasing distress at killing (a) women and children (b) killing German Jews, sent East, who they saw as human beings.
And a first viewing of the NATO flag as graffiti:
The total mass, number, and distribution of immune cells in the human body
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308511120
The immune system is a complex network of cells with critical functions in health and disease. However, a comprehensive census of the cells comprising the immune system is lacking. Here, we estimated the abundance of the primary immune cell types throughout all tissues in the human body. We conducted a literature survey and integrated data from multiplexed imaging and methylome-based deconvolution. We also considered cellular mass to determine the distribution of immune cells in terms of both number and total mass. Our results indicate that the immune system of a reference 73 kg man consists of 1.8 × 1012 cells (95% CI 1.5–2.3 × 1012), weighing 1.2 kg (95% CI 0.8–1.9). Lymphocytes constitute 40% of the total number of immune cells and 15% of the mass and are mainly located in the lymph nodes and spleen. Neutrophils account for similar proportions of both the number and total mass of immune cells, with most neutrophils residing in the bone marrow. Macrophages, present in most tissues, account for 10% of immune cells but contribute nearly 50% of the total cellular mass due to their large size...
There's a good summary in German here:
https://www.swp.de/panorama/bsw-buendnis-sahra-wagenknecht-neue-partei-72052531.html
In April 2007, McMorris Rodgers became the first member of Congress in more than a decade to give birth while in office, with the birth of a son.[112] The couple later announced that their child had been diagnosed with Down syndrome.[113] A second child, a daughter, was born in December 2010, and a second daughter in November 2013.[114][115]
According to the Official Congressional Directory, she is a member of Grace Evangelical Free Church in Colville."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_McMorris_Rodgers
At one time I thought she might even be Speaker some day, like an earlier 5th district congressman. And, if she had, she would have treated urban areas better than Pelosi treated rural areas.
British Army Regs 1950 said for the MO to check, and the APM [not the officer commanding the firing squad, which was taken from the prisoner's unit] to get his pistol out if needed. [Assistant PM = Assistant Provost Marshal, i.e. a Military Police officer]
'If the medical officer indicates to the A.P.M. that the prisoner is not dead, it is his duty to administer the “coup de grace” with his revolver.
Immediately after the firing party has fired the men will be ordered to ground arms and turn about, they will then be marched back a short distance until the A.P.M. has again changed the position of, and unloaded the rifles, when they will return, take up arms and march away to their unit.'
https://josefjakobs.info/2014/09/british-procedure-for-military.html
Not that voters weren’t coming round to the idea that Brexit had been naffed up and possibly wasn’t a great idea in the first place, mind.
But think about what the mood music was around Boris and Brexit - it was the idea that we could recapture a Britain that made things, that built things, that projected power and influence and progress. I can quite easily see why some voters (who might even have been against HS2 in the first place) would be appalled by its cancellation, because it suggests an impotent, weak, bankrupt Britain. The very antithesis of what the Brexit campaign, and Boris, tried to sell.
"They (the Russians) started the offensive at the exact same time HAMAS attacked Israel , to the hour."
If true (and depending on time zones, it might be, as they were both on the 6/7 October), then it cannot really be a coincidence, can it? Especially given Iran's hand in both.
Looking back, it seems to me that if I hadn’t used dating apps, the chances of me meeting my partner would have been vanishingly small.
. . .
Couples that first meet online are more likely to be interracial and interethnic than those who first meet offline, according to one 2020 study that analyzed data on more than 3,000 U.S. couples from 2009 to 2017."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/online-dating-interracial-diversity/
Overall, about 20 percent of US marriages are now interracial, but 30 percent are interracial for those who met on line.
OLYMPIA — State Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, was arrested in Hong Kong Friday for possessing a firearm not licensed there, and related charges, a spokesperson confirmed Monday.
Wilson could not immediately reached for comment via phone, but he said in a statement that “it was an honest mistake. And I expect the situation to be resolved shortly.”
Wilson was embarking on a five-week personal vacation to Southeast Asia when he departed Portland International Airport, said spokesperson Erik Smith, who could not confirm the date of departure or the airline Wilson used.
Smith said Wilson inadvertently packed a pistol in his carry-on bag. The gun was not spotted by security at the airport and Wilson only realized he had packed it when he was midflight and reached for some gum in his bag, Smith said.
Once Wilson landed in Hong Kong, he alerted customs authorities to the gun, and was arrested. He was jailed and later posted bail that was set at 20,000 of a currency that Smith could not confirm, though news outlet The Standard reported bail was HK$20,000. Wilson has surrendered his passport and the firearm, Smith said. He is awaiting a hearing scheduled for Oct. 30 and has legal counsel.
Smith said the gun is properly licensed and registered in the United States, and that Wilson is taking the vacation at his personal expense and is not representing the state Senate. However, Wilson was planning to meet with certain officials, such as officials with the port of Shanghai, Smith said. Wilson also sits on the commission of the Port of Longview.
“We are learning about the incident with Sen. Wilson at the same time as the press and public here in America,” Senate Republican Leader John Braun, of Centralia, said in a statement. “As I understand it, this was an honest mistake. I do not have any additional information to share at this point, but we are watching the situation closely. That said, I hope that this can be resolved in a timely manner.”
SSI - This clown is NOT what yours truly would call a responsible gun owner.
But sadly an all-to-typical ones these days.
Contrary to what Leon would have you believe it is only slightly woke. Quite a few rainbow flags, but nearly all on churches and about 3 black lives matter signs. No other indicators.
American beer was interesting. I sampled a lot and visited several breweries and tried a few flights of beer. Quite a variety of stouts, white and fruit beers. However I am looking forward to getting back to beer that isn't cold and fizzy. Twice I was given beer with cinnamon sugar around the rim. Beer is not a cocktail. Whoever thought that up should be shot.
Recommend hotels: Rabbit Hill Inn in Vermont and Brenton in Newport.
Mostly used for monks and nuns.
In terms of drowning, there was famously the execution of Clarence in 1478, who was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine (apparently at his own request).
*Wikipedia says it wasn't a genocide as its editors can't get their heads round the first major genocide of the modern era being a genocide of Catholics by atheists.
https://x.com/tonydowson5/status/1714287020489703855
Something that is full of squick.