If people meet the criteria we set, pay their taxes, don't get public funds then what's the problem with them coming here?
So long as we construct enough homes and other infrastructure investment to cope with population changes. The public infrastructure should come from those aforementioned taxes.
Your last two sentences are what should happen. This might seem controversial but what do people think of a small added “ infrastructure tax “ you pay if you’re a foreign worker .
I think this would really improve the public perception. It would also mean the government would have less room to hide and something might actually get done re infrastructure.
When was the most recent time that a LOTO became PM for the first time by winning a GE against a younger PM?
AFAICT only three times in the past 100 years has a LOTO won a GE against a younger PM:
1929 MacDonald beat Baldwin (10 months his junior) 1951 Churchill beat Attlee (8 years his junior) 1974 Wilson beat Heath (4 months his junior)
- and all of these LOTOs had been PM before.
Starmer is 18 years older than Sunak and 13 years older than Mordaunt.
Two of those elections were hung Parliaments and the third saw the party with most seats winning fewer votes than the ‘losing’ party.
In fact in every case the party with most seats got fewer votes than another party.
When was the last time a non-ex-PM LOTO beat an age gap in a GE?
We define "beat an age gap" as "become PM as a result of winning most seats, while being older than the PM he or she is running against".
It hasn't happened since the introduction of universal adult suffrage. Has it ever happened at all?
Starmer is 18y older than Sunak and 13y older than Mordaunt.
Smartarses beware: I know about XKCD cartoon 1122 from 2012 and vaguely recall there may have been a similar one in 2016.
Does 1906 count? If not you are probably looking at 1852 and 1830. Before that 1808.
1906 is an edge case, but I think we have to exclude it because Campbell-Bannerman was the PM who called the election even if he'd only just been appointed. 1852? Derby was 7y younger than Russell. 1830? Wellington won most seats even if Grey took over. What happened in 1808?
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Perhaps not. But we all need to move past the notion that ReFUK voters are actually just Tory voters and they will go home.
They're not. They won't.
A lot of the remaining Tory voters are vote for anyone with a blue rosette types. The most popular person at the last Tory conference was Nigel Farage.
The direction of travel is clear and it ain't Refuk slipping voters slipping quietly back into the Tory fold, but Farage taking over as Tory leader. 2026ish I reckon.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
I agree - but it's important to argue on the facts, otherwise you risk losing the argument.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
If you own a company that goes bankrupt, your pain. If you think that the damage was done by previous owners you can sue them. Plus you should have done your due diligence - it's not as if the books had been hidden in a mobile home in Scotland or something.
In a number of cases, huge companies have gone bankrupt. In the cases where the issue was debt and debt payments, they have often gone on to a bright future. See Iridium and OneWeb for a start.
Last point before I travel but I think we may underestimate the importance of the NHS to pensioners.
It’s all very well giving a few quid back but what really vexes many OAPs is whether or not they are going to be cared for medically
Unless you are B.R. we all know that the NHS has been in decline these past 14 years and it’s very worrying for those of pensionable age. (Not myself yet but I’ve seen the state of things.)
Yet rNHS now consumes 11.3% of our GDP (@afneil on Twitter) and has never employed more people. For something supposedly in decline and that decline is clearly pinpointed back to the date of the 2010 election it seems throwing money and people at it is not the solution.
The NHS taking up a larger portion of GDP is perfectly natural when:
1) The economy is not growing 2) People are becoming sicker (obesity and dementia), and the population is slightly older 3) Technological innovations means that the NHS can fix more stuff than it used to
Indeed, with AI on the way and various other unknown advances, I am confident that the healthcare will be perhaps 25% of UK GDP by my 80s. Probably more. And not necessarily all in the NHS.
This can be a good thing. As our other material needs become easier and cheaper to provide, it's right that the focus of the economy shifts to looking after people who are ill. Even better if it prevents people getting ill in the first place through research and public health.
Aside from government spending, healthy diets and exercise (both of which are currently associated with higher incomes) will become enormous parts of the service economy as we develop as a nation. Buy shares in Garmin, Hoka, Speedos, Rab, DMM, Lululemon and Trek.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
I agree - but it's important to argue on the facts, otherwise you risk losing the argument.
Of course the current PM has a great deal of sympathy for private equity.
This is all Gordon Brown's fault.
He should have let Northern Rock and RBS go to the wall.
Some people need a harsh lesson in capitalism, companies go mammary glands up, the government shouldn't bail them out.
If the government hadn’t bailed out the banks it would have been catastrophic for the economy. The public would have panicked pulling their savings meaning more banks would go to the wall. Lending to businesses and mortgages would have gone into meltdown .
Gordon Brown is much maligned but did the right thing.
I am sure Lloyds shareholders, to this day, appreciate the forced marriage between their business and HBOS.
What we really need is more, smaller banks. Around the world.
In Victorian times, your bank went bust. The Bank of England got everyone round a big, big table. The industry took on the problem. The last one like that was Barings, probably.
The managers and owners had the options of prison, suicide, running away to die in a hovel in Paris, or trying to sail to Norway and get murdered by mad whalers.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
A truly remarkable regulatory failure. These companies, and Thames are not the only one, should never have been allowed to load up on debt to fund dividends. All of the risk of higher borrowing rates was piled on the company and, indirectly, on the customers. This is what regulation was supposed to stop.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
If people meet the criteria we set, pay their taxes, don't get public funds then what's the problem with them coming here?
So long as we construct enough homes and other infrastructure investment to cope with population changes. The public infrastructure should come from those aforementioned taxes.
Your last two sentences are what should happen. This might seem controversial but what do people think of a small added “ infrastructure tax “ you pay if you’re a foreign worker .
I think this would really improve the public perception. It would also mean the government would have less room to hide and something might actually get done re infrastructure.
You could call it a health surcharge and make it around £1,035 a year. Or an employer levy up to £1k per year.
Of course the current PM has a great deal of sympathy for private equity.
This is all Gordon Brown's fault.
He should have let Northern Rock and RBS go to the wall.
Some people need a harsh lesson in capitalism, companies go mammary glands up, the government shouldn't bail them out.
If the government hadn’t bailed out the banks it would have been catastrophic for the economy. The public would have panicked pulling their savings meaning more banks would go to the wall. Lending to businesses and mortgages would have gone into meltdown .
Gordon Brown is much maligned but did the right thing.
That's true of RBS. I am less sure it was true of Northern Rock. That was small and not crucial to the economy, and could have failed in a controlled and contained way. That might also have led others to get their houses in order sharpish and avoided some of the heart attacks the economy had the following year.
As it was when a bank was finally let go, it was one of the larger ones with very serious consequences.
The public would have panicked . If the public lose faith in the banks protecting their money then it’s hard to stop a snowball effect .
The way it could have been done - which was just a more severe version of what happened - is
1) Your deposits are protected to any amount. 2) Every kind of investor and debtor in/to the bank is fucked to the amount lost. 3) The government will supervise the zombie bank, as a going concern. 4) All of the existing senior management go, and will not be employed in banking again.
And for a bit of hilarity, I woke up this morning to see the following twitter post:
"I fully acknowledge that I’m a moron but I still don’t understand how a bridge comes down and now the harbor is closed for months. The harbor didn’t come down. The bridge did. Do the ships need to sail under a bridge to function?"
On a note of sanity, Admiral "Mad" Jack Fisher opposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosyth_Dockyard on the grounds that if the Forth Bridge came down, it could trap a fleet there.
And now there are 3 bridges, one in a fairly poor state of repair. When you see how vulnerable the Kerch bridge has proven to be Fisher was undoubtedly right.
Last point before I travel but I think we may underestimate the importance of the NHS to pensioners.
It’s all very well giving a few quid back but what really vexes many OAPs is whether or not they are going to be cared for medically
Unless you are B.R. we all know that the NHS has been in decline these past 14 years and it’s very worrying for those of pensionable age. (Not myself yet but I’ve seen the state of things.)
Yet rNHS now consumes 11.3% of our GDP (@afneil on Twitter) and has never employed more people. For something supposedly in decline and that decline is clearly pinpointed back to the date of the 2010 election it seems throwing money and people at it is not the solution.
The NHS taking up a larger portion of GDP is perfectly natural when:
1) The economy is not growing 2) People are becoming sicker (obesity and dementia), and the population is slightly older 3) Technological innovations means that the NHS can fix more stuff than it used to
Indeed, with AI on the way and various other unknown advances, I am confident that the healthcare will be perhaps 25% of UK GDP by my 80s. Probably more. And not necessarily all in the NHS.
This can be a good thing. As our other material needs become easier and cheaper to provide, it's right that the focus of the economy shifts to looking after people who are ill. Even better if it prevents people getting ill in the first place through research and public health.
Aside from government spending, healthy diets and exercise (both of which are currently associated with higher incomes) will become enormous parts of the service economy as we develop as a nation. Buy shares in Garmin, Hoka, Speedos, Rab, DMM, Lululemon and Trek.
I hope that does not constitute financial advice.
My comment about the % of GDP going into rNHS as well as the amount of people employed by it was in response to someone complaining it is in decline. So if it is in decline cash and bodies does not seem to be the solution.
When was the most recent time that a LOTO became PM for the first time by winning a GE against a younger PM?
AFAICT only three times in the past 100 years has a LOTO won a GE against a younger PM:
1929 MacDonald beat Baldwin (10 months his junior) 1951 Churchill beat Attlee (8 years his junior) 1974 Wilson beat Heath (4 months his junior)
- and all of these LOTOs had been PM before.
Starmer is 18 years older than Sunak and 13 years older than Mordaunt.
Two of those elections were hung Parliaments and the third saw the party with most seats winning fewer votes than the ‘losing’ party.
In fact in every case the party with most seats got fewer votes than another party.
When was the last time a non-ex-PM LOTO beat an age gap in a GE?
We define "beat an age gap" as "become PM as a result of winning most seats, while being older than the PM he or she is running against".
It hasn't happened since the introduction of universal adult suffrage. Has it ever happened at all?
Starmer is 18y older than Sunak and 13y older than Mordaunt.
Smartarses beware: I know about XKCD cartoon 1122 from 2012 and vaguely recall there may have been a similar one in 2016.
Does 1906 count? If not you are probably looking at 1852 and 1830. Before that 1808.
1906 is an edge case, but I think we have to exclude it because Campbell-Bannerman was the PM who called the election even if he'd only just been appointed. 1852? Derby was 7y younger than Russell. 1830? Wellington won most seats even if Grey took over. What happened in 1808?
Portland took power from Grenville.
Pretty sure Derby was younger than Aberdeen, and Derby was the incumbent PM.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
A truly remarkable regulatory failure. These companies, and Thames are not the only one, should never have been allowed to load up on debt to fund dividends. All of the risk of higher borrowing rates was piled on the company and, indirectly, on the customers. This is what regulation was supposed to stop.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
I've never seen a good argument for Dividend Recapitalisation (taking on debt to pay a dividend). Can anyone attempt one?
Aside from banning it would fuck up some takeover models.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
A truly remarkable regulatory failure. These companies, and Thames are not the only one, should never have been allowed to load up on debt to fund dividends. All of the risk of higher borrowing rates was piled on the company and, indirectly, on the customers. This is what regulation was supposed to stop.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
Trouble is that the failures started back in 2006 or so. Is there anyone senior left from then?
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Last point before I travel but I think we may underestimate the importance of the NHS to pensioners.
It’s all very well giving a few quid back but what really vexes many OAPs is whether or not they are going to be cared for medically
Unless you are B.R. we all know that the NHS has been in decline these past 14 years and it’s very worrying for those of pensionable age. (Not myself yet but I’ve seen the state of things.)
Yet rNHS now consumes 11.3% of our GDP (@afneil on Twitter) and has never employed more people. For something supposedly in decline and that decline is clearly pinpointed back to the date of the 2010 election it seems throwing money and people at it is not the solution.
The NHS taking up a larger portion of GDP is perfectly natural when:
1) The economy is not growing 2) People are becoming sicker (obesity and dementia), and the population is slightly older 3) Technological innovations means that the NHS can fix more stuff than it used to
Indeed, with AI on the way and various other unknown advances, I am confident that the healthcare will be perhaps 25% of UK GDP by my 80s. Probably more. And not necessarily all in the NHS.
This can be a good thing. As our other material needs become easier and cheaper to provide, it's right that the focus of the economy shifts to looking after people who are ill. Even better if it prevents people getting ill in the first place through research and public health.
Aside from government spending, healthy diets and exercise (both of which are currently associated with higher incomes) will become enormous parts of the service economy as we develop as a nation. Buy shares in Garmin, Hoka, Speedos, Rab, DMM, Lululemon and Trek.
I hope that does not constitute financial advice.
My comment about the % of GDP going into rNHS as well as the amount of people employed by it was in response to someone complaining it is in decline. So if it is in decline cash and bodies does not seem to be the solution.
It can be in decline if the demands on it are increasing more than the supply of people and resources. That's what's happening - productivity in the NHS is high compared to other health systems around the world.
Some of that demand is good (new stuff like cancer treatments!) other parts very bad (record child obesity is going to smash the NHS in the next 50 years).
Ultimately it's a political choice. The NHS would be in a much better place if it refused to care for people with a BMI over 30, over the age of 80, anyone with drink or alcohol problems, or to treat mental health issues. But that wouldn't be much of a vote winner.
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
I disagree with that - it is mostly unpopular because we don't build the infrastructure and houses at a rate that matches expected immigration. At best we build it to match the level of immigration the politicians promise which is very innaccurate and always too low for reality.
Last point before I travel but I think we may underestimate the importance of the NHS to pensioners.
It’s all very well giving a few quid back but what really vexes many OAPs is whether or not they are going to be cared for medically
Unless you are B.R. we all know that the NHS has been in decline these past 14 years and it’s very worrying for those of pensionable age. (Not myself yet but I’ve seen the state of things.)
Yet rNHS now consumes 11.3% of our GDP (@afneil on Twitter) and has never employed more people. For something supposedly in decline and that decline is clearly pinpointed back to the date of the 2010 election it seems throwing money and people at it is not the solution.
The NHS taking up a larger portion of GDP is perfectly natural when:
1) The economy is not growing 2) People are becoming sicker (obesity and dementia), and the population is slightly older 3) Technological innovations means that the NHS can fix more stuff than it used to
Indeed, with AI on the way and various other unknown advances, I am confident that the healthcare will be perhaps 25% of UK GDP by my 80s. Probably more. And not necessarily all in the NHS.
This can be a good thing. As our other material needs become easier and cheaper to provide, it's right that the focus of the economy shifts to looking after people who are ill. Even better if it prevents people getting ill in the first place through research and public health.
Aside from government spending, healthy diets and exercise (both of which are currently associated with higher incomes) will become enormous parts of the service economy as we develop as a nation. Buy shares in Garmin, Hoka, Speedos, Rab, DMM, Lululemon and Trek.
I hope that does not constitute financial advice.
My comment about the % of GDP going into rNHS as well as the amount of people employed by it was in response to someone complaining it is in decline. So if it is in decline cash and bodies does not seem to be the solution.
The NHS is actually rather cheap - any comparison with
The issue is that the usage of the money is poor. Five minutes of conversation with medics tells you this. The NHS is a system of queues - the stop start performance observed is an OR classic of a poorly designed system with massive blockages and bottlenecks.
If people meet the criteria we set, pay their taxes, don't get public funds then what's the problem with them coming here?
So long as we construct enough homes and other infrastructure investment to cope with population changes. The public infrastructure should come from those aforementioned taxes.
Your last two sentences are what should happen. This might seem controversial but what do people think of a small added “ infrastructure tax “ you pay if you’re a foreign worker .
I think this would really improve the public perception. It would also mean the government would have less room to hide and something might actually get done re infrastructure.
It's a good idea, personally.
We have an NHS surcharge already but infrastructure is if anything more important and more sensitive to population changes.
If people are paying for infrastructure and the infrastructure is getting built then what's the problem?
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
I disagree with that - it is mostly unpopular because we don't build the infrastructure and houses at a rate that matches expected immigration. At best we build it to match the level of immigration the politicians promise which is very innaccurate and always too low for reality.
I disagree with that. If the only issue were "housing" then (given that immigration is "popular" on every practical measure) then the issue at the top of everyone's list would be "housing" not "immigration".
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
A truly remarkable regulatory failure. These companies, and Thames are not the only one, should never have been allowed to load up on debt to fund dividends. All of the risk of higher borrowing rates was piled on the company and, indirectly, on the customers. This is what regulation was supposed to stop.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
I've never seen a good argument for Dividend Recapitalisation (taking on debt to pay a dividend). Can anyone attempt one?
Aside from banning it would fuck up some takeover models.
Well the attractions to the shareholders are fairly obvious but the other advantage (absolutely not for UK plc) is that it can significantly reduce the tax bill with the consequence that the total return to the owners is increased at the cost of the public purse.
I really think we need to look at whether all debt interest should be tax deductible. Of course we don't want to do anything to make investment more difficult but this asset stripping and debt funding is taking the piss and seems to have very little to do with actual investment.
Of course the current PM has a great deal of sympathy for private equity.
This is all Gordon Brown's fault.
He should have let Northern Rock and RBS go to the wall.
Some people need a harsh lesson in capitalism, companies go mammary glands up, the government shouldn't bail them out.
If the government hadn’t bailed out the banks it would have been catastrophic for the economy. The public would have panicked pulling their savings meaning more banks would go to the wall. Lending to businesses and mortgages would have gone into meltdown .
Gordon Brown is much maligned but did the right thing.
I am sure Lloyds shareholders, to this day, appreciate the forced marriage between their business and HBOS.
What we really need is more, smaller banks. Around the world.
In Victorian times, your bank went bust. The Bank of England got everyone round a big, big table. The industry took on the problem. The last one like that was Barings, probably.
The managers and owners had the options of prison, suicide, running away to die in a hovel in Paris, or trying to sail to Norway and get murdered by mad whalers.
The old Building Society Model. We had dozens of small building societies when I grew up. All regional ones, or mostly regional.
Last point before I travel but I think we may underestimate the importance of the NHS to pensioners.
It’s all very well giving a few quid back but what really vexes many OAPs is whether or not they are going to be cared for medically
Unless you are B.R. we all know that the NHS has been in decline these past 14 years and it’s very worrying for those of pensionable age. (Not myself yet but I’ve seen the state of things.)
Yet rNHS now consumes 11.3% of our GDP (@afneil on Twitter) and has never employed more people. For something supposedly in decline and that decline is clearly pinpointed back to the date of the 2010 election it seems throwing money and people at it is not the solution.
The NHS taking up a larger portion of GDP is perfectly natural when:
1) The economy is not growing 2) People are becoming sicker (obesity and dementia), and the population is slightly older 3) Technological innovations means that the NHS can fix more stuff than it used to
Indeed, with AI on the way and various other unknown advances, I am confident that the healthcare will be perhaps 25% of UK GDP by my 80s. Probably more. And not necessarily all in the NHS.
This can be a good thing. As our other material needs become easier and cheaper to provide, it's right that the focus of the economy shifts to looking after people who are ill. Even better if it prevents people getting ill in the first place through research and public health.
Aside from government spending, healthy diets and exercise (both of which are currently associated with higher incomes) will become enormous parts of the service economy as we develop as a nation. Buy shares in Garmin, Hoka, Speedos, Rab, DMM, Lululemon and Trek.
It almost sounds from your description like what the NHS needs to restore to a stable footing is a virus to let rip that targets and kills off vulnerable old people.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
Looks like the current owners did not do due diligence on the people they were buying from then.
Hard cheese.
There;s a Windsor Davies MEME that is rather fitting here.
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
If Reform really are polling at 16% they should be very close to the Tories in the Blackpool South by-election. I have my doubts.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
If you own a company that goes bankrupt, your pain. If you think that the damage was done by previous owners you can sue them. Plus you should have done your due diligence - it's not as if the books had been hidden in a mobile home in Scotland or something.
In a number of cases, huge companies have gone bankrupt. In the cases where the issue was debt and debt payments, they have often gone on to a bright future. See Iridium and OneWeb for a start.
Only this week we have seen Bidstack rescued. By some happy coincidence by the same management as before.
Of course the current PM has a great deal of sympathy for private equity.
This is all Gordon Brown's fault.
He should have let Northern Rock and RBS go to the wall.
Some people need a harsh lesson in capitalism, companies go mammary glands up, the government shouldn't bail them out.
If the government hadn’t bailed out the banks it would have been catastrophic for the economy. The public would have panicked pulling their savings meaning more banks would go to the wall. Lending to businesses and mortgages would have gone into meltdown .
Gordon Brown is much maligned but did the right thing.
I am sure Lloyds shareholders, to this day, appreciate the forced marriage between their business and HBOS.
What we really need is more, smaller banks. Around the world.
In Victorian times, your bank went bust. The Bank of England got everyone round a big, big table. The industry took on the problem. The last one like that was Barings, probably.
The managers and owners had the options of prison, suicide, running away to die in a hovel in Paris, or trying to sail to Norway and get murdered by mad whalers.
South Georgia would have been a decent alternative. For the mad whalers thing.
(In the fjord that Grytviken sits at the head of, sonar shows there is a huge mound in the middle. All whale bones....)
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
I think maybe a little less than half of that Green vote will go Labour. There is a strong anti-Starmer faction on the left of Labour who are free to vote against the Party because they expect a large majority (in addition to the usual suspects even further to the left who can't tolerate the compromises of holding office.)
& The top regulator should do a walk of shame through King's London a la Cersei from Game of Thrones tbh.
The current regulator hasn't actually given in to the company, this time around. Yet. Let's see what happens over the next few weeks before we call for their heads.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
A truly remarkable regulatory failure. These companies, and Thames are not the only one, should never have been allowed to load up on debt to fund dividends. All of the risk of higher borrowing rates was piled on the company and, indirectly, on the customers. This is what regulation was supposed to stop.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
I've never seen a good argument for Dividend Recapitalisation (taking on debt to pay a dividend). Can anyone attempt one?
Aside from banning it would fuck up some takeover models.
Well the attractions to the shareholders are fairly obvious but the other advantage (absolutely not for UK plc) is that it can significantly reduce the tax bill with the consequence that the total return to the owners is increased at the cost of the public purse.
I really think we need to look at whether all debt interest should be tax deductible. Of course we don't want to do anything to make investment more difficult but this asset stripping and debt funding is taking the piss and seems to have very little to do with actual investment.
Dividends are already legally only supposed to be paid from fully franked retained profits which have been taxed.
If that's happened, there's nothing wrong with them being paid at all.
If it's not, and there's a loophole in the law, that needs fixing.
Of course the current PM has a great deal of sympathy for private equity.
This is all Gordon Brown's fault.
He should have let Northern Rock and RBS go to the wall.
Some people need a harsh lesson in capitalism, companies go mammary glands up, the government shouldn't bail them out.
If the government hadn’t bailed out the banks it would have been catastrophic for the economy. The public would have panicked pulling their savings meaning more banks would go to the wall. Lending to businesses and mortgages would have gone into meltdown .
Gordon Brown is much maligned but did the right thing.
I am sure Lloyds shareholders, to this day, appreciate the forced marriage between their business and HBOS.
What we really need is more, smaller banks. Around the world.
In Victorian times, your bank went bust. The Bank of England got everyone round a big, big table. The industry took on the problem. The last one like that was Barings, probably.
The managers and owners had the options of prison, suicide, running away to die in a hovel in Paris, or trying to sail to Norway and get murdered by mad whalers.
The problem is that's how you end up with fewer, larger banks. As happened in the US when most local banks were wiped out first by the Wall Street Crash and then by Roosevelt's audit.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
18 months left you say? Phew, thats easy, just wait until after the election, let Labour choose whatever they want, and then we can say how terrible their solution was and how we would do something different.
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Bills will have to rise, to pay for infrastructure, whatever happens. The current owners are trying to pretend that they add value to that process, and deserve a greater increase to bail them out.
Of course the current PM has a great deal of sympathy for private equity.
This is all Gordon Brown's fault.
He should have let Northern Rock and RBS go to the wall.
Some people need a harsh lesson in capitalism, companies go mammary glands up, the government shouldn't bail them out.
If the government hadn’t bailed out the banks it would have been catastrophic for the economy. The public would have panicked pulling their savings meaning more banks would go to the wall. Lending to businesses and mortgages would have gone into meltdown .
Gordon Brown is much maligned but did the right thing.
I am sure Lloyds shareholders, to this day, appreciate the forced marriage between their business and HBOS.
What we really need is more, smaller banks. Around the world.
In Victorian times, your bank went bust. The Bank of England got everyone round a big, big table. The industry took on the problem. The last one like that was Barings, probably.
The managers and owners had the options of prison, suicide, running away to die in a hovel in Paris, or trying to sail to Norway and get murdered by mad whalers.
South Georgia would have been a decent alternative. For the mad whalers thing.
(In the fjord that Grytviken sits at the head of, sonar shows there is a huge mound in the middle. All whale bones....)
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Whilst I agree in principle the fact is that many of our pension funds have been treating bonds from the likes of Thames as if they were slightly higher paying gilts. When gilt rates were absurdly low most pensions, including the one I am a trustee of, moved to BBB bonds to get a return closer to inflation. The risk was assessed as extremely low by the same geniuses who used to sign off on mortgage packages before 2008.
A major failure of such a bond would have undesirable consequences and, once again, might make it harder for companies to raise new capital for investment. I don't think we have any choice here but it is not a free hit by any means.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
Bingo.
Nothing, literally nothing, should ever be considered too big to fail.
Bailing out the Banks was a horrendous and unnecessary mistake. They should have been allowed to fail while protecting and continuing operations which can happen even for failed businesses.
Even Lehman Bros still had continuing operations as of a couple of years ago. The idea that failure equals the suspension of all operations is a complete and utter myth.
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Bills will have to rise, to pay for infrastructure, whatever happens. The current owners are trying to pretend that they add value to that process, and deserve a greater increase to bail them out.
They don't.
It depends how much of the debt gets wiped out in a bankruptcy. In the case of Iridium, IIRC, the sudden dropping of the debt meant the company could finance launching more satellites from revenue.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
Gavin Maxwell once applied for one of his staff officers (possibly his boyfriend) to have his transfer dated for next month cancelled on the grounds he was indispensable to Maxwell's unit.
Gubbins ordered the man transferred that afternoon on the grounds that nobody in that unit could be indispensable.
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Whilst I agree in principle the fact is that many of our pension funds have been treating bonds from the likes of Thames as if they were slightly higher paying gilts. When gilt rates were absurdly low most pensions, including the one I am a trustee of, moved to BBB bonds to get a return closer to inflation. The risk was assessed as extremely low by the same geniuses who used to sign off on mortgage packages before 2008.
A major failure of such a bond would have undesirable consequences and, once again, might make it harder for companies to raise new capital for investment. I don't think we have any choice here but it is not a free hit by any means.
People until 2007 were treating Icelandic bank accounts as if they were slightly higher interest paying bank accounts.
The banks went bust and all unprotected account holders took a haircut, as they should.
If you've invested in a slightly higher paying gilt that's your problem, nobody else's.
Tough shit, there is a bloody good reason it was higher paying, you had higher risk and if the risk happens well that's what you were getting paid extra for, choosing to own the consequences of that risk.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
Bingo.
Nothing, literally nothing, should ever be considered too big to fail.
Bailing out the Banks was a horrendous and unnecessary mistake. They should have been allowed to fail while protecting and continuing operations which can happen even for failed businesses.
Even Lehman Bros still had continuing operations as of a couple of years ago. The idea that failure equals the suspension of all operations is a complete and utter myth.
Lehman Bros are still in the Citi tower, IIRC.
For those who don't know - the remains of Lehman Bros is gently managing the remaining liabilities and assets until they are all gone. Since some of them have a lifespan of decades, this will take some time.
I would argue that while Chapter 11 has its own problems - it can be used as financial engineering to drop debt - it is fundamentally a good idea. Which we should look at in the UK.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
Something that can't be allowed to fail (because of size or any other reason) probably shouldn't be in the private sector.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
A truly remarkable regulatory failure. These companies, and Thames are not the only one, should never have been allowed to load up on debt to fund dividends. All of the risk of higher borrowing rates was piled on the company and, indirectly, on the customers. This is what regulation was supposed to stop.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
I've never seen a good argument for Dividend Recapitalisation (taking on debt to pay a dividend). Can anyone attempt one?
Aside from banning it would fuck up some takeover models.
Well the attractions to the shareholders are fairly obvious but the other advantage (absolutely not for UK plc) is that it can significantly reduce the tax bill with the consequence that the total return to the owners is increased at the cost of the public purse.
I really think we need to look at whether all debt interest should be tax deductible. Of course we don't want to do anything to make investment more difficult but this asset stripping and debt funding is taking the piss and seems to have very little to do with actual investment.
Dividends are already legally only supposed to be paid from fully franked retained profits which have been taxed.
If that's happened, there's nothing wrong with them being paid at all.
If it's not, and there's a loophole in the law, that needs fixing.
But as companies get older the idea of what is retained profit becomes more and more notional. I am reminded of a friend of mine who used to work as a fund manager. When he was getting anxious about a fall in Prudential shares his boss showed him the original share certificates where the business had bought the shares at par.
Which is a nice story but also highlights the problem. The question is not whether Thames has retained profits from 1989 but what happened to the capital base of this company during the era of free money. And it was largely cleaned out.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
There are things which are too big to fail - Thames among them.
But what we're talking about is dispossessing the current owners because of their debts. That's their failure; Thames will carry on providing water to its customers.
Similarly with RBS - they were too big to fail, as a bank. But there was no good reason to bail out bondholders and shareholders.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
That's nonsense. The main unpopularity has to do with extremist culture being brought to Europe from the Middle East or rural Pakistan. There is nothing racist about disliking misogynistic, anti-democratic views and not wanting more of it in our country.
Blow for Sunak as revised figures confirm UK did go into recession last year
Latest estimate from ONS says GDP declined by 0.3% in final quarter of 2023
Official figures have confirmed the UK economy went into recession at the end of last year, after the latest estimate found it had contracted in the last two quarters of 2023.
In a blow to the government’s economic standing, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the economy, measured by gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 0.3% in the last three months of the year, unrevised from an earlier estimate.
It followed contraction of 0.1% in the third quarter of 2023, confirming a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
As he prepares for a general election, Rishi Sunak has been seeking to reassure Tory MPs that the economy is turning around, after business surveys showed a recovery in private sector activity in the first few months of the year.
Some previous recessions have been revised away or downgraded to be less severe than first believed. The “double-dip” recession initially recorded by the ONS in 2011 during the tenure of chancellor George Osborne was eventually found not to have happened.
PB Tories, who insist that these figures are always revised upwards, please explain.
Not a PB Tory but my perception is that they usually are revised upwards. One bit of data doesn't change that perception. Someone once posted a study of this, and IIRC it supported the perceived bias to the revisions.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
18 months left you say? Phew, thats easy, just wait until after the election, let Labour choose whatever they want, and then we can say how terrible their solution was and how we would do something different.
It's being presented as urgent by the company, as they're trying to force a bailout. It's not quite that urgent for anyone else.
The company does need a significant rise in investment for its dodgy infrastructure (another legacy of poor management), but that should not be confused and conflated with its financial problems - which is what the owners are trying to do.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Whilst I agree in principle the fact is that many of our pension funds have been treating bonds from the likes of Thames as if they were slightly higher paying gilts. When gilt rates were absurdly low most pensions, including the one I am a trustee of, moved to BBB bonds to get a return closer to inflation. The risk was assessed as extremely low by the same geniuses who used to sign off on mortgage packages before 2008.
A major failure of such a bond would have undesirable consequences and, once again, might make it harder for companies to raise new capital for investment. I don't think we have any choice here but it is not a free hit by any means.
Some of the Thames bonds are trading at 27p in the pound. That ship long since sailed.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
That's nonsense. The main unpopularity has to do with extremist culture being brought to Europe from the Middle East or rural Pakistan. There is nothing racist about disliking misogynistic, anti-democratic views and not wanting more of it in our country.
It seems a long time ago, but it's not even been a decade since we were regularly regaled - on here and in the media - with stories of how socially conservative, Christian Poles and other Eastern Europeans were destroying the UK's social fabric.
Quite clearly Thames Water needs to go pop with the equity holders wiped out. It happens all the time, in fact the EU not approving AMZN's takeover of IRBT has pretty much wiped out all their value (Offer blocked at $60, now $8-$9) and their investors took a hit (I exited at $30 or so if you all must know). So I don't see why the Ontario Teacher's pension fund shouldn't take a hit with Thames Water.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Whilst I agree in principle the fact is that many of our pension funds have been treating bonds from the likes of Thames as if they were slightly higher paying gilts. When gilt rates were absurdly low most pensions, including the one I am a trustee of, moved to BBB bonds to get a return closer to inflation. The risk was assessed as extremely low by the same geniuses who used to sign off on mortgage packages before 2008.
A major failure of such a bond would have undesirable consequences and, once again, might make it harder for companies to raise new capital for investment. I don't think we have any choice here but it is not a free hit by any means.
Some of the Thames bonds are trading at 27p in the pound. That ship long since sailed.
Presumably they're giving quite a good yield now - buying them at 27p was to take gamble on them paying out for another 4 or 5 years.
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
Certainly the Lib Dems are not being much reported at the national level. On the other hand they are "winning here" in a lot of local contests, and the effort going into target seats is pretty dramatic. I think they will be reexamined after the local results come in and the media looks for another angle on the inevitable Tory defeat story, That being said, the Lib Dems do need to be a bit more ambitious in what is likely to be an epochal general election; constitutional issues are likely to come to the fore soon, and the Lib Dems have plenty to say on that subject.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
The reason that more properties are not built is that, in effect, local monopolies are granted in house building, in many areas.
So it is possible to respond to any signs of a fall in prices with a sellers strike.
This is a problem that is straight out of Adam Smith.
Note the nonsense that is trotted out to justify this -
- More efficient to have single builders build whole estates. - Much easier for local government to deal with - etc
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Well at least we're in a better position than Australia, their average house price - salary is 10.4 times there
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Well at least we're in a better position than Australia, their average house price - salary is 10.4 times salary there
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Different in Scotland. Obviously the laws of nature and economics change at Lamberton Toll and Carter Bar.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
The reason that more properties are not built is that, in effect, local monopolies are granted in house building, in many areas.
So it is possible to respond to any signs of a fall in prices with a sellers strike.
This is a problem that is straight out of Adam Smith.
Note the nonsense that is trotted out to justify this -
- More efficient to have single builders build whole estates. - Much easier for local government to deal with - etc
There's a simple solution - which Labour has been toying with, and ought enthusiastically to adopt.
Give selected local authorities targeted planning powers to acquire land for building, without having to pay planning gain. You could build a couple of million homes, below current market prices, within the decade, if you really went for it from day one.
There would be howls of outrage from the big housebuilders, and the land owners concerned - but you could sweeten the pill for the latter by paying double the value of their land (as opposed to the 50X plus windfall they might currently get with planning gain).
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Different in Scotland. Obviously the laws of nature and economics change at Lamberton Toll and Carter Bar.
Scotland's population has barely changed in the past quarter of a century.
England's has changed significantly.
Why that is the case, is a whole different discussion.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
The reason that more properties are not built is that, in effect, local monopolies are granted in house building, in many areas.
So it is possible to respond to any signs of a fall in prices with a sellers strike.
This is a problem that is straight out of Adam Smith.
Note the nonsense that is trotted out to justify this -
- More efficient to have single builders build whole estates. - Much easier for local government to deal with - etc
There's a simple solution - which Labour has been toying with, and ought enthusiastically to adopt.
Give selected local authorities targeted planning powers to acquire land for building, without having to pay planning gain. You could build a couple of million homes, below current market prices, within the decade, if you really went for it from day one.
There would be howls of outrage from the big housebuilders, and the land owners concerned - but you could sweeten the pill for the latter by paying double the value of their land (as opposed to the 50X plus windfall they might currently get with planning gain).
Just eliminate planning gain and the problem goes away.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Different in Scotland. Obviously the laws of nature and economics change at Lamberton Toll and Carter Bar.
Mainly to do with a different rate of population growth.
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
I think maybe a little less than half of that Green vote will go Labour. There is a strong anti-Starmer faction on the left of Labour who are free to vote against the Party because they expect a large majority (in addition to the usual suspects even further to the left who can't tolerate the compromises of holding office.)
It's quite differential, I think. In seats where there's a real chance of getting a Tory out many Greens will lend votes (though they are stickier than Labour or LibDem voters). In seats where the result is perceived to be certain, they will stick with their preference (and why not tbh?).
When was the most recent time that a LOTO became PM for the first time by winning a GE against a younger PM?
AFAICT only three times in the past 100 years has a LOTO won a GE against a younger PM:
1929 MacDonald beat Baldwin (10 months his junior) 1951 Churchill beat Attlee (8 years his junior) 1974 Wilson beat Heath (4 months his junior)
- and all of these LOTOs had been PM before.
Starmer is 18 years older than Sunak and 13 years older than Mordaunt.
Two of those elections were hung Parliaments and the third saw the party with most seats winning fewer votes than the ‘losing’ party.
In fact in every case the party with most seats got fewer votes than another party.
When was the last time a non-ex-PM LOTO beat an age gap in a GE?
We define "beat an age gap" as "become PM as a result of winning most seats, while being older than the PM he or she is running against".
It hasn't happened since the introduction of universal adult suffrage. Has it ever happened at all?
Starmer is 18y older than Sunak and 13y older than Mordaunt.
Smartarses beware: I know about XKCD cartoon 1122 from 2012 and vaguely recall there may have been a similar one in 2016.
Does 1906 count? If not you are probably looking at 1852 and 1830. Before that 1808.
1906 is an edge case, but I think we have to exclude it because Campbell-Bannerman was the PM who called the election even if he'd only just been appointed. 1852? Derby was 7y younger than Russell. 1830? Wellington won most seats even if Grey took over. What happened in 1808?
Portland took power from Grenville.
Pretty sure Derby was younger than Aberdeen, and Derby was the incumbent PM.
OK, but I'm looking for a case where an older non-ex-PM LOTO took over as PM from a sitting PM he beat in a GE. Not sure it's ever happened before.
But they say Charismatic Superman Keir will beat a gap of more than 10 years and win a landslide. He must be eating 4 Weetabix for breakfast every day or something.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
The reason that more properties are not built is that, in effect, local monopolies are granted in house building, in many areas.
So it is possible to respond to any signs of a fall in prices with a sellers strike.
This is a problem that is straight out of Adam Smith.
Note the nonsense that is trotted out to justify this -
- More efficient to have single builders build whole estates. - Much easier for local government to deal with - etc
There's a simple solution - which Labour has been toying with, and ought enthusiastically to adopt.
Give selected local authorities targeted planning powers to acquire land for building, without having to pay planning gain. You could build a couple of million homes, below current market prices, within the decade, if you really went for it from day one.
There would be howls of outrage from the big housebuilders, and the land owners concerned - but you could sweeten the pill for the latter by paying double the value of their land (as opposed to the 50X plus windfall they might currently get with planning gain).
Just eliminate planning gain and the problem goes away.
It's not a problem if it finances the restoration of local authority housing stock.
Your solution might have worked under the last decade of Conservative government, but if they didn't adopt it, the chances of Labour doing so are zero.
I'm proposing what might realistically work, not what I might want in my ideal world.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
Well at least we're in a better position than Australia, their average house price - salary is 10.4 times salary there
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
I think maybe a little less than half of that Green vote will go Labour. There is a strong anti-Starmer faction on the left of Labour who are free to vote against the Party because they expect a large majority (in addition to the usual suspects even further to the left who can't tolerate the compromises of holding office.)
It's quite differential, I think. In seats where there's a real chance of getting a Tory out many Greens will lend votes (though they are stickier than Labour or LibDem voters). In seats where the result is perceived to be certain, they will stick with their preference (and why not tbh?).
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
1. We don't have a free market, that's the point. If we did, those firms would have competition.
2. Why not?
There was widespread opposition to gay marriage when I was arguing for it twenty years ago.
You don't win change by giving up and surrendering, you make change by winning the argument. The idea that ever-rising house prices is an unalloyed good thing has been revealed to be wrong by almost all now, but it was a big argument that had vehement and widespread opposition previously.
The opposition needs to be either won around via debate, or defeated and outvoted. Not surrendered to.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
I don't know about the practicality but I share the sentiment. A shift in the perception of residential property from 'personal wealth creating asset' and 'getting on the ladder' to 'an affordable place to live' would be a very positive development. The warped way we view 'houses' is imo one of the biggest root causes of the problem.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
1. The large developers became dominant because of the non-free aspects of the housing market. Ranging from a huge paperwork overhead, through the planning process, to governmental preference to dealing with single large builders.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
I disagree with that - it is mostly unpopular because we don't build the infrastructure and houses at a rate that matches expected immigration. At best we build it to match the level of immigration the politicians promise which is very innaccurate and always too low for reality.
Do you have evidence that this is why? I think immigration is mostly unpopular because some voters have racist/xenophobic tendencies or just don’t like change, and because some politicians/commentators/newspapers blame immigration for numerous ills.
Concern around immigration in topic polling tends to be driven by the amount politicians are talking about immigration, I suggest.
Is lack of infrastructure was the problem, you’d expect anti-immigration polling to be higher in areas of high immigration and high housing costs, like London. But it isn’t.
The company is uninvestable, because without bill payers being forced to pay for private equity's mistakes, the company will be insolvent within 18 months.
And there is no justifiable reason to make bill payers do so.
I remain baffled that anyone was crazy enough to buy shares in a company that has not paid dividends for seven years.
And especially that pension fund managers did - and not just small shareholdings but colossal stakes.
That's really quite disturbing.
It is. Fortunately for good policy making, the large majority of the shareholders are overseas.
But the bottom line is that this is a perfect demonstration of why public utility monopolies, with businesses whose nature will never change, should not be owned by private investors.
OFWAT should ignore the incoming intense lobbying from the company, shareholders and bondholders - who are already saying that a 40% bill increase is insufficient.
I'm willing to bet they will go the way the water companies want them to though.
Regulators like this covering large monopoly providers are ultimately clients of the companies they are meant to be regulating. They don't care about consumers any more than the companies do.
Ofgem are a particularly egregious example but I've seen no evidence Ofwat are better.
This is really a matter for government.
If Ofwat agree this bailout, they're effectively imposing a tax increase of Thames customers - the proceeds if which will largely go to overseas shareholders.
That is completely unacceptable.
Ofwat already acquiesced in the plundering of the company after it was privatised. To do so again would be criminal.
Regulatory capture. OFWAT, like most regulators, seem more interested in propping up the businesses they are supposed to regulate rather than looking out for the consumer. It is a revolving door between these businesses and regulators too. It all stink.
Shareholders and bondholder take a risk. Let them lose the lot and a new company comes out of it. They have milked it in the good days, let them take the loss. Screw them,
The current owners didn't milk the company in the good days - which they are loudly proclaiming at the moment. But that doesn't mean we should bail them out.
Okay, but somebody did milk it. The current owners will have to take the hit. We should not bail them out. We should let the business fail and a new business emerge.
The problem is that the system of government is now selling the following line - "Pension funds, foreign and domestic are heavily invested in Thames Water. Therefore it is Too Big To Fail".
No, it isn't. The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers. As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
That's my point. The moment anyone says something is Too Big To Fail, that thing needs to fail.
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
Bingo.
Nothing, literally nothing, should ever be considered too big to fail.
Bailing out the Banks was a horrendous and unnecessary mistake. They should have been allowed to fail while protecting and continuing operations which can happen even for failed businesses.
Even Lehman Bros still had continuing operations as of a couple of years ago. The idea that failure equals the suspension of all operations is a complete and utter myth.
True though the Bush administration refusal to bail out Lehmans still led to the biggest recession for decades when it went bankrupt. That would have been magnified to Great Depression unemployment levels had other banks gone under too
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
1. We don't have a free market, that's the point. If we did, those firms would have competition.
2. Why not?
There was widespread opposition to gay marriage when I was arguing for it twenty years ago.
You don't win change by giving up and surrendering, you make change by winning the argument. The idea that ever-rising house prices is an unalloyed good thing has been revealed to be wrong by almost all now, but it was a big argument that had vehement and widespread opposition previously.
The opposition needs to be either won around via debate, or defeated and outvoted. Not surrendered to.
2. Fair point. But what is your plan for winning support for the abolition of planning? And how long do you expect it to take until there is that broad support?
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
1. We don't have a free market, that's the point. If we did, those firms would have competition.
2. Why not?
There was widespread opposition to gay marriage when I was arguing for it twenty years ago.
You don't win change by giving up and surrendering, you make change by winning the argument. The idea that ever-rising house prices is an unalloyed good thing has been revealed to be wrong by almost all now, but it was a big argument that had vehement and widespread opposition previously.
The opposition needs to be either won around via debate, or defeated and outvoted. Not surrendered to.
As I said, if you haven't won your housing argument since 2010, you're not going to in the next decade.
I tried to edit one of my psots and got the message "You need the Vanilla.Comments.Edit permission to do that". What's that about? I've been on this site forever and never had that before. And I don't use vanilla to access the site.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
I don't know about the practicality but I share the sentiment. A shift in the perception of residential property from 'personal wealth creating asset' and 'getting on the ladder' to 'an affordable place to live' would be a very positive development. The warped way we view 'houses' is imo one of the biggest root causes of the problem.
It's not practical. No government would be bold enough for a start. But it would improve people's lives immeasurably. I know capitalism is the only game in town, but events like Thames Water prove time and again that our current form of capitalism just ain't working for the little guy. Some things just need to be nationalised....
I tried to edit one of my psots and got the message "You need the Vanilla.Comments.Edit permission to do that". What's that about? I've been on this site forever and never had that before. And I don't use vanilla to access the site.
It means your edit window of 6 mins has timed out.
And for a bit of hilarity, I woke up this morning to see the following twitter post:
"I fully acknowledge that I’m a moron but I still don’t understand how a bridge comes down and now the harbor is closed for months. The harbor didn’t come down. The bridge did. Do the ships need to sail under a bridge to function?"
On a note of sanity, Admiral "Mad" Jack Fisher opposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosyth_Dockyard on the grounds that if the Forth Bridge came down, it could trap a fleet there.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
There's no free market if everything runs on planning permission.
This together with moneylenders being allowed to lend so much, combined with many punters wanting to get the biggest possible loans, is why residential property prices are sky high.
Get rid of planning permission and prices would fall by about 95%. There are places where a house on a tiny plot costs say £1m but if you were allowed you could build a house of similar or better quality for £50K.
Insurers also do very nicely out of high house prices, which are actually high land prices, which are built on thin air.
And for a bit of hilarity, I woke up this morning to see the following twitter post:
"I fully acknowledge that I’m a moron but I still don’t understand how a bridge comes down and now the harbor is closed for months. The harbor didn’t come down. The bridge did. Do the ships need to sail under a bridge to function?"
On a note of sanity, Admiral "Mad" Jack Fisher opposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosyth_Dockyard on the grounds that if the Forth Bridge came down, it could trap a fleet there.
When was the most recent time that a LOTO became PM for the first time by winning a GE against a younger PM?
AFAICT only three times in the past 100 years has a LOTO won a GE against a younger PM:
1929 MacDonald beat Baldwin (10 months his junior) 1951 Churchill beat Attlee (8 years his junior) 1974 Wilson beat Heath (4 months his junior)
- and all of these LOTOs had been PM before.
Starmer is 18 years older than Sunak and 13 years older than Mordaunt.
Two of those elections were hung Parliaments and the third saw the party with most seats winning fewer votes than the ‘losing’ party.
In fact in every case the party with most seats got fewer votes than another party.
When was the last time a non-ex-PM LOTO beat an age gap in a GE?
We define "beat an age gap" as "become PM as a result of winning most seats, while being older than the PM he or she is running against".
It hasn't happened since the introduction of universal adult suffrage. Has it ever happened at all?
Starmer is 18y older than Sunak and 13y older than Mordaunt.
Smartarses beware: I know about XKCD cartoon 1122 from 2012 and vaguely recall there may have been a similar one in 2016.
Does 1906 count? If not you are probably looking at 1852 and 1830. Before that 1808.
1906 is an edge case, but I think we have to exclude it because Campbell-Bannerman was the PM who called the election even if he'd only just been appointed. 1852? Derby was 7y younger than Russell. 1830? Wellington won most seats even if Grey took over. What happened in 1808?
Portland took power from Grenville.
Pretty sure Derby was younger than Aberdeen, and Derby was the incumbent PM.
OK, but I'm looking for a case where an older non-ex-PM LOTO took over as PM from a sitting PM he beat in a GE. Not sure it's ever happened before.
But they say Charismatic Superman Keir will beat a gap of more than 10 years and win a landslide. He must be eating 4 Weetabix for breakfast every day or something.
Well, one fairly obvious reason it doesn't happen often is it's unusual for the LOTO to be older than the PM. Generally, a PM will have been in office several years and have time to get old. And even if not, as in 1964, the senior members of the government are getting on a bit too. Leaders of the Opposition generally get turfed out quickly when they lose. Incumbent PMs and former PMs tend to get more leeway, but also tend to be older.
Plus, remember until 1868 it was the exception rather than the norm for governments to change directly as a result of a general election, and the following forty years were dominated by just three politicians. So really you're taking 1918 as your base.
So I'm not entirely surprised you're struggling and I wouldn't read too much into it.
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
I think maybe a little less than half of that Green vote will go Labour. There is a strong anti-Starmer faction on the left of Labour who are free to vote against the Party because they expect a large majority (in addition to the usual suspects even further to the left who can't tolerate the compromises of holding office.)
It's quite differential, I think. In seats where there's a real chance of getting a Tory out many Greens will lend votes (though they are stickier than Labour or LibDem voters). In seats where the result is perceived to be certain, they will stick with their preference (and why not tbh?).
Also it tends to be a bit stronger in urban areas. As most of these seats are currently Labour and there is no danger of splitting the vote to let the Tory in, there is no reason for their vote there to be squeezed. So I suspect the Green vote will not drop as much as Reform compared to current polling.
NB, the Green vote was only 2.6% last time, and I would be surprised if it exceeds 4%, which will nevertheless look like a very large increase on last time in most seats.
And for a bit of hilarity, I woke up this morning to see the following twitter post:
"I fully acknowledge that I’m a moron but I still don’t understand how a bridge comes down and now the harbor is closed for months. The harbor didn’t come down. The bridge did. Do the ships need to sail under a bridge to function?"
On a note of sanity, Admiral "Mad" Jack Fisher opposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosyth_Dockyard on the grounds that if the Forth Bridge came down, it could trap a fleet there.
He did know we've had a bridge since 1890?
Yes - that was his point. That if the Germans turned up and shelled the bridge into a twisted mess, the fleet would be trapped. If they were in port.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
I disagree with that - it is mostly unpopular because we don't build the infrastructure and houses at a rate that matches expected immigration. At best we build it to match the level of immigration the politicians promise which is very innaccurate and always too low for reality.
Do you have evidence that this is why? I think immigration is mostly unpopular because some voters have racist/xenophobic tendencies or just don’t like change, and because some politicians/commentators/newspapers blame immigration for numerous ills.
Concern around immigration in topic polling tends to be driven by the amount politicians are talking about immigration, I suggest.
Is lack of infrastructure was the problem, you’d expect anti-immigration polling to be higher in areas of high immigration and high housing costs, like London. But it isn’t.
Possibly because immigrants use the housing stock far more efficiently than everyone else? And are less likely to be landl*rds?
I don't think most people have particularly nuanced views on this. They see the rent go up - white Tory landlord. They see interest rates go through the roof? Bloody Tory government.
Good morning. Here is the nub of the issue. What sort of immigration is unpopular? Arguably it is the "illegal" sort - but how is this defined and how is it counted? It is far too easy to look at ever increasing gross numbers and project those onto the segment of immigrants we don't like. Anyway good news for the Tories in the figures quoted. Only 2% of those polled generally don't like the Government so 98% up for grabs.
"Immigration" is unpopular. "Illegal" is the "I'm not a racist" shield.
Immigration is unpopular.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular. Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular. Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular. Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular. Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
Oh, absolutely - that's exactly my point. It is *only* unpopular in the racism sense, not the practical sense.
That's nonsense. The main unpopularity has to do with extremist culture being brought to Europe from the Middle East or rural Pakistan. There is nothing racist about disliking misogynistic, anti-democratic views and not wanting more of it in our country.
Concerns about immigration were high before Brexit when most of the immigration was from Poland and Romania. Was its unpopularity then due to the “extremist culture” of Poland and Romania?
Today, very little immigration is from the Middle East. There is more from Pakistan, although India, Nigeria and China are above Pakistan in the recent numbers. If we look more broadly at the immigrant population in the UK, whenever they arrived, the biggest countries of origin are: Poland, India, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Portugal and Spain. And then Pakistan. In terms of the Middle East, you have to go down to the country in 30th, Türkiye, and then Iran is 35th.
So, with very little immigration from the Middle East, it seems unlikely that your explanation that people are concerned with the “extremist culture” of immigrants from the Middle East is correct. There is more immigration from Pakistan (I don’t know how we’d differentiate between rural and urban Pakistan), but the numbers are still comparatively low compared to Eastern Europe, Ireland, Western Europe etc. Numbers from Pakistan have increased since Brexit, but concerns about immigration are lower since Brexit.
We don't build enough houses because it's not the private house builder's job to solve the housing crisis. They just build enough houses that they can sell at prices they want to sell at. It's capitalism, innit? The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down. Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver. It'll kill private landlords, but tough. Some things just need to be nationalised.
There's no need for nationalisation, just competition.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
1. Those large developers have of course emerged from the free market.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
There's no free market if everything runs on planning permission.
This together with moneylenders being allowed to lend so much, combined with many punters wanting to get the biggest possible loans, is why residential property prices are sky high.
Get rid of planning permission and prices would fall by about 95%. There are places where a house on a tiny plot costs say £1m but if you were allowed you could build a house of similar or better quality for £50K.
Insurers also do very nicely out of high house prices, which are actually high land prices, which are built on thin air.
It's as Marx said: M → M'.
My rebuild cost was actually slightly higher than the property value last time I checked.
Economy in recession, smaller than when Richi took over.
Hold on, lads, it's working...
@lara_spirit Labour lead at 19 points in latest YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+2) LAB 40 (-4) LIB DEM 10 (+1) REF UK 16 (+1) GRN 8 (=)
Fieldwork 26 - 27 March
Still don't think REFORM will poll anything like 16% on the day.
Not entirely sure that 1 in 10 of us will vote Lib Dem either. They are nowhere at the moment with apparently nothing to say. My guess is that roughly half that Green vote will go to Labour too. Which is probably just as well given their enthusiasm levels.
Certainly the Lib Dems are not being much reported at the national level. On the other hand they are "winning here" in a lot of local contests, and the effort going into target seats is pretty dramatic. I think they will be reexamined after the local results come in and the media looks for another angle on the inevitable Tory defeat story, That being said, the Lib Dems do need to be a bit more ambitious in what is likely to be an epochal general election; constitutional issues are likely to come to the fore soon, and the Lib Dems have plenty to say on that subject.
The Tories seem very unhappy with pesky peers. Perhaps they’d like to consider the LibDems’ strong support for Lords reform.
Comments
I think this would really improve the public perception. It would also mean the government would have less room to hide and something might actually get done re infrastructure.
1852? Derby was 7y younger than Russell.
1830? Wellington won most seats even if Grey took over.
What happened in 1808?
The most popular person at the last Tory conference was Nigel Farage.
The direction of travel is clear and it ain't Refuk slipping voters slipping quietly back into the Tory fold, but Farage taking over as Tory leader. 2026ish I reckon.
If you own a company that goes bankrupt, your pain. If you think that the damage was done by previous owners you can sue them. Plus you should have done your due diligence - it's not as if the books had been hidden in a mobile home in Scotland or something.
In a number of cases, huge companies have gone bankrupt. In the cases where the issue was debt and debt payments, they have often gone on to a bright future. See Iridium and OneWeb for a start.
1) The economy is not growing
2) People are becoming sicker (obesity and dementia), and the population is slightly older
3) Technological innovations means that the NHS can fix more stuff than it used to
Indeed, with AI on the way and various other unknown advances, I am confident that the healthcare will be perhaps 25% of UK GDP by my 80s. Probably more. And not necessarily all in the NHS.
This can be a good thing. As our other material needs become easier and cheaper to provide, it's right that the focus of the economy shifts to looking after people who are ill. Even better if it prevents people getting ill in the first place through research and public health.
Aside from government spending, healthy diets and exercise (both of which are currently associated with higher incomes) will become enormous parts of the service economy as we develop as a nation. Buy shares in Garmin, Hoka, Speedos, Rab, DMM, Lululemon and Trek.
Immigration for nurses is not unpopular.
Immigration for care home workers is not unpopular.
Immigration for highly skilled roles generally is not unpopular.
Immigration for Ukrainians invaded by Russians is not unpopular
Immigration for Hong Kongers escaping the Chinese is not unpopular.
Immigration from students improves our already bad balance of payments by £40bn and saves the taxpayer a lot in university funding.
So yes immigration is unpopular but that doesn't mean stopping it would be popular either.
In Victorian times, your bank went bust. The Bank of England got everyone round a big, big table. The industry took on the problem. The last one like that was Barings, probably.
The managers and owners had the options of prison, suicide, running away to die in a hovel in Paris, or trying to sail to Norway and get murdered by mad whalers.
I am sure that there will be mass resignations at the regulator today out of shame and embarrassment. Surely?
Already done.
1) Your deposits are protected to any amount.
2) Every kind of investor and debtor in/to the bank is fucked to the amount lost.
3) The government will supervise the zombie bank, as a going concern.
4) All of the existing senior management go, and will not be employed in banking again.
My comment about the % of GDP going into rNHS as well as the amount of people employed by it was in response to someone complaining it is in decline. So if it is in decline cash and bodies does not seem to be the solution.
Pretty sure Derby was younger than Aberdeen, and Derby was the incumbent PM.
Aside from banning it would fuck up some takeover models.
Now bills might have to rise for customers under newco or nationalisation but that's a seperate issue.
Some of that demand is good (new stuff like cancer treatments!) other parts very bad (record child obesity is going to smash the NHS in the next 50 years).
Ultimately it's a political choice. The NHS would be in a much better place if it refused to care for people with a BMI over 30, over the age of 80, anyone with drink or alcohol problems, or to treat mental health issues. But that wouldn't be much of a vote winner.
The issue is that the usage of the money is poor. Five minutes of conversation with medics tells you this. The NHS is a system of queues - the stop start performance observed is an OR classic of a poorly designed system with massive blockages and bottlenecks.
Much as I dislike London, no Londoner deserves having to see those two naked.
We have an NHS surcharge already but infrastructure is if anything more important and more sensitive to population changes.
If people are paying for infrastructure and the infrastructure is getting built then what's the problem?
The company has the liquidity to continue trading for a good year, in any event.
It's likely insolvent going forward, as it's so loaded with debt that it's not a viable business. The owners are effectively asking for their losses to be carried by their customers.
As most of them are overseas, and bailout is just foreign aid to wealthy countries. And customers don't even get to vote for it.
This an argument which the investors in the business must not be allowed to win. It's obnoxious on its face; it would also set an appalling precedent.
I really think we need to look at whether all debt interest should be tax deductible. Of course we don't want to do anything to make investment more difficult but this asset stripping and debt funding is taking the piss and seems to have very little to do with actual investment.
Biden 41%
Supreme Court 37%
Congress 11%
EDIT: This is something that will be on Starmer's plate, early on.
(In the fjord that Grytviken sits at the head of, sonar shows there is a huge mound in the middle. All whale bones....)
Let's see what happens over the next few weeks before we call for their heads.
If that's happened, there's nothing wrong with them being paid at all.
If it's not, and there's a loophole in the law, that needs fixing.
The current owners are trying to pretend that they add value to that process, and deserve a greater increase to bail them out.
They don't.
A major failure of such a bond would have undesirable consequences and, once again, might make it harder for companies to raise new capital for investment. I don't think we have any choice here but it is not a free hit by any means.
Nothing, literally nothing, should ever be considered too big to fail.
Bailing out the Banks was a horrendous and unnecessary mistake. They should have been allowed to fail while protecting and continuing operations which can happen even for failed businesses.
Even Lehman Bros still had continuing operations as of a couple of years ago. The idea that failure equals the suspension of all operations is a complete and utter myth.
Gubbins ordered the man transferred that afternoon on the grounds that nobody in that unit could be indispensable.
The banks went bust and all unprotected account holders took a haircut, as they should.
If you've invested in a slightly higher paying gilt that's your problem, nobody else's.
Tough shit, there is a bloody good reason it was higher paying, you had higher risk and if the risk happens well that's what you were getting paid extra for, choosing to own the consequences of that risk.
For those who don't know - the remains of Lehman Bros is gently managing the remaining liabilities and assets until they are all gone. Since some of them have a lifespan of decades, this will take some time.
I would argue that while Chapter 11 has its own problems - it can be used as financial engineering to drop debt - it is fundamentally a good idea. Which we should look at in the UK.
Which is a nice story but also highlights the problem. The question is not whether Thames has retained profits from 1989 but what happened to the capital base of this company during the era of free money. And it was largely cleaned out.
But what we're talking about is dispossessing the current owners because of their debts. That's their failure; Thames will carry on providing water to its customers.
Similarly with RBS - they were too big to fail, as a bank.
But there was no good reason to bail out bondholders and shareholders.
The company does need a significant rise in investment for its dodgy infrastructure (another legacy of poor management), but that should not be confused and conflated with its financial problems - which is what the owners are trying to do.
The government should be building affordable semis, terraces, flats and apartments to rent. Nationalise affordable housing and employ trades, have apprenticeships and construction capability owned by the government that delivers affordable, quality housing for the population. It might even help to bring house prices down.
Don't contract it out. It'll just go way over budget and under deliver.
It'll kill private landlords, but tough.
Some things just need to be nationalised.
That ship long since sailed.
So it is possible to respond to any signs of a fall in prices with a sellers strike.
This is a problem that is straight out of Adam Smith.
Note the nonsense that is trotted out to justify this -
- More efficient to have single builders build whole estates.
- Much easier for local government to deal with
- etc
https://propertyupdate.com.au/the-latest-median-property-prices-in-australias-major-cities/
https://au.talent.com/salary?job=full+time#:~:text=The average full time salary in Australia is $73,768 per,up to $116,077 per year.
Our planning system hands power to large developers who can play the system, while protecting them from competition. Its the worst of all worlds.
Solve the problem at source, eliminate the planning system, eliminate "consent" and move to zoning whereby if land is zoned for construction it can be developed by their owners, no ifs, buts or equivocations - no planning necessary.
Also resolve the tax system by replacing our current taxes with a land value tax that taxes land the same whether its developed or undeveloped. Anyone who "land banks" is then paying the full whack of tax up front immediately from day one, not years down the line.
Give selected local authorities targeted planning powers to acquire land for building, without having to pay planning gain.
You could build a couple of million homes, below current market prices, within the decade, if you really went for it from day one.
There would be howls of outrage from the big housebuilders, and the land owners concerned - but you could sweeten the pill for the latter by paying double the value of their land (as opposed to the 50X plus windfall they might currently get with planning gain).
England's has changed significantly.
Why that is the case, is a whole different discussion.
But they say Charismatic Superman Keir will beat a gap of more than 10 years and win a landslide. He must be eating 4 Weetabix for breakfast every day or something.
Your solution might have worked under the last decade of Conservative government, but if they didn't adopt it, the chances of Labour doing so are zero.
I'm proposing what might realistically work, not what I might want in my ideal world.
2. The population at large won't stand for free-for-all planning. You cannot implement a major policy change that not only doesn't have broad support, has vehement and widespread opposition. Get real for once.
Imagine the absolute scenes if Rishi were to introduce negative gearing and halve cap gains on investment property.
2. Why not?
There was widespread opposition to gay marriage when I was arguing for it twenty years ago.
You don't win change by giving up and surrendering, you make change by winning the argument. The idea that ever-rising house prices is an unalloyed good thing has been revealed to be wrong by almost all now, but it was a big argument that had vehement and widespread opposition previously.
The opposition needs to be either won around via debate, or defeated and outvoted. Not surrendered to.
Concern around immigration in topic polling tends to be driven by the amount politicians are talking about immigration, I suggest.
Is lack of infrastructure was the problem, you’d expect anti-immigration polling to be higher in areas of high immigration and high housing costs, like London. But it isn’t.
As Ben said, get real.
the comparison with gay marriage is otiose.
I know capitalism is the only game in town, but events like Thames Water prove time and again that our current form of capitalism just ain't working for the little guy.
Some things just need to be nationalised....
PS, you might want to edit your 'psot'.
This together with moneylenders being allowed to lend so much, combined with many punters wanting to get the biggest possible loans, is why residential property prices are sky high.
Get rid of planning permission and prices would fall by about 95%. There are places where a house on a tiny plot costs say £1m but if you were allowed you could build a house of similar or better quality for £50K.
Insurers also do very nicely out of high house prices, which are actually high land prices, which are built on thin air.
It's as Marx said: M → M'.
Plus, remember until 1868 it was the exception rather than the norm for governments to change directly as a result of a general election, and the following forty years were dominated by just three politicians. So really you're taking 1918 as your base.
So I'm not entirely surprised you're struggling and I wouldn't read too much into it.
NB, the Green vote was only 2.6% last time, and I would be surprised if it exceeds 4%, which will nevertheless look like a very large increase on last time in most seats.
Rishi Sunak: I inherited ‘worst hospital pass’ for a new PM in decades
https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/rishi-sunak-i-inherited-worst-hospital-pass-for-a-new-pm-in-decades/
Where have you been since 2015 ?
I don't think most people have particularly nuanced views on this. They see the rent go up - white Tory landlord. They see interest rates go through the roof? Bloody Tory government.
Today, very little immigration is from the Middle East. There is more from Pakistan, although India, Nigeria and China are above Pakistan in the recent numbers. If we look more broadly at the immigrant population in the UK, whenever they arrived, the biggest countries of origin are: Poland, India, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Portugal and Spain. And then Pakistan. In terms of the Middle East, you have to go down to the country in 30th, Türkiye, and then Iran is 35th.
So, with very little immigration from the Middle East, it seems unlikely that your explanation that people are concerned with the “extremist culture” of immigrants from the Middle East is correct. There is more immigration from Pakistan (I don’t know how we’d differentiate between rural and urban Pakistan), but the numbers are still comparatively low compared to Eastern Europe, Ireland, Western Europe etc. Numbers from Pakistan have increased since Brexit, but concerns about immigration are lower since Brexit.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1773289122100023688