Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
I think Wokery, turbocharged by social media, is driving misogyny amongst boys and misandry amongst girls. Just look at that stupid poll on young women preferring to be with a bear than a man in a forest upthread.
Identity politics must end.
Its not remotely stupid that women feel safer with a bear than a strange man. Maybe you should stop moaning about identity politics and actually listen women and their concerns instead.
I heard this from my wife long before I heard it on this site, and she said bear too. The context given was that it was a stranger not a man you know in case that makes a difference to you.
A bear is likely to leave you alone. Far fewer women are attacked by bears than men. Instead of moaning about identity politics, how about we deal with the predators that make so many women feel unsafe - and those predators are not bears!
Sorry but the bit in bold is really quite a stupid comment when arguing that women feel safer with bears than a strange man.
Of course fewer women are attacked by bears - very, very few women come into contact with bears in their lifetime yet alone on a daily basis. If women came into contact with men as infrequently as they come into contact with a bear then violence against women by men might have similar or lower levels.
What proportion of random men attack random women in relation to the number of encounters compared to the number of bear attacks on random women.
Also bears are not “not attacking” women because bears are kinder to women - they don’t discriminate because you are a woman - if you “threaten” their cubs you are toast regardless of what you identify as.
Actually in Canada and America there are many women in the same forest as a bear every single day.
They don't encounter them much though because bears will leave people alone and vice-versa.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
The obvious is to go back to conservatism- sound finances, work and reward, home ownership. The problem is that all of these things are against what their owners want (as they profit from the reverse) and against what their remaining 7 voters have been gaslit to want.
We will instead see them flirting with whipping the flames of anger to pick up the angry young man vote because no girl wants to shag their abusive if ignorant ass.
Thats a bit like saying you should stick with sandals and muesli.
Currently all the political parties are struggling to engage with the electorate. It might be that the electorate is now too is now too splintered for FPTP to be able to deliver an effective government or it may be that the politicians need to get their act together and start delivering what they promised. Problem is of course they always over promise to get elected.
Do they, always ? You were complaining before the election that Labour hadn't promised anything.
Im referring to future elections.
Labour's say nothing policy will come to bit them in the arse over the next couple of years,
So it’s a problem when politicians over promise, and a say-nothing approach “will come to bit[e] them in the arse”. So, what exactly are politicians meant to say?
The problem isn’t because politicians say nothing. It’s when they do nothing. The politicians that did plenty, such as Attlee and Thatcher are the ones we remember.
The UK has significant health inequality, with a life expectancy gap of 20 years or so.
As health is positively correlated with wealth and opportunity this suggests that , at least historical, conservative voters lived longer than Labour voters.
To what extent has this been factored into to the tables in the header, and voting age statistics in general?
Has sly, sleepy Joe played a blinder? I referred to a US Dem fundraiser a couple of weeks ago saying that they would be wise to wait until Trump had chosen a running mate before making any decisions. Hard to see what Vance is now bringing to the party (as it were).
Hilarious that Trump is demanding compensation for all his spending on Biden hate material. As a (cheating) golfer, DJT should understand the concept of an air shot.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
That kind of comment is likely to go down badly . If Vance thinks trashing women who either choose not to have kids or can’t have them is a vote winner then he really is deluded .
Wasn't it female voters who won it for Biden last time? I know he increased the Democrat share among white men, which was likely important too, but I seem to recall the gender gap was pretty large still.
IIRC, the number of women now reaching the age of 45 without kids is about 25%. More pertinently, the number of these who have chosen not to have kids is about 3%. That we have contrived to arrange society thus is one of history's biggest failures.
A rather horrible cooperation between the Conservative Party (stop paying poor people to have children!) and boomers (give me money, not my children!) led to an outcome neither side wanted. In fairness to them, the extended childhood ushered in by New Labour (everybody must go to University!) didn't help either.
I don't necessarily deny this (though I don't think we should be paying anyone to have children, we should be creating the economic and societal conditions where it is not prohibitively expensive to do so) - but this isn't just a British phenomenon; it appears to be common to the whole of the developed world (and also Russia). It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
The obvious is to go back to conservatism- sound finances, work and reward, home ownership. The problem is that all of these things are against what their owners want (as they profit from the reverse) and against what their remaining 7 voters have been gaslit to want.
We will instead see them flirting with whipping the flames of anger to pick up the angry young man vote because no girl wants to shag their abusive if ignorant ass.
Thats a bit like saying you should stick with sandals and muesli.
Currently all the political parties are struggling to engage with the electorate. It might be that the electorate is now too is now too splintered for FPTP to be able to deliver an effective government or it may be that the politicians need to get their act together and start delivering what they promised. Problem is of course they always over promise to get elected.
Do they, always ? You were complaining before the election that Labour hadn't promised anything.
Im referring to future elections.
Labour's say nothing policy will come to bit them in the arse over the next couple of years,
So it’s a problem when politicians over promise, and a say-nothing approach “will come to bit[e] them in the arse”. So, what exactly are politicians meant to say?
My personal view is that policticians should recognise they cant do half the things they say they can. The so called third way doesnt work. It would be better to roll back what the state seeks to deliver to a core of essentials and do them well. And while we're at it it would be best to decentralise large amounts of government to the local level. Citizens are best left to manage their own lives.
Our politicians have allowed themselves to think they can solve every problem - they cant. They should be looking at creating the conditions for citizens to succeed rather than pretending they can deliver success for all.
So, you want them to deliver your preferred policy solutions. This isn’t about over-promising or a say-nothing approach at all, in other words.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
It certainly has the potential to be Brown Mk II.
Who will bail these schemes out ? People,pay into pensions for 40 plus years. Cannot access the money. Govts come and go and change the rules in a whim whenever they like. It’s our money not theirs.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Mr. eek, could be. Shifting Lawson all the way there would be quite the move. They seem to dislike Tsunoda (perhaps still think he's a bit hotheaded, which is ironic considering Verstappen's radio last time).
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
That kind of comment is likely to go down badly . If Vance thinks trashing women who either choose not to have kids or can’t have them is a vote winner then he really is deluded .
Wasn't it female voters who won it for Biden last time? I know he increased the Democrat share among white men, which was likely important too, but I seem to recall the gender gap was pretty large still.
IIRC, the number of women now reaching the age of 45 without kids is about 25%. More pertinently, the number of these who have chosen not to have kids is about 3%. That we have contrived to arrange society thus is one of history's biggest failures.
A rather horrible cooperation between the Conservative Party (stop paying poor people to have children!) and boomers (give me money, not my children!) led to an outcome neither side wanted. In fairness to them, the extended childhood ushered in by New Labour (everybody must go to University!) didn't help either.
I don't necessarily deny this (though I don't think we should be paying anyone to have children, we should be creating the economic and societal conditions where it is not prohibitively expensive to do so) - but this isn't just a British phenomenon; it appears to be common to the whole of the developed world (and also Russia). It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
Isn’t France at least a partial exception to this rule?
Though on checking France’s birth rate is declining, just not as much as obvious comparators.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
The bear thing is an interesting and effective way for women to express how they feel around men.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
Mr. eek, could be. Shifting Lawson all the way there would be quite the move. They seem to dislike Tsunoda (perhaps still think he's a bit hotheaded, which is ironic considering Verstappen's radio last time).
Lawson would be too early - he needs time in F1 to get used to how different it is to F2.
And the dislike of Tsunoda which has been mentioned multiple times in the past means he is unlikely to be the option...
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
"To lose one cat-lady vote, Mr. Carlson, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"
I posted a stat on that.
Single cat ladies as % of the vote in US cities.
9.9% Portland, Oregon 9.3% Seattle, Washington 8.7% Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 8.4% Kansas City, Missouri 8.3% Denver, Colorado 8.2% Albuquerque, New Mexico 7.7% Minneapolis, Minnesota 7.7% Harrisburg, Virginia 7.5% Tampa, Florida 7.5% Columbus, Ohio https://wkfr.com/columbus-single-cat-ladies/
In numbers it is a big survey, but I don't think they are in the BPC.
The bear thing is an interesting and effective way for women to express how they feel around men.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
Its a dumb way to express how they feel - we have no shortage of ways to express it - which provoked a dumb reaction, which makes the whole thing absurd and diminishes the very real point about why women feel that way.
So it's not effective in the least, the dumb reaction is part of why it is not effective.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
Young people nowadays are quite conservative in many ways with a small c. There is a future for the party once they get past the howling at the modern world stage, which will probably take 5-10 years. I suspect the cross section of environment and technology will be the area that a well delivered conservative message could resonate with younger generations. It is what they should have done ten years ago.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
The bear thing is an interesting and effective way for women to express how they feel around men.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
Its a dumb way to express how they feel - we have no shortage of ways to express it - which provoked a dumb reaction, which makes the whole thing absurd and diminishes the very real point about why women feel that way.
So it's not effective in the least, the dumb reaction is part of why it is not effective.
Still, some of the men spotted the logic behind the original response.
Bears would help with Scotland's deer problem. And indeed men problem if released on the Cowgate around 2am on a Saturday.
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
Instance of man-bear behaviour, it’s just not cricket. Handy hint, it wasn’t Man U fans verbally and physically attacking the hapless cricketers. Total weirdos.
Bears would help with Scotland's deer problem. And indeed men problem if released on the Cowgate around 2am on a Saturday.
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
And its sheep problem
More hunting would help Scotland's deer problem, and improve use of food resources.
But the Greens, and some others, would have one of their political fits.
It's the hunters themselves that limit the use of hunting, cooperative population control agreements, etc., [edit] though. The big estates like to keep up the deer population. Rather like Tories and house prices.
The bear thing is an interesting and effective way for women to express how they feel around men.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
Its a dumb way to express how they feel - we have no shortage of ways to express it - which provoked a dumb reaction, which makes the whole thing absurd and diminishes the very real point about why women feel that way.
So it's not effective in the least, the dumb reaction is part of why it is not effective.
Still, some of the men spotted the logic behind the original response.
The original use of the bear analogy to show how unsafe women could be with strange men was a good shorthand - it’s when people seem to think that it’s actually a genuinely scientific or statistical argument that it’s problematic.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Bears would help with Scotland's deer problem. And indeed men problem if released on the Cowgate around 2am on a Saturday.
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
Instance of man-bear behaviour, it’s just not cricket. Handy hint, it wasn’t Man U fans verbally and physically attacking the hapless cricketers. Total weirdos.
Bears would help with Scotland's deer problem. And indeed men problem if released on the Cowgate around 2am on a Saturday.
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
And its sheep problem
More hunting would help Scotland's deer problem, and improve use of food resources.
But the Greens, and some others, would have one of their political fits.
Quite. The RSPB are energetic venison provisioners, as is the Danish bloke rewinding Glen Feshie. Nothing like eating a sandwich on top of a Munro with gentle pops of gunfire echoing up the glen.
The irony is that wolves/bears would have to kill far fewer deer than we do at the moment. It's mainly predator stress rather than predation that suppresses the population.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
Bears would help with Scotland's deer problem. And indeed men problem if released on the Cowgate around 2am on a Saturday.
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
Instance of man-bear behaviour, it’s just not cricket. Handy hint, it wasn’t Man U fans verbally and physically attacking the hapless cricketers. Total weirdos.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
It's a sort of extension of Hunt's British ISA idea. Combines that and the old New! Labour idea of £250 for kids when they're born. I think the money should be doing... something and not just spending money. But I'm also not sure it needs to go straight to the magnificent seven either, keeping it in UK equities helps UK businesses too.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
That kind of comment is likely to go down badly . If Vance thinks trashing women who either choose not to have kids or can’t have them is a vote winner then he really is deluded .
Wasn't it female voters who won it for Biden last time? I know he increased the Democrat share among white men, which was likely important too, but I seem to recall the gender gap was pretty large still.
IIRC, the number of women now reaching the age of 45 without kids is about 25%. More pertinently, the number of these who have chosen not to have kids is about 3%. That we have contrived to arrange society thus is one of history's biggest failures.
A rather horrible cooperation between the Conservative Party (stop paying poor people to have children!) and boomers (give me money, not my children!) led to an outcome neither side wanted. In fairness to them, the extended childhood ushered in by New Labour (everybody must go to University!) didn't help either.
I don't necessarily deny this (though I don't think we should be paying anyone to have children, we should be creating the economic and societal conditions where it is not prohibitively expensive to do so) - but this isn't just a British phenomenon; it appears to be common to the whole of the developed world (and also Russia). It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
That's fair, @Cookie. It is true that the Conservatives did not fix the problem (and arguably made it worse), but it is also true that they did not cause it. I'm going to split my answer into two parts. This is part 1: an AI summary of Zeihan's explanation.
Part 1: Zeihan on Demography: the basics In this episode Peter Zeihan explains the importance of population structures in shaping economies and countries' success.
The traditional pyramid demographic model has a large young population at the bottom and few retirees at the top, leading to inflationary economic activity. However, due to decreased child mortality and increased lifespans, many countries now have a chimney-shaped demographic structure with a balanced distribution of age groups, resulting in controlled inflation and a balanced economy.
He also highlights the emerging trend of an inverted pyramid demographic model, where there are more people in older age groups than younger ones. This leads to a decline in consumption and a surplus of capital, requiring countries to focus on exports. This shift has been observed in Europe and Asia since 2000, impacting global trade relations.
He then categorizes countries based on their demographic structures, from pyramid-shaped (Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa) to chimney-shaped (India, United States) to inverted pyramid-shaped (Germany, Italy). He warns that countries with an aging population and declining birth rates will have problems in the coming decade, as the workforce moves into retirement with insufficient younger generations to support consumption and production.
To address this issue, countries can either increase their birth rates or implement large-scale immigration policies to bolster their populations. However, once a country's demographic structure has inverted, it's difficult to reverse the trend.
He ends by saying that to fix all this you should have started thirty years ago, and in the next episode he discusses Canada as a country that did exactly that through immigration policies.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
Bears would help with Scotland's deer problem. And indeed men problem if released on the Cowgate around 2am on a Saturday.
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
Instance of man-bear behaviour, it’s just not cricket. Handy hint, it wasn’t Man U fans verbally and physically attacking the hapless cricketers. Total weirdos.
Mr. viewcode, it's ironic how demographics are a problem for so many countries, in multiple directions. Egypt's got too many people, and too many kids. If they and South Korea could swap rates of childbirth for a decade or two they'd both be better off.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Unlike my newborn £500 FTSE250 idea I think local gov't pensions should probably be invested the same way people in the private sector invest theirs.
Local Government Pension Scheme is not a money purchase scheme it is a career-average defined benefits scheme - where the scheme money is invested is immaterial to the individual's pension on retirement. Pension scheme trustees tend to very very much on the cautious side - with actuarial input paramount - when deciding where scheme funds are invested to keep the ship afloat.
The bear thing is an interesting and effective way for women to express how they feel around men.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
Its a dumb way to express how they feel - we have no shortage of ways to express it - which provoked a dumb reaction, which makes the whole thing absurd and diminishes the very real point about why women feel that way.
So it's not effective in the least, the dumb reaction is part of why it is not effective.
Still, some of the men spotted the logic behind the original response.
The original use of the bear analogy to show how unsafe women could be with strange men was a good shorthand - it’s when people seem to think that it’s actually a genuinely scientific or statistical argument that it’s problematic.
A few years back I was chatting to a female friend about running. I said I often went running early in the morning, before dawn. She said that she dare not do that, and she felt the local roads were unsafe in the dark. I've heard similar comments from another local woman. We do not live in a particularly 'bad' area.
I've never felt that way, and I think it's sad that so many women do feel that way.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Unlike my newborn £500 FTSE250 idea I think local gov't pensions should probably be invested the same way people in the private sector invest theirs.
Local Government Pension Scheme is not a money purchase scheme it is a career-average defined benefits scheme - where the scheme money is invested is immaterial to the individual's pension on retirement. Pension scheme trustees tend to very very much on the cautious side - with actuarial input paramount - when deciding where scheme funds are invested to keep the ship afloat.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
NI covers unemployment benefit, pensions, health and social care.
Employee NI really should be split in 2 and the health / social care parts paid by everyone including pensioners.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
It's a sort of extension of Hunt's British ISA idea. Combines that and the old New! Labour idea of £250 for kids when they're born. I think the money should be doing... something and not just spending money. But I'm also not sure it needs to go straight to the magnificent seven either, keeping it in UK equities helps UK businesses too.
How does investing it in UK equities provide money to the industries?
The money, under your plan (which is the same as the British ISA), would buy shares in listed companies.
You, as with people who advocate green investments, seem to think that this money goes to the listed company. It doesn't - the money goes to the person/people who are selling the shares to the new buyer.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
You don't keep paying for life insurance after death. NI is reaching pension age insurance
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
It's not that sort of insurance either, so that argument doesn't work! In any case, your cover and payment arise from *previous* payments. The payment in NI/SP arises in the *future*.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
NI covers unemployment benefit, pensions, health and social care.
Employee NI really should be split in 2 and the health / social care parts paid by everyone including pensioners.
It shouldn't be split at all, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers.
Yes the taxpayer pays unemployment benefit to those working and pensioners won't benefit from that. But then working taxpayers pay for many, many, many more benefits to pensioners they don't benefit from. Its swings and roundabouts.
Net those working for a living still lose out, if you wanted to make everything personal and privatised then that would harm pensioners more than workers.
The bear thing is an interesting and effective way for women to express how they feel around men.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
Its a dumb way to express how they feel - we have no shortage of ways to express it - which provoked a dumb reaction, which makes the whole thing absurd and diminishes the very real point about why women feel that way.
So it's not effective in the least, the dumb reaction is part of why it is not effective.
Still, some of the men spotted the logic behind the original response.
The original use of the bear analogy to show how unsafe women could be with strange men was a good shorthand - it’s when people seem to think that it’s actually a genuinely scientific or statistical argument that it’s problematic.
A few years back I was chatting to a female friend about running. I said I often went running early in the morning, before dawn. She said that she dare not do that, and she felt the local roads were unsafe in the dark. I've heard similar comments from another local woman. We do not live in a particularly 'bad' area.
I've never felt that way, and I think it's sad that so many women do feel that way.
This is also a reason why some women won't use off-road cycle paths on their commutes during the winter. Never occured to me that this would be a big benefit of on-street provision.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Unlike my newborn £500 FTSE250 idea I think local gov't pensions should probably be invested the same way people in the private sector invest theirs.
Local Government Pension Scheme is not a money purchase scheme it is a career-average defined benefits scheme - where the scheme money is invested is immaterial to the individual's pension on retirement. Pension scheme trustees tend to very very much on the cautious side - with actuarial input paramount - when deciding where scheme funds are invested to keep the ship afloat.
Sounds like it loses money long term to me.
Well yes - which is a feature of the unsustainability of DB schemes and part of the reason why some were changed from final salary to career average salary.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
It's not that sort of insurance either, so that argument doesn't work! In any case, your cover and payment arise from *previous* payments. The payment in NI/SP arises in the *future*.
And don't blame me - blame HMG.
But its not that either. The idea its paying to gain anything back is a complete lie. If you've maxed out your NI payments while working you can face another 20 years of making payments with absolutely no gain from it.
Why should someone 55 who is working every day for a living who has maxed their payments already still be liable for the tax, but someone who is 65 who is not working for their income should be exempt from the tax?
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
NI covers unemployment benefit, pensions, health and social care.
Employee NI really should be split in 2 and the health / social care parts paid by everyone including pensioners.
It shouldn't be split at all, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers.
Yes the taxpayer pays unemployment benefit to those working and pensioners won't benefit from that. But then working taxpayers pay for many, many, many more benefits to pensioners they don't benefit from. Its swings and roundabouts.
Net those working for a living still lose out, if you wanted to make everything personal and privatised then that would harm pensioners more than workers.
That's an argument that you can lose.
Split it into 2, 3% for unemployment benefit / pension, 5% for social care that everyone pays. People would then argue over percentages but not the general idea and the 5% health / social care part can be increased to the appropriate level (which is probably 7-9%)..
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
And Reeves should tell those people that all investments can go down as well as up.
"Young people nowadays are quite conservative in many ways with a small c."
Only in the sense that all humans are at all times. Relative to previous times, young people are less keen on having families and are less inclined towards traditional forms of religion. These would seem to be the two most core characteristics of conservatism.
F1: slight shift in Constructors' title odds, McLaren nudge down to 1.73, Red Bull out to 2.
Not sure who'll replace Perez (probably after Spa). It also might not make a difference if the car is the third best on the grid.
The sensible answer is Ricciardo, he likes a pointy car as does Max, and is the most experienced option available, who knows how to win races. The team don’t particularly rate Tsunoda (he’s really a Honda driver rather than an RB driver, so will go elsewhere in 2026 anyway), and Lawson would be yet another waste of a good rookie driver going into that seat. The only other option would be to try and wrangle Sainz from Ferrari, which is unlikely midseason.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
That kind of comment is likely to go down badly . If Vance thinks trashing women who either choose not to have kids or can’t have them is a vote winner then he really is deluded .
Wasn't it female voters who won it for Biden last time? I know he increased the Democrat share among white men, which was likely important too, but I seem to recall the gender gap was pretty large still.
IIRC, the number of women now reaching the age of 45 without kids is about 25%. More pertinently, the number of these who have chosen not to have kids is about 3%. That we have contrived to arrange society thus is one of history's biggest failures.
A rather horrible cooperation between the Conservative Party (stop paying poor people to have children!) and boomers (give me money, not my children!) led to an outcome neither side wanted. In fairness to them, the extended childhood ushered in by New Labour (everybody must go to University!) didn't help either.
I don't necessarily deny this (though I don't think we should be paying anyone to have children, we should be creating the economic and societal conditions where it is not prohibitively expensive to do so) - but this isn't just a British phenomenon; it appears to be common to the whole of the developed world (and also Russia). It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
That's fair, @Cookie. It is true that the Conservatives did not fix the problem (and arguably made it worse), but it is also true that they did not cause it. I'm going to split my answer into two parts. This is part 1: an AI summary of Zeihan's explanation.
Part 1: Zeihan on Demography: the basics In this episode Peter Zeihan explains the importance of population structures in shaping economies and countries' success.
The traditional pyramid demographic model has a large young population at the bottom and few retirees at the top, leading to inflationary economic activity. However, due to decreased child mortality and increased lifespans, many countries now have a chimney-shaped demographic structure with a balanced distribution of age groups, resulting in controlled inflation and a balanced economy.
He also highlights the emerging trend of an inverted pyramid demographic model, where there are more people in older age groups than younger ones. This leads to a decline in consumption and a surplus of capital, requiring countries to focus on exports. This shift has been observed in Europe and Asia since 2000, impacting global trade relations.
He then categorizes countries based on their demographic structures, from pyramid-shaped (Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa) to chimney-shaped (India, United States) to inverted pyramid-shaped (Germany, Italy). He warns that countries with an aging population and declining birth rates will have problems in the coming decade, as the workforce moves into retirement with insufficient younger generations to support consumption and production.
To address this issue, countries can either increase their birth rates or implement large-scale immigration policies to bolster their populations. However, once a country's demographic structure has inverted, it's difficult to reverse the trend.
He ends by saying that to fix all this you should have started thirty years ago, and in the next episode he discusses Canada as a country that did exactly that through immigration policies.
This is part 2: me picking out the salient points
Part 2: Viewcode's tenpennyworth
Urbanisation. People moved from the country to the cities. In the country you can have a farm and children are a boon because they can work. In the cities children are expensive furniture that break things
Birth control. If you can control your reproductive cycle you can put off having children until it's convenient. But it never is...
Juvenilization of adults. By continually pushing the age of agency up, people are now not starting families until their mid twenties or even thirties or forties. That's too late. This has been exacerbated in the UK by pensionerism as older people treat their grandchildren as children.
Longer life spans. Old people use up resources and must be looked after, which reduces the amount of time and resources you have to make and look after babies.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
And Reeves should tell those people that all investments can go down as well as up.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
It's a sort of extension of Hunt's British ISA idea. Combines that and the old New! Labour idea of £250 for kids when they're born. I think the money should be doing... something and not just spending money. But I'm also not sure it needs to go straight to the magnificent seven either, keeping it in UK equities helps UK businesses too.
How does investing it in UK equities provide money to the industries?
The money, under your plan (which is the same as the British ISA), would buy shares in listed companies.
You, as with people who advocate green investments, seem to think that this money goes to the listed company. It doesn't - the money goes to the person/people who are selling the shares to the new buyer.
Car manufacturers benefit from a healthy second hand market despite only selling new. A healthy stock market creates conditions for issuing new shares and for new companies to come to market, in both cases providing funds to the company
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
You don't keep paying for life insurance after death. NI is reaching pension age insurance
Assurance more correctly, perhaps. And when my dad became old his life assurance firm wrote to him and said forget any further payments, you're maxed out.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
"To lose one cat-lady vote, Mr. Carlson, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"
I posted a stat on that.
Single cat ladies as % of the vote in US cities.
9.9% Portland, Oregon 9.3% Seattle, Washington 8.7% Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 8.4% Kansas City, Missouri 8.3% Denver, Colorado 8.2% Albuquerque, New Mexico 7.7% Minneapolis, Minnesota 7.7% Harrisburg, Virginia 7.5% Tampa, Florida 7.5% Columbus, Ohio https://wkfr.com/columbus-single-cat-ladies/
In numbers it is a big survey, but I don't think they are in the BPC.
It has definitely touched a nerve.
These men are terrified because they know that cat ladies are perfect for the job, as we are used to dealing with little assholes who don't do shit but want to be treated like kings https://x.com/clareblackwood/status/1815459110508523712
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
I think she has more sense than that. It will be a test.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
I've bought shares in AIM companies in the past (small amounts) and lost all my money on most of them. These are risky investments. There are IHT benefits to investing which is a big incentive (but only if they don't go bust or delist!).
I don't think Pulpstar (or Hunt with his ludicrous British ISA idea) means for the taxpayer gifts to be invested in AIM shares - at least I hope not.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
This is Gordon Brown on pensions all over again, isn’t it?
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
One idea I thought of was for the gov't to bring back the child trust fund idea but put the say £500 (Was £250 but ... inflation !) from the Gov't into say UK small caps. Gives investment from the Gov't straight to British industry whilst securing a small fund/pension for kids to get them into the savings habit early. The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Good plan. Ftse250 tracker.
Why is this a good plan?
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
It's a sort of extension of Hunt's British ISA idea. Combines that and the old New! Labour idea of £250 for kids when they're born. I think the money should be doing... something and not just spending money. But I'm also not sure it needs to go straight to the magnificent seven either, keeping it in UK equities helps UK businesses too.
How does investing it in UK equities provide money to the industries?
The money, under your plan (which is the same as the British ISA), would buy shares in listed companies.
You, as with people who advocate green investments, seem to think that this money goes to the listed company. It doesn't - the money goes to the person/people who are selling the shares to the new buyer.
Car manufacturers benefit from a healthy second hand market despite only selling new. A healthy stock market creates conditions for issuing new shares and for new companies to come to market, in both cases providing funds to the company
Yes of course but we already have that - £500 child bungs into listed companies changes nothing.
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
I think she has more sense than that. It will be a test.
Just seems bonkers that a municipal pension fund would so apparently undiversified as this Canadian one is.
Biden says 20x that he’s not dropping out and that he won’t be pushed out by party elites.
He gets COVID.
Goes out of sight for a few days.
His campaign co-chair says emphatically that Joe is NOT leaving the race. Period.
A few hours later his X account posts that he IS leaving the race via a screenshot document with absolutely no proof that he’s behind it.
Joe Biden’s campaign aides and staff say that they found out via @X, not from the Biden’s.
24 hours later, Joe still hasn’t shown his face to confirm that it’s his statement but Kamala secured enough delegates to be the nominee within those 24 hours since his post.
@JoeBiden’s@X account now has a Kamala ad as his profile header, their campaign HQ has been redone to eliminate Biden name.
Kamala holds a small event where she begins to say that he’s on a "recor…." Then says "phone" and we hear a strange back and forth that feels totally unnatural. All of this is via phone like we’re living in the 1940’s glued to the radio for news. No visual is shown of him.”
The UK has significant health inequality, with a life expectancy gap of 20 years or so.
As health is positively correlated with wealth and opportunity this suggests that , at least historical, conservative voters lived longer than Labour voters.
To what extent has this been factored into to the tables in the header, and voting age statistics in general?
I do not recall any analysis about this?
There was an article over the week that the life expectancy round here differs by 13 years depending on ward.
The TwiX rumours are superbly wild. Some claim he’s already dead
Some in the MSM are literally wetting their knickers with excitement about Harris.
There’s a video of her dancing, badly, with children which has got many very very excited. Slightly embarrassing.
It is quite strange that we haven’t seen Biden at all
PBers will know that I am deeply averse to hyperbole and hate conspiracy theories, but I don’t think it’s too far fetched to believe that he was *pressured* to quit
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
"To lose one cat-lady vote, Mr. Carlson, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"
I posted a stat on that.
Single cat ladies as % of the vote in US cities.
9.9% Portland, Oregon 9.3% Seattle, Washington 8.7% Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 8.4% Kansas City, Missouri 8.3% Denver, Colorado 8.2% Albuquerque, New Mexico 7.7% Minneapolis, Minnesota 7.7% Harrisburg, Virginia 7.5% Tampa, Florida 7.5% Columbus, Ohio https://wkfr.com/columbus-single-cat-ladies/
In numbers it is a big survey, but I don't think they are in the BPC.
Not all heroes wear capes. My hat goes off to you!
Biden says 20x that he’s not dropping out and that he won’t be pushed out by party elites.
He gets COVID.
Goes out of sight for a few days.
His campaign co-chair says emphatically that Joe is NOT leaving the race. Period.
A few hours later his X account posts that he IS leaving the race via a screenshot document with absolutely no proof that he’s behind it.
Joe Biden’s campaign aides and staff say that they found out via @X, not from the Biden’s.
24 hours later, Joe still hasn’t shown his face to confirm that it’s his statement but Kamala secured enough delegates to be the nominee within those 24 hours since his post.
@JoeBiden’s@X account now has a Kamala ad as his profile header, their campaign HQ has been redone to eliminate Biden name.
Kamala holds a small event where she begins to say that he’s on a "recor…." Then says "phone" and we hear a strange back and forth that feels totally unnatural. All of this is via phone like we’re living in the 1940’s glued to the radio for news. No visual is shown of him.”
Just wait till Biden is seen tomorrow at the White House, and all of these Lunatics go from “He is in Hospice and Dying” to “It’s not actually him it’s a Body Double and AI Video.” These Accounts will never ever admit that they were Wrong. https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1815600491805507711
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
That kind of comment is likely to go down badly . If Vance thinks trashing women who either choose not to have kids or can’t have them is a vote winner then he really is deluded .
Wasn't it female voters who won it for Biden last time? I know he increased the Democrat share among white men, which was likely important too, but I seem to recall the gender gap was pretty large still.
IIRC, the number of women now reaching the age of 45 without kids is about 25%. More pertinently, the number of these who have chosen not to have kids is about 3%. That we have contrived to arrange society thus is one of history's biggest failures.
A rather horrible cooperation between the Conservative Party (stop paying poor people to have children!) and boomers (give me money, not my children!) led to an outcome neither side wanted. In fairness to them, the extended childhood ushered in by New Labour (everybody must go to University!) didn't help either.
I don't necessarily deny this (though I don't think we should be paying anyone to have children, we should be creating the economic and societal conditions where it is not prohibitively expensive to do so) - but this isn't just a British phenomenon; it appears to be common to the whole of the developed world (and also Russia). It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
That's fair, @Cookie. It is true that the Conservatives did not fix the problem (and arguably made it worse), but it is also true that they did not cause it. I'm going to split my answer into two parts. This is part 1: an AI summary of Zeihan's explanation.
Part 1: Zeihan on Demography: the basics In this episode Peter Zeihan explains the importance of population structures in shaping economies and countries' success.
The traditional pyramid demographic model has a large young population at the bottom and few retirees at the top, leading to inflationary economic activity. However, due to decreased child mortality and increased lifespans, many countries now have a chimney-shaped demographic structure with a balanced distribution of age groups, resulting in controlled inflation and a balanced economy.
He also highlights the emerging trend of an inverted pyramid demographic model, where there are more people in older age groups than younger ones. This leads to a decline in consumption and a surplus of capital, requiring countries to focus on exports. This shift has been observed in Europe and Asia since 2000, impacting global trade relations.
He then categorizes countries based on their demographic structures, from pyramid-shaped (Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa) to chimney-shaped (India, United States) to inverted pyramid-shaped (Germany, Italy). He warns that countries with an aging population and declining birth rates will have problems in the coming decade, as the workforce moves into retirement with insufficient younger generations to support consumption and production.
To address this issue, countries can either increase their birth rates or implement large-scale immigration policies to bolster their populations. However, once a country's demographic structure has inverted, it's difficult to reverse the trend.
He ends by saying that to fix all this you should have started thirty years ago, and in the next episode he discusses Canada as a country that did exactly that through immigration policies.
This is part 2: me picking out the salient points
Part 2: Viewcode's tenpennyworth
Urbanisation. People moved from the country to the cities. In the country you can have a farm and children are a boon because they can work. In the cities children are expensive furniture that break things
Birth control. If you can control your reproductive cycle you can put off having children until it's convenient. But it never is...
Juvenilization of adults. By continually pushing the age of agency up, people are now not starting families until their mid twenties or even thirties or forties. That's too late. This has been exacerbated in the UK by pensionerism as older people treat their grandchildren as children.
Longer life spans. Old people use up resources and must be looked after, which reduces the amount of time and resources you have to make and look after babies.
I think this misses another important factor: support structures. If a couple live far away from both sets of parents and family, they miss out on a heck of a lot of babysitting and other general help - I know we do. Talking to friends, the lack of these support structures is a significant factor in not having kids, or having them later in life when they are more settled.
Mr. Divvie, it's from a while ago but I do remember hearing France had better demographic stats than most other Western countries. Although not Western, Korea's are bloody awful due to a mix of hyper-competitive educational/occupational sectors (for men and women) and sky high living costs. And women are still expected to do most of the child-rearing.
The large countries in Europe with the better demographic stats are UK and France.
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB .
Having less problems than France does not mean we don't have major problems.
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
But working people don't pay NI on their pensions when in receipt of them.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
NI is just a tax, it should be paid equally by all taxpayers including pensioners.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
So the Waspi women should get full pensions, if we are to break the link between NI and pension entitlement? Good news for some!
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
"To lose one cat-lady vote, Mr. Carlson, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"
I posted a stat on that.
Single cat ladies as % of the vote in US cities.
9.9% Portland, Oregon 9.3% Seattle, Washington 8.7% Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 8.4% Kansas City, Missouri 8.3% Denver, Colorado 8.2% Albuquerque, New Mexico 7.7% Minneapolis, Minnesota 7.7% Harrisburg, Virginia 7.5% Tampa, Florida 7.5% Columbus, Ohio https://wkfr.com/columbus-single-cat-ladies/
In numbers it is a big survey, but I don't think they are in the BPC.
What are the figures for ladies with multiple cats?
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
I think she has more sense than that. It will be a test.
Just seems bonkers that a municipal pension fund would so apparently undiversified as this Canadian one is.
The response to the threat is that the pension fund should have been more thorough in checking out the finances of Thames Water when they bought it fully loaded in debt...
Biden says 20x that he’s not dropping out and that he won’t be pushed out by party elites.
He gets COVID.
Goes out of sight for a few days.
His campaign co-chair says emphatically that Joe is NOT leaving the race. Period.
A few hours later his X account posts that he IS leaving the race via a screenshot document with absolutely no proof that he’s behind it.
Joe Biden’s campaign aides and staff say that they found out via @X, not from the Biden’s.
24 hours later, Joe still hasn’t shown his face to confirm that it’s his statement but Kamala secured enough delegates to be the nominee within those 24 hours since his post.
@JoeBiden’s@X account now has a Kamala ad as his profile header, their campaign HQ has been redone to eliminate Biden name.
Kamala holds a small event where she begins to say that he’s on a "recor…." Then says "phone" and we hear a strange back and forth that feels totally unnatural. All of this is via phone like we’re living in the 1940’s glued to the radio for news. No visual is shown of him.”
Just wait till Biden is seen tomorrow at the White House, and all of these Lunatics go from “He is in Hospice and Dying” to “It’s not actually him it’s a Body Double and AI Video.” These Accounts will never ever admit that they were Wrong. https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1815600491805507711
Can you never just sit back and enjoy a good juicy conspiracy theory? I’m not saying it’s TRUE. I’m saying it’s AMUSING
The thread is quite relevant to me personally as with my health issues I would be delighted to be able to cast my vote in GE29
However, I think it is fair to say the change to renters, rather than home owners, is laying the foundation for very difficult problems as these renters retire with rent still to pay unlike most retiring mortgage free home owners
I do not know the solution and even if the conservative party of the next GE will be unrecognisable to many of us, but there will be a party of the centre right in some form or other
It’s worth emphasising the size of the problem - when you own a house and retire your mortgage is likely paid off so you outgoings relative to when you were previously working will be lower.
That isn’t the case if you are still renting your home. You still need to find the £700-2000 a month to pay the rent. It’s going to be a truly massive problem in 2 decades or so time.
Indeed and of course little inheritance for their families
That isn’t the problem - the question is who is going to be paying that £2000 in rent because I suspect it will very quickly become the state’s problem..
I’ve been flagging this as the next disaster for quite a while.
The quickest cure for a Tory revival amongst younger voters is an unpopular Labour government running a poor economy. For example the only time the Tories have won under 30s in the last 50 years were 1979, 1983 and 2010, 2 of which were elections where that applied and the other of which saw the SDP split the centre left vote
Merging council pensions schemes could unlock a pot of cash to invest in infrastructure/give to middlemen and administrators.
It’s going to happen, isn’t it. Pensions seen by both parties as pots of cash to use. The govt are so good at spending money and investing. Nothing could go wrong.
“A single LGPS with a sophisticated, long-term investment strategy might put up to £40bn into vital infrastructure,” said Tracy Blackwell, chief executive of the PIC. “That could make a big difference to the UK’s economic prospects.”
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
Why on Earth would a state pension fund invest in 32% of a FTSE100 company, rather than investing in global stock markets in general with a small side of picked stocks?
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
You can be sure that there are people in the Canadian government, UK foreign office and City all telling Reeves that a full bailout must be made or Britain wont be seen as a safe place to invest anymore.
I think she has more sense than that. It will be a test.
Just seems bonkers that a municipal pension fund would so apparently undiversified as this Canadian one is.
The response to the threat is that the pension fund should have been more thorough in checking out the finances of Thames Water when they bought it fully loaded in debt...
One of the problems with very large pension funds, and a combined Local Authority Pension fund would fall into that category, is that it becomes very difficult to make a meaningful difference to their fund. If you invest £5m in X and X doubles in value that gain is a rounding error in the fund as a whole. There is less incentive to look for such opportunities and a stronger tendency to follow the indices.
Smaller pension funds are more nimble and can pay more attention to their individual investments. The "efficiency" of having the funds administered as one can easily be lost elsewhere. Really not sure that is a good idea.
The thread is quite relevant to me personally as with my health issues I would be delighted to be able to cast my vote in GE29
However, I think it is fair to say the change to renters, rather than home owners, is laying the foundation for very difficult problems as these renters retire with rent still to pay unlike most retiring mortgage free home owners
I do not know the solution and even if the conservative party of the next GE will be unrecognisable to many of us, but there will be a party of the centre right in some form or other
It’s worth emphasising the size of the problem - when you own a house and retire your mortgage is likely paid off so you outgoings relative to when you were previously working will be lower.
That isn’t the case if you are still renting your home. You still need to find the £700-2000 a month to pay the rent. It’s going to be a truly massive problem in 2 decades or so time.
Indeed and of course little inheritance for their families
That isn’t the problem - the question is who is going to be paying that £2000 in rent because I suspect it will very quickly become the state’s problem..
I’ve been flagging this as the next disaster for quite a while.
Yes, one of the reasons the state really needs to encourage housebuilding and OO is precisely this reason.
Trade your Beshear position for Whitmer ? (I cashed out my VP positions last night, as I can't begin to predict her pick.)
Harris' campaign has requested vetting materials from potential VPs, including Cooper (NC), Kelly (AZ), Shapiro (PA), Whitmer (MI), Walz (MN) + Pritzker (IL), according to a person familiar. Beshear told CNN he hasn't been asked to submit info at this point. https://x.com/KThomasDC/status/1815556874063790575
Biden says 20x that he’s not dropping out and that he won’t be pushed out by party elites.
He gets COVID.
Goes out of sight for a few days.
His campaign co-chair says emphatically that Joe is NOT leaving the race. Period.
A few hours later his X account posts that he IS leaving the race via a screenshot document with absolutely no proof that he’s behind it.
Joe Biden’s campaign aides and staff say that they found out via @X, not from the Biden’s.
24 hours later, Joe still hasn’t shown his face to confirm that it’s his statement but Kamala secured enough delegates to be the nominee within those 24 hours since his post.
@JoeBiden’s@X account now has a Kamala ad as his profile header, their campaign HQ has been redone to eliminate Biden name.
Kamala holds a small event where she begins to say that he’s on a "recor…." Then says "phone" and we hear a strange back and forth that feels totally unnatural. All of this is via phone like we’re living in the 1940’s glued to the radio for news. No visual is shown of him.”
Just wait till Biden is seen tomorrow at the White House, and all of these Lunatics go from “He is in Hospice and Dying” to “It’s not actually him it’s a Body Double and AI Video.” These Accounts will never ever admit that they were Wrong. https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1815600491805507711
Can you never just sit back and enjoy a good juicy conspiracy theory? I’m not saying it’s TRUE. I’m saying it’s AMUSING
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
"To lose one cat-lady vote, Mr. Carlson, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"
I posted a stat on that.
Single cat ladies as % of the vote in US cities.
9.9% Portland, Oregon 9.3% Seattle, Washington 8.7% Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 8.4% Kansas City, Missouri 8.3% Denver, Colorado 8.2% Albuquerque, New Mexico 7.7% Minneapolis, Minnesota 7.7% Harrisburg, Virginia 7.5% Tampa, Florida 7.5% Columbus, Ohio https://wkfr.com/columbus-single-cat-ladies/
In numbers it is a big survey, but I don't think they are in the BPC.
What are the figures for ladies with multiple cats?
Pelosi coming out against Biden remaining on the ticket seems to have been the turning point. Not impossible her memory of that would have influenced her thinking. #
OTOH he was actually very good at the State of the Union. He seems to be at the good days and bad days stage where the ratio inexorably goes against him over time.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom, the HuffPost reports.
The Repulican lady interviewed on R4 this evening was derisive about that - said she was a single cat lady too.
That kind of comment is likely to go down badly . If Vance thinks trashing women who either choose not to have kids or can’t have them is a vote winner then he really is deluded .
Wasn't it female voters who won it for Biden last time? I know he increased the Democrat share among white men, which was likely important too, but I seem to recall the gender gap was pretty large still.
IIRC, the number of women now reaching the age of 45 without kids is about 25%. More pertinently, the number of these who have chosen not to have kids is about 3%. That we have contrived to arrange society thus is one of history's biggest failures.
A rather horrible cooperation between the Conservative Party (stop paying poor people to have children!) and boomers (give me money, not my children!) led to an outcome neither side wanted. In fairness to them, the extended childhood ushered in by New Labour (everybody must go to University!) didn't help either.
I don't necessarily deny this (though I don't think we should be paying anyone to have children, we should be creating the economic and societal conditions where it is not prohibitively expensive to do so) - but this isn't just a British phenomenon; it appears to be common to the whole of the developed world (and also Russia). It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
That's fair, @Cookie. It is true that the Conservatives did not fix the problem (and arguably made it worse), but it is also true that they did not cause it. I'm going to split my answer into two parts. This is part 1: an AI summary of Zeihan's explanation.
Part 1: Zeihan on Demography: the basics In this episode Peter Zeihan explains the importance of population structures in shaping economies and countries' success.
The traditional pyramid demographic model has a large young population at the bottom and few retirees at the top, leading to inflationary economic activity. However, due to decreased child mortality and increased lifespans, many countries now have a chimney-shaped demographic structure with a balanced distribution of age groups, resulting in controlled inflation and a balanced economy.
He also highlights the emerging trend of an inverted pyramid demographic model, where there are more people in older age groups than younger ones. This leads to a decline in consumption and a surplus of capital, requiring countries to focus on exports. This shift has been observed in Europe and Asia since 2000, impacting global trade relations.
He then categorizes countries based on their demographic structures, from pyramid-shaped (Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa) to chimney-shaped (India, United States) to inverted pyramid-shaped (Germany, Italy). He warns that countries with an aging population and declining birth rates will have problems in the coming decade, as the workforce moves into retirement with insufficient younger generations to support consumption and production.
To address this issue, countries can either increase their birth rates or implement large-scale immigration policies to bolster their populations. However, once a country's demographic structure has inverted, it's difficult to reverse the trend.
He ends by saying that to fix all this you should have started thirty years ago, and in the next episode he discusses Canada as a country that did exactly that through immigration policies.
This is part 2: me picking out the salient points
Part 2: Viewcode's tenpennyworth
Urbanisation. People moved from the country to the cities. In the country you can have a farm and children are a boon because they can work. In the cities children are expensive furniture that break things
Birth control. If you can control your reproductive cycle you can put off having children until it's convenient. But it never is...
Juvenilization of adults. By continually pushing the age of agency up, people are now not starting families until their mid twenties or even thirties or forties. That's too late. This has been exacerbated in the UK by pensionerism as older people treat their grandchildren as children.
Longer life spans. Old people use up resources and must be looked after, which reduces the amount of time and resources you have to make and look after babies.
I think this misses another important factor: support structures. If a couple live far away from both sets of parents and family, they miss out on a heck of a lot of babysitting and other general help - I know we do. Talking to friends, the lack of these support structures is a significant factor in not having kids, or having them later in life when they are more settled.
Support structures, and the local culture. The TSMC example speaks to that.
Hungary spends something like 4% of GDP trying to incentivise childbearing, and has barely shifted the dial.
The Dems want all this to go away quickly now. The way they just did away with Biden, who is now in a coma in a secure bunker in Montana, with a deepfake making his “phone calls”
Trouble is I’m not sure it will go away. Indeed now that Biden has retired for undisclosed and presumably sudden “health reasons” that they won’t explain, it could get worse, once they get over the Kamalagasm
The TwiX rumours are superbly wild. Some claim he’s already dead
Some in the MSM are literally wetting their knickers with excitement about Harris.
There’s a video of her dancing, badly, with children which has got many very very excited. Slightly embarrassing.
It is quite strange that we haven’t seen Biden at all
PBers will know that I am deeply averse to hyperbole and hate conspiracy theories, but I don’t think it’s too far fetched to believe that he was *pressured* to quit
I would think that’s a cast iron certainty.
I am also sure, 36 hours before Biden stood down endorsing Harris, the photo op of her grinning with two kids at tan ice cream stall was staged with this in mind.
Comments
Not sure who'll replace Perez (probably after Spa). It also might not make a difference if the car is the third best on the grid.
What looks like a small change at the time, that totally bites the government on the arse two decades down the line.
As others have said, who is planning for a future where millions of people retire still needing to pay rent?
As health is positively correlated with wealth and opportunity this suggests that , at least historical, conservative voters lived longer than Labour voters.
To what extent has this been factored into to the tables in the header, and voting age statistics in general?
I do not recall any analysis about this?
Hilarious that Trump is demanding compensation for all his spending on Biden hate material. As a (cheating) golfer, DJT should understand the concept of an air shot.
It's a problem, but it's a very interesting problem.
Who will bail these schemes out ? People,pay into pensions for 40 plus years. Cannot access the money. Govts come and go and change the rules in a whim whenever they like. It’s our money not theirs.
The "cost" would be £300 million a year (600,000 * £500) and a bit of administration but it'd be direct investment for UK companies (Whilst picking no winners) too.
Though on checking France’s birth rate is declining, just not as much as obvious comparators.
In response, we have a bunch of middle aged men: "But very few women spend time with bears..." "WELL ACTUALLY, Grizzly bears primarily eat berries and salmon, so it would only be POLAR bears...."
I sympathise with anyone or thing that enjoys venison.
And the dislike of Tsunoda which has been mentioned multiple times in the past means he is unlikely to be the option...
I think this is worth an FPT: I posted a stat on that.
Single cat ladies as % of the vote in US cities.
9.9% Portland, Oregon
9.3% Seattle, Washington
8.7% Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
8.4% Kansas City, Missouri
8.3% Denver, Colorado
8.2% Albuquerque, New Mexico
7.7% Minneapolis, Minnesota
7.7% Harrisburg, Virginia
7.5% Tampa, Florida
7.5% Columbus, Ohio
https://wkfr.com/columbus-single-cat-ladies/
In numbers it is a big survey, but I don't think they are in the BPC.
So it's not effective in the least, the dumb reaction is part of why it is not effective.
(mind you my octogenarian mothers insurance doubled this year so its not all one way, but still only a quarter of my son's.
Consolidating LGPS schemes into a single fund would give Britain “a real sovereign wealth fund” that could be “run and managed to the same professional standards as world-leading schemes like Canada’s,” Blackwell added.
The phrase 'world leading' should ring alarm bells:
The largest shareholder as of July 2023 is the Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) — about 32 per cent.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/who-owns-thames-water-company-renationalisation-b1091014.html
But the Greens, and some others, would have one of their political fits.
Handy hint, it wasn’t Man U fans verbally and physically attacking the hapless cricketers. Total weirdos.
https://x.com/edinreporter/status/1815116476874891271?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
And UK is the one with far lesser funding-pensioner problems, since we've been addressing it since John Major's time; this started with the Pension Act 1995 which equalised pension ages at 65 from about 2010 iirc.
But that does not enter the calculation when there is a full-on hate-the-pensioner rhetorical riot in play on PB
The irony is that wolves/bears would have to kill far fewer deer than we do at the moment. It's mainly predator stress rather than predation that suppresses the population.
£500 goes from taxpayer funds to each individual child under condition that it goes "straight to British industry" via a tracker of 250 listed companies.
@Pulpstar
There is no hate-the-pensioner rhetoric on PB, the most that tends to get said instead is that pensioners should pay the same rate of taxation (including NI) on their pensions as working people pay.
Well they’re likely to lose several billion, which is not good if you’re a municipal employee in Ontario.
Part 1: Zeihan on Demography: the basics
In this episode Peter Zeihan explains the importance of population structures in shaping economies and countries' success.
The traditional pyramid demographic model has a large young population at the bottom and few retirees at the top, leading to inflationary economic activity. However, due to decreased child mortality and increased lifespans, many countries now have a chimney-shaped demographic structure with a balanced distribution of age groups, resulting in controlled inflation and a balanced economy.
He also highlights the emerging trend of an inverted pyramid demographic model, where there are more people in older age groups than younger ones. This leads to a decline in consumption and a surplus of capital, requiring countries to focus on exports. This shift has been observed in Europe and Asia since 2000, impacting global trade relations.
He then categorizes countries based on their demographic structures, from pyramid-shaped (Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa) to chimney-shaped (India, United States) to inverted pyramid-shaped (Germany, Italy). He warns that countries with an aging population and declining birth rates will have problems in the coming decade, as the workforce moves into retirement with insufficient younger generations to support consumption and production.
To address this issue, countries can either increase their birth rates or implement large-scale immigration policies to bolster their populations. However, once a country's demographic structure has inverted, it's difficult to reverse the trend.
He ends by saying that to fix all this you should have started thirty years ago, and in the next episode he discusses Canada as a country that did exactly that through immigration policies.
The logic is that as NI is formally linked to pensions (both directly to the state, and indirectly to occupational and private schemes in terms of opting out) it cannot be charged on them.
Reduction of NI would be a different approach, though the Tories have made this impossible by linking NI to SP in all their rhetoric.
Erected to the memory of John MacFarlane.
Drowned in the water of Leith
By a few affectionate friends.
I've never felt that way, and I think it's sad that so many women do feel that way.
If you want to pretend its a form of insurance (it is not, its a tax) then if I make a claim on an insurance policy this year I still need to continue to make insurance payments next year. I don't get let off making payments just because I'm claiming.
Employee NI really should be split in 2 and the health / social care parts paid by everyone including pensioners.
The money, under your plan (which is the same as the British ISA), would buy shares in listed companies.
You, as with people who advocate green investments, seem to think that this money goes to the listed company. It doesn't - the money goes to the person/people who are selling the shares to the new buyer.
And don't blame me - blame HMG.
Yes the taxpayer pays unemployment benefit to those working and pensioners won't benefit from that. But then working taxpayers pay for many, many, many more benefits to pensioners they don't benefit from. Its swings and roundabouts.
Net those working for a living still lose out, if you wanted to make everything personal and privatised then that would harm pensioners more than workers.
My partner won't run after dark at all.
Why should someone 55 who is working every day for a living who has maxed their payments already still be liable for the tax, but someone who is 65 who is not working for their income should be exempt from the tax?
Everyone should pay the same rate of tax equally.
Split it into 2, 3% for unemployment benefit / pension, 5% for social care that everyone pays. People would then argue over percentages but not the general idea and the 5% health / social care part can be increased to the appropriate level (which is probably 7-9%)..
Only in the sense that all humans are at all times. Relative to previous times, young people are less keen on having families and are less inclined towards traditional forms of religion. These would seem to be the two most core characteristics of conservatism.
https://www.cityam.com/aim-delistings-jump-62-per-cent-as-londons-small-cap-market-suffers/#:~:text=A total of 76 companies,the 2019-20 financial year.
Part 2: Viewcode's tenpennyworth
A weird video of Kamala Harris talking to a recor- sorry having a phone call with the POTTY POTUS
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1815519738631790956?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
The TwiX rumours are superbly wild. Some claim he’s already dead
These men are terrified because they know that cat ladies are perfect for the job, as we are used to dealing with little assholes who don't do shit but want to be treated like kings
https://x.com/clareblackwood/status/1815459110508523712
It will be a test.
I don't think Pulpstar (or Hunt with his ludicrous British ISA idea) means for the taxpayer gifts to be invested in AIM shares - at least I hope not.
There’s a video of her dancing, badly, with children which has got many very very excited. Slightly embarrassing.
“Just a quick timeline for everyone to consider:
Biden says 20x that he’s not dropping out and that he won’t be pushed out by party elites.
He gets COVID.
Goes out of sight for a few days.
His campaign co-chair says emphatically that Joe is NOT leaving the race. Period.
A few hours later his X account posts that he IS leaving the race via a screenshot document with absolutely no proof that he’s behind it.
Joe Biden’s campaign aides and staff say that they found out via @X, not from the Biden’s.
24 hours later, Joe still hasn’t shown his face to confirm that it’s his statement but Kamala secured enough delegates to be the nominee within those 24 hours since his post.
@JoeBiden’s @X account now has a Kamala ad as his profile header, their campaign HQ has been redone to eliminate Biden name.
Kamala holds a small event where she begins to say that he’s on a "recor…." Then says "phone" and we hear a strange back and forth that feels totally unnatural. All of this is via phone like we’re living in the 1940’s glued to the radio for news. No visual is shown of him.”
https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1815573763443827103?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
PBers will know that I am deeply averse to hyperbole and hate conspiracy theories, but I don’t think it’s too far fetched to believe that he was *pressured* to quit
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1815600491805507711
Smaller pension funds are more nimble and can pay more attention to their individual investments. The "efficiency" of having the funds administered as one can easily be lost elsewhere. Really not sure that is a good idea.
(I cashed out my VP positions last night, as I can't begin to predict her pick.)
Harris' campaign has requested vetting materials from potential VPs, including Cooper (NC), Kelly (AZ), Shapiro (PA), Whitmer (MI), Walz (MN) + Pritzker (IL), according to a person familiar. Beshear told CNN he hasn't been asked to submit info at this point.
https://x.com/KThomasDC/status/1815556874063790575
OTOH he was actually very good at the State of the Union. He seems to be at the good days and bad days stage where the ratio inexorably goes against him over time.
The TSMC example speaks to that.
Hungary spends something like 4% of GDP trying to incentivise childbearing, and has barely shifted the dial.
Trouble is I’m not sure it will go away. Indeed now that Biden has retired for undisclosed and presumably sudden “health reasons” that they won’t explain, it could get worse, once they get over the Kamalagasm
I am also sure, 36 hours before Biden stood down endorsing Harris, the photo op of her grinning with two kids at tan ice cream stall was staged with this in mind.