If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
I think there's a bit of some-members-of-group-say-x-therefore-all-members-of-group-say-x going on here (pathetic fallacy?). There are some people on the right on this board who were highly critical of Tory borrow-and-spend. And there are some Tories on this board who advocate greater spending on a, b and c. In general, it's true that those on the right advocate greater fiscal restraint, though exceptions are often made for infrastructure and defence spending.
What are people watching for in particular in the budget? I think overall it will be considerably less lurid than a compendium of the last two month's articles from the Telegraph.
Me:
- Local Council funding. - All the possible changes around lifetime gifts, inheritance, taxation of estates & trusts, exit tax as per other countries etc. - Where things can be significantly improved by minor adjustments, eg the £100k tax level cliff edge, make tax breaks less on large tonka-trucks than small tonka-trucks - which the last Govt ran away from. - Excise Duty on fuel, which I think will be in the range +6.7% to +10%. - VED, and possibly tax reliefs around electric vehicles. - The things in the small print undergrowth.
Changes around transport, especially around things changing basic priorities of Highways Authorities to get rid of "car-brain". Various quite nerdy but important transport infra things, like secure mobility aid and cycle parking (ie hangars) being a mandatory part of residents' parking schemes especially in areas without garages.
The measure that would have the largest potential impact on me would be a shift of Council Tax liability from T to LL, which in my area is potentially eg £1800 pa changing on a property that rents for £9000 pa. It's a detail in the Proportional Property Tax proposals. Less significant in the wealthier areas where relatively less Council Tax is usually paid.
On Landlord paying council tax that was always the case for most rental property in Northern Ireland.
Going to cause problems here though because it shifts a legal requirement from the tenant to the landlord and increasing the rent to cover the new bill is going to be awkward especially if the tenant doesn't currently pay full council tax.
At the lower end it's a particular issue because many of those Ts who get Local Housing Allowance also get Council Tax benefit, so it would potentially be new tax money in the mix.
There is precedent in exempting residential rented property from targeted wealth taxes in the case of I think Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings, which is an annual levy on UK dwellings owned by companies worth over £500k. Originally it was targeted at overseas owners keeping personal properties empty, and is very roughly 1% of property value. Raises ~£120 million per annum. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/annual-tax-on-enveloped-dwellings-the-basics
Residential lettings can be registered as exempt.
That might be new money for the council, but it will immediately feed back into a combination of higher rents and reduced rental supply, exacerbating the problem they’re trying to solve.
Better to let council tax in general rise say 15%, while keeping the protections in place at the lower end of the scale.
Apparently Allegheny county (Pittsburgh) should count relatively quickly this cycle.
In 2020 it was
Biden
430,759 59.43%
Trump
282,913 39.03%
That’s a good one to note. The early counts can still give a good impression of the swing from last time, even if last time was 60/40.
Not that the vast majority of the American media care about such details, they just look look at the absolute result and only note those that actually go the other way.
Hopefully CNN will feature Harry Enten with the magic wall as much as possible.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
The last two elections involved Trump and were both close. Although Jan 6th and losing in 2020 should have ended Trump's political career, he won the Republican primary with ease - those are the only real votes with Trump on the ballot paper that we have as evidence of his enduring popularity or otherwise.
Perhaps the opinion polls are wrong. Perhaps they overstate Harris. Or Trump.
I just don't see what evidence you have to be so confident?
You're busy campaigning in Buchan. It doesn't actually give you much insight into the mood of voters in Scranton, PA, or the suburbs of Atlanta, GA.
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
Dealing with us getting older. And older, and older.
It's a contributory factor, but a small one. This is one of the few things I know quite a bit about.
Most assessments of UK health spending find that increased chronic conditions and better technology (keeping people alive) are the reasons it's increasing so much. England's demographics are actually quite balanced due to immigration, yet their spending has increased just as much as ours has in Scotland.
Most demographic-linked spending in the UK is made in the last 12 months or so of life. You-only-die-once, so that doesn't matter too much except in the 2030s when we have lots of Boomers reaching their 80s. But a small blip, relatively.
That's disingenuous to suggest most are made in the last 12 months without accounting for when the remainder of the expenditure is made.
Exclude the last 12 months and the remaining roughly 50% is not spread evenly across the rest of your life. Apart from childbirth, which on average is now happening less than once per adult, it's vastly disproportionately in your later years.
That later years expenditure is happening in increasing amounts on top of, not instead of, last 12 month expenditure.
That's true. The point is that that relatively minor changes to the age profile of the population cannot explain the massive increase in health spending over the last few decades. It's increased from about 25% of all government spending in 2000 to about 45% now.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
I think there's a bit of some-members-of-group-say-x-therefore-all-members-of-group-say-x going on here (pathetic fallacy?). There are some people on the right on this board who were highly critical of Tory borrow-and-spend. And there are some Tories on this board who advocate greater spending on a, b and c. In general, it's true that those on the right advocate greater fiscal restraint, though exceptions are often made for infrastructure and defence spending.
I do not think everything the Tories did was bad. For example the latest iteration of BDUK has been good and their work with Ofcom to get Openreach working better was also a masterstroke.
But they had 14 years and their plan was ultimately a failure. It didn’t work, I find it hard to conclude much else.
So I’m very happy for them to talk about what they’d do differently - so far I have not heard anything but I would like to - but it all does ring a bit hollow.
At least Starmer and Reeves are actually doing something. If they are too a failure I will be very happy to say so. But people have said it’s all over and they’ve barely started yet. I will judge them at the next election, as I expect most will.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
I think there's a bit of some-members-of-group-say-x-therefore-all-members-of-group-say-x going on here (pathetic fallacy?). There are some people on the right on this board who were highly critical of Tory borrow-and-spend. And there are some Tories on this board who advocate greater spending on a, b and c. In general, it's true that those on the right advocate greater fiscal restraint, though exceptions are often made for infrastructure and defence spending.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning posters were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
I wouldn't be surprised if that really hurt him when he went for the Tory leadership amongst the members.
The markets briefings I have seen show a very big fiscal gap from the March 2024 budget. Extra taxes and borrowings in mid to high tens of billions £ are needed if the government maintains departmental spending at the same rate as now.
It seems Rachel Reeves does have a point about Jeremy Hunt.
Yes. It's one of the big risks for Labour. They could raise taxes by a lot, which would fix the public finances for the next few years, but they wouldn't have anything to show for it to the voters in terms of improved services or infrastructure.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I'll put my neck out here and be gladly ridiculed if I am wrong - I don't think it's close, not even by a million miles. I think Trump will win 'bigly' and we will all be shocked by the scale of his victory.
I'd be less certain re the House but I think the Senate we may be looking at 53-54 GOP seats,
I think that the plausible outcomes range from a Trump landslide in the EC, to a Harris EC landslide, though the popular vote will probably be only 2% to Harris. The swing states are very likely to swing the same way.
It all hinges on turnout IMO.
That is the main straw I am now clinging to. Harris has pumped serious money and time into a truly massive GOTV operation in the swing states, in Pennsylvania in particular. Trump basically hasn't with Musk's efforts generally being laughed at. The professionals generally claim GOTV can be worth 2-3%. If that is true Harris wins PA, MI, WI and very probably NC, GA and NV as well.
In the UK I criticise most such efforts as not as vital as people think. If it is worth 2-3% though that is more than enough as that covers about 7 states.
This GOTV operation seems to have gone to sleep in Nevada and North Carolina. Perhaps it’s different elsewhere.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
There is also the fact that, unlike the image that some people have of the MAGA thing, it encompasses a range of ages, backgrounds etc.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
And yet if you look at successful economies internationally they invest a lot more than we do, typically including state investment.
We have a weird phobia of state investment here.
It is bizarre. Silicon Valley would not exist without massive state investment.
We don't know that at all. Very often state investment crowds out private investment, or distorts it hugely. Silicon Valley might exist in a more efficient format, even had the US government never spent a penny on hi tech R&D. Or it might not. We can't say.
What IS certain is that state investment, whatever its occasional successes, is excellent at creating white elephants. The private sector has a strong incentive to invest in efficient and profitable investments, while the state will usually choose politically correct and wasteful rubbish like green projects or HS2 or our coal mining industry in the old days. And the private sector is much better at controlling costs and has a much stronger incentive to pull the plug on investments that underperform - otherwise it loses money and can be sued by irate shareholders. While the public sector will simply carry on until there's a fiscal crisis, as the taxpayer can be forced to pay.
UK state investment has had a couple of problems
1) Pick The Winner. Just after the war, Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) looked like an interesting idea as a way to run a turbine engine underwater in a submarine. The Americans set up a small test program. The UK went all in. Which led to HMS Exploder and HMS Excruciater. And a very expensive plant for making H202.
The Americans then built nuclear submarines.
2) Double down on the mistake. When it came to picking rocket fuels in the late 50s, the Ministry of Supply was demanding H202 *rockets* - to use the investment in the expensive plant for (1). Which led to an expensive dead end - liquid oxygen is far cheaper. Go look in the Science Museum....
3) Actively suppressing alternatives. In the case of H202, liquid oxygen projects were blocked on the grounds that they might "compete" with The Chosen Solution.
When I have spoken to politicians (about a DARPA style scheme) they always say lovely, but
A - must pick winners B - back them massively C - a strange one - the politicians seem worried by it being *too* commercial.
For a more modern example, see the UK "investment" in computer technology in the 80s - the civil servants were damning Thatchers interest in the useless, pointless home computer scene. Rather than following the Proper Policy - mini computers. Anybody remember mini computers?
In the early 1980s in his newfound enthusiasm for computers my dad turned up with a minicomputer in his van, in the hope of using it.
It had been thrown out by a client, and came with a washing machine sized double 8" floppy disk drive, and a teleprinter not a screen.
He got rid of it quite sharpish when it was just sitting there - more suited to being an anchor for a small ship.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I'll put my neck out here and be gladly ridiculed if I am wrong - I don't think it's close, not even by a million miles. I think Trump will win 'bigly' and we will all be shocked by the scale of his victory.
I'd be less certain re the House but I think the Senate we may be looking at 53-54 GOP seats,
I think that the plausible outcomes range from a Trump landslide in the EC, to a Harris EC landslide, though the popular vote will probably be only 2% to Harris. The swing states are very likely to swing the same way.
It all hinges on turnout IMO.
That is the main straw I am now clinging to. Harris has pumped serious money and time into a truly massive GOTV operation in the swing states, in Pennsylvania in particular. Trump basically hasn't with Musk's efforts generally being laughed at. The professionals generally claim GOTV can be worth 2-3%. If that is true Harris wins PA, MI, WI and very probably NC, GA and NV as well.
In the UK I criticise most such efforts as not as vital as people think. If it is worth 2-3% though that is more than enough as that covers about 7 states.
This GOTV operation seems to have gone to sleep in Nevada and North Carolina. Perhaps it’s different elsewhere.
I don’t feel good about this election. I’m very glad I never put any money on a Harris victory as I’d have no nails left at this point. Squeaky bum time for sure.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
They’re in Opposition now. They have the luxury of dodging that question for about four years.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top end, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
The markets briefings I have seen show a very big fiscal gap from the March 2024 budget. Extra taxes and borrowings in mid to high tens of billions £ are needed if the government maintains departmental spending at the same rate as now.
It seems Rachel Reeves does have a point about Jeremy Hunt.
Yes. It's one of the big risks for Labour. They could raise taxes by a lot, which would fix the public finances for the next few years, but they wouldn't have anything to show for it to the voters in terms of improved services or infrastructure.
They can't cut spending though - austerity won't win them an election...
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move but doable.
However, the cliff edges there were no excuses. I would do it today, you can make it revenue neutral really easily with some rejigging of thresholds. Its such an anti-productivity nudge at the moment.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't. NI++ was particularly idiotic by Sunak.
Is the Telegraphs mission to increase the anxiety of the nation?
The whole article is about tariffs, but it casually mentions half way through that 2/3 of UK exports to the US are services, and a significant amount of the rest are high-end cars generally not made in the US.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I'll put my neck out here and be gladly ridiculed if I am wrong - I don't think it's close, not even by a million miles. I think Trump will win 'bigly' and we will all be shocked by the scale of his victory.
I'd be less certain re the House but I think the Senate we may be looking at 53-54 GOP seats,
I think that the plausible outcomes range from a Trump landslide in the EC, to a Harris EC landslide, though the popular vote will probably be only 2% to Harris. The swing states are very likely to swing the same way.
It all hinges on turnout IMO.
That is the main straw I am now clinging to. Harris has pumped serious money and time into a truly massive GOTV operation in the swing states, in Pennsylvania in particular. Trump basically hasn't with Musk's efforts generally being laughed at. The professionals generally claim GOTV can be worth 2-3%. If that is true Harris wins PA, MI, WI and very probably NC, GA and NV as well.
In the UK I criticise most such efforts as not as vital as people think. If it is worth 2-3% though that is more than enough as that covers about 7 states.
This GOTV operation seems to have gone to sleep in Nevada and North Carolina. Perhaps it’s different elsewhere.
The path surely has to be through the rust belt for Harris. I just don't see how she's not motivating registered Democrats to get out to vote in Nevada (Which I *think* would correlate with Arizona...) yet simultaneously switching Reps and Inds over to her side. Perhaps she is, but I'd be shitting my pants if I had a big short on Trump now tbh. Objectively I do think Harris is the value overall mind.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
And yet if you look at successful economies internationally they invest a lot more than we do, typically including state investment.
We have a weird phobia of state investment here.
It is bizarre. Silicon Valley would not exist without massive state investment.
We don't know that at all. Very often state investment crowds out private investment, or distorts it hugely. Silicon Valley might exist in a more efficient format, even had the US government never spent a penny on hi tech R&D. Or it might not. We can't say.
What IS certain is that state investment, whatever its occasional successes, is excellent at creating white elephants. The private sector has a strong incentive to invest in efficient and profitable investments, while the state will usually choose politically correct and wasteful rubbish like green projects or HS2 or our coal mining industry in the old days. And the private sector is much better at controlling costs and has a much stronger incentive to pull the plug on investments that underperform - otherwise it loses money and can be sued by irate shareholders. While the public sector will simply carry on until there's a fiscal crisis, as the taxpayer can be forced to pay.
UK state investment has had a couple of problems
1) Pick The Winner. Just after the war, Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) looked like an interesting idea as a way to run a turbine engine underwater in a submarine. The Americans set up a small test program. The UK went all in. Which led to HMS Exploder and HMS Excruciater. And a very expensive plant for making H202.
The Americans then built nuclear submarines.
2) Double down on the mistake. When it came to picking rocket fuels in the late 50s, the Ministry of Supply was demanding H202 *rockets* - to use the investment in the expensive plant for (1). Which led to an expensive dead end - liquid oxygen is far cheaper. Go look in the Science Museum....
3) Actively suppressing alternatives. In the case of H202, liquid oxygen projects were blocked on the grounds that they might "compete" with The Chosen Solution.
When I have spoken to politicians (about a DARPA style scheme) they always say lovely, but
A - must pick winners B - back them massively C - a strange one - the politicians seem worried by it being *too* commercial.
For a more modern example, see the UK "investment" in computer technology in the 80s - the civil servants were damning Thatchers interest in the useless, pointless home computer scene. Rather than following the Proper Policy - mini computers. Anybody remember mini computers?
In the early 1980s in his newfound enthusiasm for computers my dad turned up with a minicomputer in his van, in the hope of using it.
It had been thrown out by a client, and came with a washing machine sized double 8" floppy disk drive, and a teleprinter not a screen.
He got rid of it quite sharpish when it was just sitting there - more suited to being an anchor for a small ship.
Funny, a friend's dad did just the same. Eventually the wife laid down the law on having metric tons of pointlessness cluttering up the conservatory.
I still remember the very neat case he had for his ZX-81 - a metal box, about the size of a BBC Micro. There was a proper keyboard (type-able). Inside the RAM pack was clipped into place - but attached to the main board on a cable. The power supply was inside the case - in its own, separate, ventilated compartment (to the right, IIRC) - so no power connection wobbles.
Sinclair tried to sue the makers of it, he told us. I was very young - but I remember thinking that was insane. The case solved many of the problems of the ZX-81 in one go.
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
But there is stuff which obviously does, and that government can do well. Infrastructure an obvious example.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
There is also the fact that, unlike the image that some people have of the MAGA thing, it encompasses a range of ages, backgrounds etc.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
But there is stuff which obviously does, and that government can do well. Infrastructure an obvious example.
We don't do infrastructure well in this country. We can, at vast effort, time and expense, occasionally get *something* done.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
The news media did focus on the Puerto Rico thing for a whole cycle before Joe Biden rode to Trump's rescue with his garbage comments. Good fun and games but noone is deciding their vote on a few throwaway comments now.
Have any of you listened to 'The Coming Storm' on Radio 4. It sounded interesting and may listen on BBC Sounds. Would appreciate feedback.
One comment that I had never heard before was a reference by some MAGA people referring to America as 'A Republic, not a Democracy' as if they are mutually exclusive. That is new to me, if true.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
There is also the fact that, unlike the image that some people have of the MAGA thing, it encompasses a range of ages, backgrounds etc.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I'll put my neck out here and be gladly ridiculed if I am wrong - I don't think it's close, not even by a million miles. I think Trump will win 'bigly' and we will all be shocked by the scale of his victory.
I'd be less certain re the House but I think the Senate we may be looking at 53-54 GOP seats,
I think that the plausible outcomes range from a Trump landslide in the EC, to a Harris EC landslide, though the popular vote will probably be only 2% to Harris. The swing states are very likely to swing the same way.
It all hinges on turnout IMO.
That is the main straw I am now clinging to. Harris has pumped serious money and time into a truly massive GOTV operation in the swing states, in Pennsylvania in particular. Trump basically hasn't with Musk's efforts generally being laughed at. The professionals generally claim GOTV can be worth 2-3%. If that is true Harris wins PA, MI, WI and very probably NC, GA and NV as well.
In the UK I criticise most such efforts as not as vital as people think. If it is worth 2-3% though that is more than enough as that covers about 7 states.
This GOTV operation seems to have gone to sleep in Nevada and North Carolina. Perhaps it’s different elsewhere.
The path surely has to be through the rust belt for Harris. I just don't see how she's not motivating registered Democrats to get out to vote in Nevada (Which I *think* would correlate with Arizona...) yet simultaneously switching Reps and Inds over to her side. Perhaps she is, but I'd be shitting my pants if I had a big short on Trump now tbh. Objectively I do think Harris is the value overall mind.
If Trump wins Nevada, he almost certainly wins Arizona. If he wins them big, probably both Senate seats switch.
And, no. Rural Republicans, in Nevada, are not turning out in droves to vote for Harris.
But, as you say, there’s still a path to victory for Harris, if she holds the Rustbelt - even if Georgia flips.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I'll put my neck out here and be gladly ridiculed if I am wrong - I don't think it's close, not even by a million miles. I think Trump will win 'bigly' and we will all be shocked by the scale of his victory.
I'd be less certain re the House but I think the Senate we may be looking at 53-54 GOP seats,
I think that the plausible outcomes range from a Trump landslide in the EC, to a Harris EC landslide, though the popular vote will probably be only 2% to Harris. The swing states are very likely to swing the same way.
It all hinges on turnout IMO.
That is the main straw I am now clinging to. Harris has pumped serious money and time into a truly massive GOTV operation in the swing states, in Pennsylvania in particular. Trump basically hasn't with Musk's efforts generally being laughed at. The professionals generally claim GOTV can be worth 2-3%. If that is true Harris wins PA, MI, WI and very probably NC, GA and NV as well.
In the UK I criticise most such efforts as not as vital as people think. If it is worth 2-3% though that is more than enough as that covers about 7 states.
This GOTV operation seems to have gone to sleep in Nevada and North Carolina. Perhaps it’s different elsewhere.
The path surely has to be through the rust belt for Harris. I just don't see how she's not motivating registered Democrats to get out to vote in Nevada (Which I *think* would correlate with Arizona...) yet simultaneously switching Reps and Inds over to her side. Perhaps she is, but I'd be shitting my pants if I had a big short on Trump now tbh. Objectively I do think Harris is the value overall mind.
If Trump wins Nevada, he almost certainly wins Arizona. If he wins them big, probably both Senate seats switch.
And, no. Rural Republicans, in Nevada, are not turning out in droves to vote for Harris.
But, as you say, there’s still a path to victory for Harris, if she holds the Rustbelt - even if Georgia flips.
The Harris path is WI, MI, PA.
I don't see another path but Harris campaign chief says there's lots. Hmmm...
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
There is also the fact that, unlike the image that some people have of the MAGA thing, it encompasses a range of ages, backgrounds etc.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
Have any of you listened to 'The Coming Storm' on Radio 4. It sounded interesting and may listen on BBC Sounds. Would appreciate feedback.
One comment that I had never heard before was a reference by some MAGA people referring to America as 'A Republic, not a Democracy' as if they are mutually exclusive. That is new to me, if true.
The "Republic not a Democracy" thing is a whole argument/history lesson that's got twisted in N number of ways.
The Founders wanted a *representative democracy* - they believed that direct democracy would lead to populism (ha!) and other bad things. There was a lot of rather poor history they took from the Roman Republic - especially of Clodius and his ilk.
The MAGA use of it is to excuse all kinds of deviations from simple elections.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
There is also the fact that, unlike the image that some people have of the MAGA thing, it encompasses a range of ages, backgrounds etc.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
And yet if you look at successful economies internationally they invest a lot more than we do, typically including state investment.
We have a weird phobia of state investment here.
It is bizarre. Silicon Valley would not exist without massive state investment.
We don't know that at all. Very often state investment crowds out private investment, or distorts it hugely. Silicon Valley might exist in a more efficient format, even had the US government never spent a penny on hi tech R&D. Or it might not. We can't say.
What IS certain is that state investment, whatever its occasional successes, is excellent at creating white elephants. The private sector has a strong incentive to invest in efficient and profitable investments, while the state will usually choose politically correct and wasteful rubbish like green projects or HS2 or our coal mining industry in the old days. And the private sector is much better at controlling costs and has a much stronger incentive to pull the plug on investments that underperform - otherwise it loses money and can be sued by irate shareholders. While the public sector will simply carry on until there's a fiscal crisis, as the taxpayer can be forced to pay.
UK state investment has had a couple of problems
1) Pick The Winner. Just after the war, Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) looked like an interesting idea as a way to run a turbine engine underwater in a submarine. The Americans set up a small test program. The UK went all in. Which led to HMS Exploder and HMS Excruciater. And a very expensive plant for making H202.
The Americans then built nuclear submarines.
2) Double down on the mistake. When it came to picking rocket fuels in the late 50s, the Ministry of Supply was demanding H202 *rockets* - to use the investment in the expensive plant for (1). Which led to an expensive dead end - liquid oxygen is far cheaper. Go look in the Science Museum....
3) Actively suppressing alternatives. In the case of H202, liquid oxygen projects were blocked on the grounds that they might "compete" with The Chosen Solution.
When I have spoken to politicians (about a DARPA style scheme) they always say lovely, but
A - must pick winners B - back them massively C - a strange one - the politicians seem worried by it being *too* commercial.
For a more modern example, see the UK "investment" in computer technology in the 80s - the civil servants were damning Thatchers interest in the useless, pointless home computer scene. Rather than following the Proper Policy - mini computers. Anybody remember mini computers?
In the early 1980s in his newfound enthusiasm for computers my dad turned up with a minicomputer in his van, in the hope of using it.
It had been thrown out by a client, and came with a washing machine sized double 8" floppy disk drive, and a teleprinter not a screen.
He got rid of it quite sharpish when it was just sitting there - more suited to being an anchor for a small ship.
Funny, a friend's dad did just the same. Eventually the wife laid down the law on having metric tons of pointlessness cluttering up the conservatory.
I still remember the very neat case he had for his ZX-81 - a metal box, about the size of a BBC Micro. There was a proper keyboard (type-able). Inside the RAM pack was clipped into place - but attached to the main board on a cable. The power supply was inside the case - in its own, separate, ventilated compartment (to the right, IIRC) - so no power connection wobbles.
Sinclair tried to sue the makers of it, he told us. I was very young - but I remember thinking that was insane. The case solved many of the problems of the ZX-81 in one go.
Somewhere I have a copy of the original specification written by the BBC for the BBC Micro.
TBF dad was well ahead - he was running CAD on an IBM PC AT clone by about 1986, and had an interesting accounting package based on paper systems where you had to get it all right because once you pressed "post transaction" it was all frozen.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
Well, the population is quite a bit older in fifteen years, so, yes. Britain's is sicker than it was.
Spending has also been quite inefficient. Not enough money on equipment or support staff so that the nurses and doctors can concentrate on clinical work. Not enough spending on social care, so that elderly patients can be discharged.
But I wouldn't underestimate the impact of the demographic transition. All other things being equal it means that taxes have to rise and services have to be cut in varying proportions.
The postwar baby boom was a massive boost to the economy, but the first boomers turned 60 in 2006, and it has been downhill for the economy ever since.
Trump may win because they think he acts more in American's interests (on immigration, tarrifs, culture and commitments abroad) than the Democrats do, who specialise in sneering and cultural ideology on top and have overseen a period of high inflation.
If that's the place you're in - and we're not, because we live here and only see one side of it - appeals to the fact the guy is an arsehole or a criminal don't wash, particularly in the brash, big and bold context of American politics anyway.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
Freeze personal allowances even further into the future, drag more people lower down the scale into basic and higher rate tax over time, claim that UK is on track to break even in 5 years time, cut council budgets even further and borrow even more. That's the upper bound for them lower bound is listen to the IEA and crash the markets
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
I’d be fascinated to find out the circumstances of how Biden came to endorse her so soon after announcing his withdrawal. He acts like he can’t stand her. Was it just to spite the likes of Obama, who mostly likely were pushing for an open convention? He robbed us of telly level drama with the endorsement the bugger!
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
To start with - simplicity. The simpler the tax system, the easier to collect, the harder to avoid. It would also reduce the cost of taxation, to the government - whole office buildings are dedicated to NI and it's collection.
So, if you started with a completely neutral setup - fold the existing rates together - you'd have increased collection and reduced costs. The reduced costs would take a few years to realise as the NI system was wound down.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
Freeze personal allowances even further into the future, drag more people lower down the scale into basic and higher rate tax over time, claim that UK is on track to break even in 5 years time, cut council budgets even further and borrow even more. That's the upper bound for them lower bound is listen to the IEA and crash the markets
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
But there is stuff which obviously does, and that government can do well. Infrastructure an obvious example.
We don't do infrastructure well in this country. We can, at vast effort, time and expense, occasionally get *something* done.
It's something that government can do well. There's absolutely no reason ours shouldn't. And that problems with it aren't something you can outsource to the private sector, as exactly the same UK problems apply to them too.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
Freeze personal allowances even further into the future, drag more people lower down the scale into basic and higher rate tax over time, claim that UK is on track to break even in 5 years time, cut council budgets even further and borrow even more. That's the upper bound for them lower bound is listen to the IEA and crash the markets
I'm very red on Trump. And getting steadily redder as I back Kamala at 2.82 on Betfair - which is a ridiculous price.
If the money available to Trump's campaign including PACs is say $1 billion then a few tens of million on distorting the betting markets makes sense to provide momentum and set up the "We Were Robbed" story. That's what I think is happening.
I'm not 100% certain Harris will win. Not even 70%. But I'm more than 35% certain that she will win, which is what is implied by her price of 2.82. The polls are on a knife edge; she has a better GOTV operation and is well ahead with women and graduates who have a higher propensity to vote.
I'm prepared to put my money where my head is on this one. I can live with the financial risk.
Back on America for a moment, Harris will win. I did say "and it won't be close". OK maybe not a slam dunk now as it looked. But the hypothesis is simple:
The Trump campaign is a giant gas bag. Self-reinforcing and self-inflating, a vast echo chamber promoted and enhanced on Twitter and Fux and Newsmax and Lies Social. Where EVERYONE you speak to and interact with is voting Trump and thinks like you and has the same fears as you and wants the same Murica as you. EVERYONE.
We know the pollsters have had to correct in favour of Trump. Because they must be missing his voters considering that EVERYONE is voting Trump and the data isn't showing that without correction. So it looks closer now because its been corrected to look closer.
Counter to that, we know that women are more likely to vote than men. We know that whilst the core Trump vote is ANGRY, the rest are just caught up and usually don't vote. Women - and proper men who don't belittle women - are angry at Trump and the GOP, have been registering in large numbers and are motivated.
Don't drink the Trump cool-aid. That is literally what the Trump Musk campaign is wanting you to do.
I think that unfortunately, anger and hate make the world march. More than enough people like politicians who validate their darkest sentiments.
There is also the fact that, unlike the image that some people have of the MAGA thing, it encompasses a range of ages, backgrounds etc.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
Freeze personal allowances even further into the future, drag more people lower down the scale into basic and higher rate tax over time, claim that UK is on track to break even in 5 years time, cut council budgets even further and borrow even more. That's the upper bound for them lower bound is listen to the IEA and crash the markets
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
And yet if you look at successful economies internationally they invest a lot more than we do, typically including state investment.
We have a weird phobia of state investment here.
It is bizarre. Silicon Valley would not exist without massive state investment.
We don't know that at all. Very often state investment crowds out private investment, or distorts it hugely. Silicon Valley might exist in a more efficient format, even had the US government never spent a penny on hi tech R&D. Or it might not. We can't say...
Every country with an equivalent - China; S Korea; Taiwan - have made not dissimilar state investments to enable the industry growth.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
The problem is it would create winners and losers. The obvious losers being pensioners (who don't pay NI) and thy are far more likely to resent the change than the winners are to be grateful.
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
Dealing with us getting older. And older, and older.
It's a contributory factor, but a small one. This is one of the few things I know quite a bit about.
Most assessments of UK health spending find that increased chronic conditions and better technology (keeping people alive) are the reasons it's increasing so much. England's demographics are actually quite balanced due to immigration, yet their spending has increased just as much as ours has in Scotland.
Most demographic-linked spending in the UK is made in the last 12 months or so of life. You-only-die-once, so that doesn't matter too much except in the 2030s when we have lots of Boomers reaching their 80s. But a small blip, relatively.
That's disingenuous to suggest most are made in the last 12 months without accounting for when the remainder of the expenditure is made.
Exclude the last 12 months and the remaining roughly 50% is not spread evenly across the rest of your life. Apart from childbirth, which on average is now happening less than once per adult, it's vastly disproportionately in your later years.
That later years expenditure is happening in increasing amounts on top of, not instead of, last 12 month expenditure.
That's true. The point is that that relatively minor changes to the age profile of the population cannot explain the massive increase in health spending over the last few decades. It's increased from about 25% of all government spending in 2000 to about 45% now.
Also letting the waiting list increase treat conditions early > less clinician time, less and shorter treatment treat conditions later > condition has worsened, more clinician time, more and longer treatment, secondary conditions due to increases in weight, loss of mobility etc etc it spirals outward
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
I’d be fascinated to find out the circumstances of how Biden came to endorse her so soon after announcing his withdrawal. He acts like he can’t stand her. Was it just to spite the likes of Obama, who mostly likely were pushing for an open convention? He robbed us of telly level drama with the endorsement the bugger!
It was worse than that. Biden announced he was standing down in a written memo, but with no mention of anything else and no video statement (the suggestion was that he was taken ill, and was persuaded to stand aside at that point). It was a couple of days later, presumably after a lot of talking among the upper echelons of the Party, that he endorsed Harris, again with a written statement.
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
Not if those productivity gains are being absorbed by the public sector. All it does is create a situation where fewer and fewer people are holding up a larger and larger state which makes it prone to falling down in the event of even a few of them leaving/retiring.
I'm very red on Trump. And getting steadily redder as I back Kamala at 2.82 on Betfair - which is a ridiculous price.
If the money available to Trump's campaign including PACs is say $1 billion then a few tens of million on distorting the betting markets makes sense to provide momentum and set up the "We Were Robbed" story. That's what I think is happening.
I'm not 100% certain Harris will win. Not even 70%. But I'm more than 35% certain that she will win, which is what is implied by her price of 2.82. The polls are on a knife edge; she has a better GOTV operation and is well ahead with women and graduates who have a higher propensity to vote.
I'm prepared to put my money where my head is on this one. I can live with the financial risk.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
The problem is it would create winners and losers. The obvious losers being pensioners (who don't pay NI) and thy are far more likely to resent the change than the winners are to be grateful.
The pensioner issue is always raised. There are really simple to fixes. You can have a higher threshold, give tax credits or pay a different rate etc.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
I’d be fascinated to find out the circumstances of how Biden came to endorse her so soon after announcing his withdrawal. He acts like he can’t stand her. Was it just to spite the likes of Obama, who mostly likely were pushing for an open convention? He robbed us of telly level drama with the endorsement the bugger!
It was worse than that. Biden announced he was standing down in a written memo, but with no mention of anything else and no video statement (the suggestion was that he was taken ill, and was persuaded to stand aside at that point). It was a couple of days later, presumably after a lot of talking among the upper echelons of the Party, that he endorsed Harris, again with a written statement.
It was argued, at the time, that rather than crowning Harris, it had to come from the Party first. Then endorse *after* that.
Certainly, the whole party united behind her. All the potential contenders endorsed her. That part of the process went off better than anyone expected.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
I’d be fascinated to find out the circumstances of how Biden came to endorse her so soon after announcing his withdrawal. He acts like he can’t stand her. Was it just to spite the likes of Obama, who mostly likely were pushing for an open convention? He robbed us of telly level drama with the endorsement the bugger!
It was worse than that. Biden announced he was standing down in a written memo, but with no mention of anything else and no video statement (the suggestion was that he was taken ill, and was persuaded to stand aside at that point). It was a couple of days later, presumably after a lot of talking among the upper echelons of the Party, that he endorsed Harris, again with a written statement.
The second message endorsing her was around an hour after the first announcing he was standing down wasn’t it? Do I remember right that he announced it with a tweet?
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
Dealing with us getting older. And older, and older.
That, and sicker. When I started in Leicester we had 23 500 with diabetes in the patch, now it's 92 000. Some of that is better diagnosis (though we still see late presentations with vascular disease etc), but the majority is a genuine increase, and it is occurring in all ethnic groups, albeit particularly frequent in British South Asians. The population of the area has increased by about 10% over that time.
Hence my longish piece on doing more preventative medicine rather than just patching people up with drugs and treating symptoms. The country is older, fatter and more cancerous because the baby boomer generation did no exercise, ate like shit and smoked like chimneys.
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
Not if those productivity gains are being absorbed by the public sector. All it does is create a situation where fewer and fewer people are holding up a larger and larger state which makes it prone to falling down in the event of even a few of them leaving/retiring.
You’re eyeing up some nice lakeside property in Geneva again?
I am struck by how much the lady on benefits gets. £33k a year. You would have to earn nearly £50k a year to take home that much, which is more than most of all the other people in that case study.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Those crucial Today programme swing voters in US elections.
ABC by contrast barely mentioned Biden's gaffe this morning
Have any of you listened to 'The Coming Storm' on Radio 4. It sounded interesting and may listen on BBC Sounds. Would appreciate feedback.
One comment that I had never heard before was a reference by some MAGA people referring to America as 'A Republic, not a Democracy' as if they are mutually exclusive. That is new to me, if true.
The "Republic not a Democracy" thing is a whole argument/history lesson that's got twisted in N number of ways.
The Founders wanted a *representative democracy* - they believed that direct democracy would lead to populism (ha!) and other bad things. There was a lot of rather poor history they took from the Roman Republic - especially of Clodius and his ilk.
The MAGA use of it is to excuse all kinds of deviations from simple elections.
Yes it’s mostly used by those in the “Flyover States” to defend concepts such as the Electoral College and the US Senate representation, without which they argue the country would become even more dominated politically by the wealthly coastal regions.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
The problem is it would create winners and losers. The obvious losers being pensioners (who don't pay NI) and thy are far more likely to resent the change than the winners are to be grateful.
If the 20% basic rate was increased to 25% and NI abolished then an increase in the tax allowance to circa £15,000 would address the issue
Indeed Sunak and Hunt's long term aim was to do something on these lines
And this comes back to the principle error labour made by ring fencing tax, NI and VAT which accounts for 75% of the tax take
I am struck by how much the lady on benefits gets. £33k a year. You would have to earn nearly £50k a year to take home that much, which is more than most of all the other people in that case study.
Wait hold on, the benefits figures are quoted post tax and the "earners" pre-tax ?
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
I’d be fascinated to find out the circumstances of how Biden came to endorse her so soon after announcing his withdrawal. He acts like he can’t stand her. Was it just to spite the likes of Obama, who mostly likely were pushing for an open convention? He robbed us of telly level drama with the endorsement the bugger!
It was worse than that. Biden announced he was standing down in a written memo, but with no mention of anything else and no video statement (the suggestion was that he was taken ill, and was persuaded to stand aside at that point). It was a couple of days later, presumably after a lot of talking among the upper echelons of the Party, that he endorsed Harris, again with a written statement.
It was argued, at the time, that rather than crowning Harris, it had to come from the Party first. Then endorse *after* that.
Certainly, the whole party united behind her. All the potential contenders endorsed her. That part of the process went off better than anyone expected.
Given there is momentum to the idea of this as a change election, I think it’s actually the part that went far worse than expected. They could have opened the field and picked almost any of the others, and they’d have been a more credible pick than she has been.
There is an unreality here and elsewhere to the idea that she is any way a normal or impressive candidate. Trump’s opponent should be miles ahead given all the water under his bridge. And we should all be sat here with a much clearer idea of their agenda and have higher confidence in it.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
The problem is it would create winners and losers. The obvious losers being pensioners (who don't pay NI) and thy are far more likely to resent the change than the winners are to be grateful.
So now would be a good time to do it.
Just banging up NI also creates winners and losers, of course.
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
And yet if you look at successful economies internationally they invest a lot more than we do, typically including state investment.
We have a weird phobia of state investment here.
Perhaps other countries are better at the state investment than the land of nimbyism.
But if we want more state investment I suggest we build some more roads - actually one of the things this country can do pretty well.
There's quite a backlog of necessary infrastructure investment that I'm past arguing for investment in one thing over another. Britain needs to: Build Roads Build Heathrow runways three and four Build HS2, HS3, NPR and keep on electrifying the railways Build tidal power Build nuclear power Build renewables, pylons and storage Build EV chargers, lots of them Build houses, and towns Build tunnels and bridges Allow people to build factories And somehow keep on paying the bills until the economy grows in response.
1.3 million people in the NHS is insane, as is its budget and the amount we spend on disability benefits, accommodating special needs in education and the barely tackled problem social care.
Yes, of course we want to be kind to people - and support them where we can - but people will have to take and make much more provision for their welfare in future or the country will bankrupt itself, and then it'll be the law of the jungle.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Those crucial Today programme swing voters in US elections.
ABC by contrast barely mentioned Biden's gaffe this morning
Oh, I don't imagine the BBC is going to have any effect on the US election. It's just that the slant on their US reporting is quite noticeable.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Were they not yesterday leading on Tony Hinchcliffe, who’s definitely not a candidate and unlikely to ever want to be one?
The single worst decision the Tories took other than Truss was scrapping HS2.
Nah. Not backing tidal power.
Says my (now ex) Tory MP.
Worst decision they took was holding a referendum rather than trying to work out how to better run the country. The latter was left entirely by the wayside for the best part of a decade.
On topic, the joy of politics is that the counterfactual can turn into the factual.
Truss was right.
We need economic growth and we need it consistently over a sustained period. We have cut and shrunk, shrunk and cut our economy over a long period, with the biggest contraction in the last decade when we were at our most vulnerable.
Truss was wrong in that she thought the way to growth was slash taxes and spending, but she also wanted investment. Borrowing to invest - and the delivering a return on that investment - is NOT bad economics. It is capitalism. And when the state borrows to invest in capacity, skills and infrastructure it has a long-term benefit.
At the same time, we need to cut the crap. We had dug ourselves into the ground when it comes to digging into the ground. We spend hundreds of millions on reports and surveys and impact assessments *without actually building anything*. The Tories gamed house planning so that the developers always beat the council. Not that the developers built what was needed. Do the same but *for the state*. We need to build this, it's going here, please accept this mitigation (or don't), start building. For housing we must have local people involved as its their communities being expanded, but the answer cannot just be "no".
Sadly I expect nothing from the Chancellor to drive growth, to drive investment, to try and course correct the UK so that we're comparable with France or Germany or Spain or the Netherlands or any of the rest of European nations who aren't as crushed by cuts as we are. Unless she pulls a massive rabbit out of the hat, Labour have already failed.
You're still assuming that every 'investment' generates a positive return.
That's not true in betting, that's not true in business and most of all its not true when government does it.
And yet if you look at successful economies internationally they invest a lot more than we do, typically including state investment.
We have a weird phobia of state investment here.
Perhaps other countries are better at the state investment than the land of nimbyism.
But if we want more state investment I suggest we build some more roads - actually one of the things this country can do pretty well.
There's quite a backlog of necessary infrastructure investment that I'm past arguing for investment in one thing over another. Britain needs to: Build Roads Build Heathrow runways three and four Build HS2, HS3, NPR and keep on electrifying the railways Build tidal power Build nuclear power Build renewables, pylons and storage Build EV chargers, lots of them Build houses, and towns Build tunnels and bridges Allow people to build factories And somehow keep on paying the bills until the economy grows in response.
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
The problem is it would create winners and losers. The obvious losers being pensioners (who don't pay NI) and thy are far more likely to resent the change than the winners are to be grateful.
If the 20% basic rate was increased to 25% and NI abolished then an increase in the tax allowance to circa £15,000 would address the issue
Indeed Sunak and Hunt's long term aim was to do something on these lines
And this comes back to the principle error labour made by ring fencing tax, NI and VAT which accounts for 75% of the tax take
Except Sunak and Hunt only cut NI and didn't do the other bit because their voter base was pensioners.
If they had really wanted to implement what they claimed to want NI would be at 6% and income tax at 22% because that is complete tax neutral for workers...
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
Dealing with us getting older. And older, and older.
That, and sicker. When I started in Leicester we had 23 500 with diabetes in the patch, now it's 92 000. Some of that is better diagnosis (though we still see late presentations with vascular disease etc), but the majority is a genuine increase, and it is occurring in all ethnic groups, albeit particularly frequent in British South Asians. The population of the area has increased by about 10% over that time.
Hence my longish piece on doing more preventative medicine rather than just patching people up with drugs and treating symptoms. The country is older, fatter and more cancerous because the baby boomer generation did no exercise, ate like shit and smoked like chimneys.
The drugs are going to work a damn sight quicker than preventative medicine. And peoples choices are heavily influenced by both food marketing and the addictive pattern of the chemicals within junk food destablising our bodies. Yet any attempt to address those gets ruled out as nanny state.
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
We are getting sicker because of covid and obesity Demographics people getting older Technology opens up more treatment options We have low motivation through previous pay restraint We have poor retention of senior experienced staff who retire early or go to private sector, or part time public/private mix Chaotic organisational changes
All of those are obvious from the outside I'm sure there are more issues visible from within, but its a multi issue problem.
I am struck by how much the lady on benefits gets. £33k a year. You would have to earn nearly £50k a year to take home that much, which is more than most of all the other people in that case study.
It's fucking nuts.
I would reject the whole concept of "personal independence payments". People shouldn't drown but I don't agree the State should provide them with sufficient income that they would have had if they were working full-time to live a full and independent life, if they happen to be misfortunate enough to suffer from a mix of physical and mental ailments. I'd have to go and live with my family or friends if I fell on hard times and, well, that's life. I wouldn't expect the general taxpayer to keep me in my own place.
Instead, they can be supported to subsist in their communities or with their extended friends and family and government support should be directed at giving them some form of employment and support to employers to take them, and then any extra they earn can be used to increase their independence.
...“What Donald Trump has never understood is that ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many one, isn’t just a phrase on a dollar bill. It is a living truth about the heart of our nation. Our democracy, it doesn’t require us to agree on anything,” she added. “And the fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.” “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,”..
More proof of the truth universally acknowledged, that Trump can say the most egregious shit that insults everyone in the country and get away with it, whereas Harris and her campaign have to be perfect and the slightest gaffe buries them.
It’s like the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the coalition.
It's really really weird, and a public thing not just a media thing, to be inured to all but the most egregious Trump comments but see the entire Harris campaign as undermined by single slips or statements.
The BBC does exactly the same. Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech. Despite his not being the candidate.
Plus they they went with the line that Biden 'claimed' he wasn't speaking about all Trump supporters. The silly auld fud misspoke but he's been in the business of seeking votes long enough and has enough functioning synapses to not think all Trump supporters are garbage.
I’d be fascinated to find out the circumstances of how Biden came to endorse her so soon after announcing his withdrawal. He acts like he can’t stand her. Was it just to spite the likes of Obama, who mostly likely were pushing for an open convention? He robbed us of telly level drama with the endorsement the bugger!
It was worse than that. Biden announced he was standing down in a written memo, but with no mention of anything else and no video statement (the suggestion was that he was taken ill, and was persuaded to stand aside at that point). It was a couple of days later, presumably after a lot of talking among the upper echelons of the Party, that he endorsed Harris, again with a written statement.
It was argued, at the time, that rather than crowning Harris, it had to come from the Party first. Then endorse *after* that.
Certainly, the whole party united behind her. All the potential contenders endorsed her. That part of the process went off better than anyone expected.
Given there is momentum to the idea of this as a change election, I think it’s actually the part that went far worse than expected. They could have opened the field and picked almost any of the others, and they’d have been a more credible pick than she has been.
There is an unreality here and elsewhere to the idea that she is any way a normal or impressive candidate. Trump’s opponent should be miles ahead given all the water under his bridge. And we should all be sat here with a much clearer idea of their agenda and have higher confidence in it.
On the other side given the economy - the Republican candidate should be winning this election by a landslide.
The fact they are not doing so shows how toxic Trump is to many voters...
I think that's why this election is so hard to call both sides deserve to lose it..
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
Dealing with us getting older. And older, and older.
It's a contributory factor, but a small one. This is one of the few things I know quite a bit about.
Most assessments of UK health spending find that increased chronic conditions and better technology (keeping people alive) are the reasons it's increasing so much. England's demographics are actually quite balanced due to immigration, yet their spending has increased just as much as ours has in Scotland.
Most demographic-linked spending in the UK is made in the last 12 months or so of life. You-only-die-once, so that doesn't matter too much except in the 2030s when we have lots of Boomers reaching their 80s. But a small blip, relatively.
The old traditional heart attacks (or strokes) that finish you off in one go are much cheaper to deal with. Cancers, particularly those with effective but expensive treatments and heart attacks/strokes that are survived can have much longer long term costs. Not to mention the costs of things like Parkinsons and Alzheimers (although a lot of that is more in social than medical care, unless hospitalised - which can happen in part due to limitations in social care).
It's obviously great that we've got much better at stopping people from dying suddenly in their 60s*/early 70s, but the costs in healthcare and pensions and social care are a challenge we have to deal with.
*Alex Salmond came as a bit of a shock, but there would have been many more slightly portly politicians dying at similar ages in the past.
I am struck by how much the lady on benefits gets. £33k a year. You would have to earn nearly £50k a year to take home that much, which is more than most of all the other people in that case study.
She doesn't get £33k a year. Her landlord gets £11k, her carers get £10k, she gets the rest from which she'll have to cover bills and any difference between rent+care and hb+pip
The corporate tax roadmap will be one of the bright spots and has been well consulted. Aside from possible employer NI rises this one is looking pretty decent for companies, all things considered.
Is it ? Well over half the anticipated tax increases fall on employers - and the well above inflation minimum wage rise will also drive up employment costs. Businesses employing few people will do fairly well; the rest get something of a caning.
Whether that all works out depends a lot on what's done on the spending side.
Obviously teh workers will pay for it , private companies do not have a magic money treee like the public sector. Means either employing less people or no wage rises till they make up the losses. Economics for idiots.
Business employing fewer people and increasing efficiency is actually a good thing for our economy if you look at it from a macro perspective.
So long as:
1. Efficiency actually rises, rather than the company contracting or failing to expand overall. 2. The changes don’t lead to an increase in unemployment.
There is huge unfulfilled demand for staff in several sectors, including health care, care and construction. Now the reality is a lot of people don't want those jobs but I think we are a long way from significant unemployment regardless.
NHS employment is at an all time high (I believe) - 1.3M FTE and up 30% since 2009.
Have we all got that much sicker over time? What are all those people doing?
We are getting sicker because of covid and obesity Demographics people getting older Technology opens up more treatment options We have low motivation through previous pay restraint We have poor retention of senior experienced staff who retire early or go to private sector, or part time public/private mix Chaotic organisational changes
All of those are obvious from the outside I'm sure there are more issues visible from within, but its a multi issue problem.
That’s all money not headcount
Eh? If you lose senior experienced staff who can make a team of 8 work and end up with 12 younger less experienced but cheaper people doing the same job, that is headcount.
If you need a new team to deal with treating cancers we couldnt treat 15 years ago, that is headcount.
I am struck by how much the lady on benefits gets. £33k a year. You would have to earn nearly £50k a year to take home that much, which is more than most of all the other people in that case study.
She doesn't get £33k a year. Her landlord gets £11k, her carers get £10k, she gets the rest from which she'll have to cover bills and any difference between rent+care and hb+pip
You can't separate out landlord like that. We pretty much all pay the landlord or the bank for housing....
If the Tories were delivering this budget I can guarantee all the people saying it is wrong for taxes to go up would be cheering this on.
Well we have examples from the recent past. When Sunak was introducing NI++ and putting NI up, those right leaning were most definitely not cheering. The reaction was WTF is he doing, absolute muppet.
So what would they do differently?
We have done this loads previously. The obvious things to do, you get rid of the cliff edges at £50-60k and £100-120k, you merge NI/ IC, if you do this the right way you get more tax from the top edge, you get rid of the current system that nudges people to work / earn less.
But my question would be, why did they not do this in the 14 years they were in government?
Because they bottled it, then Brexit, then COVID. Combining NI / IC is a big move. However, the cliff edges there were no excuses.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't.
The problem is that Labour will now just play the “you had 14 years and look what you did” card.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
The problem is it would create winners and losers. The obvious losers being pensioners (who don't pay NI) and thy are far more likely to resent the change than the winners are to be grateful.
If the 20% basic rate was increased to 25% and NI abolished then an increase in the tax allowance to circa £15,000 would address the issue
Indeed Sunak and Hunt's long term aim was to do something on these lines
And this comes back to the principle error labour made by ring fencing tax, NI and VAT which accounts for 75% of the tax take
Except Sunak and Hunt only cut NI and didn't do the other bit because their voter base was pensioners.
If they had really wanted to implement what they claimed to want NI would be at 6% and income tax at 22% because that is complete tax neutral for workers...
Worse than that- they froze the income tax bands (so letting inflation reduce them) and promised not to increase the basic rate in their manifesto.
If there was a plan to migrate national insurance into income tax, it wasn't going to begin until after the 2028/9 election. The alternative theory- that it was a desperate, opportunistic pre-election gimmick- fits the observations much better.
Who knew garbage would play such a big role in the last week of the campaign !
Biden shouldn’t have been doing a zoom call at exactly the same time as the Harris speech and I do think this will have harmed her campaign . Not in terms of losing votes of those already voting for her but It could help GOP turnout .
The Harris message of moving on from the division and trying to unite the country was hit by the Biden gaffe or apostrophe gate!
She needs to come out with something in response today , as to what that might be not sure yet !
This however does give her more license to break from Biden , those who were pissed off that he was dumped must surely realize now that he would have been a disaster if he had stayed on the ticket .
Comments
In general, it's true that those on the right advocate greater fiscal restraint, though exceptions are often made for infrastructure and defence spending.
Better to let council tax in general rise say 15%, while keeping the protections in place at the lower end of the scale.
Perhaps the opinion polls are wrong. Perhaps they overstate Harris. Or Trump.
I just don't see what evidence you have to be so confident?
You're busy campaigning in Buchan. It doesn't actually give you much insight into the mood of voters in Scranton, PA, or the suburbs of Atlanta, GA.
But they had 14 years and their plan was ultimately a failure. It didn’t work, I find it hard to conclude much else.
So I’m very happy for them to talk about what they’d do differently - so far I have not heard anything but I would like to - but it all does ring a bit hollow.
At least Starmer and Reeves are actually doing something. If they are too a failure I will be very happy to say so. But people have said it’s all over and they’ve barely started yet. I will judge them at the next election, as I expect most will.
Vance would be my pay day to end all pay days and I would dining out at Groucho's every night for years. Time however is running out...
I wouldn't be surprised if that really hurt him when he went for the Tory leadership amongst the members.
This isn't just fat old white guys raging on their porches, next to their Confederate flags....
It had been thrown out by a client, and came with a washing machine sized double 8" floppy disk drive, and a teleprinter not a screen.
He got rid of it quite sharpish when it was just sitting there - more suited to being an anchor for a small ship.
However, the cliff edges there were no excuses. I would do it today, you can make it revenue neutral really easily with some rejigging of thresholds. Its such an anti-productivity nudge at the moment.
But your original post was right leaning people would be cheering previous government raising NI, they most certainly weren't. NI++ was particularly idiotic by Sunak.
Objectively I do think Harris is the value overall mind.
Their R4 US news led on Biden's gaffe, and barely mentioned Harris's speech.
Despite his not being the candidate.
I still remember the very neat case he had for his ZX-81 - a metal box, about the size of a BBC Micro. There was a proper keyboard (type-able). Inside the RAM pack was clipped into place - but attached to the main board on a cable. The power supply was inside the case - in its own, separate, ventilated compartment (to the right, IIRC) - so no power connection wobbles.
Sinclair tried to sue the makers of it, he told us. I was very young - but I remember thinking that was insane. The case solved many of the problems of the ZX-81 in one go.
Infrastructure an obvious example.
https://x.com/stclairashley/status/1850927535707623663
https://archive.ph/T2q5C
The Telegraph is rather posturing. Their graphic says -1.5% impact on US GDP, and -0.8% for UK.
That's a lot of things, but "devastating" is not one of them.
I wouldn't like to be Land Rover, though.
Good fun and games but noone is deciding their vote on a few throwaway comments now.
One comment that I had never heard before was a reference by some MAGA people referring to America as 'A Republic, not a Democracy' as if they are mutually exclusive. That is new to me, if true.
And, no. Rural Republicans, in Nevada, are not turning out in droves to vote for Harris.
But, as you say, there’s still a path to victory for Harris, if she holds the Rustbelt - even if Georgia flips.
I don’t know much about combining NI and IC but as I am very close to a cliff edge as you call it, it does intrigue me.
I don't see another path but Harris campaign chief says there's lots. Hmmm...
The Founders wanted a *representative democracy* - they believed that direct democracy would lead to populism (ha!) and other bad things. There was a lot of rather poor history they took from the Roman Republic - especially of Clodius and his ilk.
The MAGA use of it is to excuse all kinds of deviations from simple elections.
TBF dad was well ahead - he was running CAD on an IBM PC AT clone by about 1986, and had an interesting accounting package based on paper systems where you had to get it all right because once you pressed "post transaction" it was all frozen.
Spending has also been quite inefficient. Not enough money on equipment or support staff so that the nurses and doctors can concentrate on clinical work. Not enough spending on social care, so that elderly patients can be discharged.
But I wouldn't underestimate the impact of the demographic transition. All other things being equal it means that taxes have to rise and services have to be cut in varying proportions.
The postwar baby boom was a massive boost to the economy, but the first boomers turned 60 in 2006, and it has been downhill for the economy ever since.
If that's the place you're in - and we're not, because we live here and only see one side of it - appeals to the fact the guy is an arsehole or a criminal don't wash, particularly in the brash, big and bold context of American politics anyway.
That's the upper bound for them
lower bound is listen to the IEA and crash the markets
Which is why they got voted out.
So, if you started with a completely neutral setup - fold the existing rates together - you'd have increased collection and reduced costs. The reduced costs would take a few years to realise as the NI system was wound down.
There's absolutely no reason ours shouldn't. And that problems with it aren't something you can outsource to the private sector, as exactly the same UK problems apply to them too.
And we can't do without it,
If the money available to Trump's campaign including PACs is say $1 billion then a few tens of million on distorting the betting markets makes sense to provide momentum and set up the "We Were Robbed" story. That's what I think is happening.
I'm not 100% certain Harris will win. Not even 70%. But I'm more than 35% certain that she will win, which is what is implied by her price of 2.82. The polls are on a knife edge; she has a better GOTV operation and is well ahead with women and graduates who have a higher propensity to vote.
I'm prepared to put my money where my head is on this one. I can live with the financial risk.
But yes, funnily enough the conventionally attractive women get more clicks online. Whoever would have thought that?
treat conditions early > less clinician time, less and shorter treatment
treat conditions later > condition has worsened, more clinician time, more and longer treatment, secondary conditions due to increases in weight, loss of mobility etc etc
it spirals outward
Harris 48 (-)
Trump 47 (-)
That includes post Puerto Rico joke garbage gate but not anything in relation to Biden garbage gate.
Certainly, the whole party united behind her. All the potential contenders endorsed her. That part of the process went off better than anyone expected.
Says my (now ex) Tory MP.
I am struck by how much the lady on benefits gets. £33k a year. You would have to earn nearly £50k a year to take home that much, which is more than most of all the other people in that case study.
ABC by contrast barely mentioned Biden's gaffe this morning
Indeed Sunak and Hunt's long term aim was to do something on these lines
And this comes back to the principle error labour made by ring fencing tax, NI and VAT which accounts for 75% of the tax take
There is an unreality here and elsewhere to the idea that she is any way a normal or impressive candidate. Trump’s opponent should be miles ahead given all the water under his bridge. And we should all be sat here with a much clearer idea of their agenda and have higher confidence in it.
Just banging up NI also creates winners and losers, of course.
Build Roads
Build Heathrow runways three and four
Build HS2, HS3, NPR and keep on electrifying the railways
Build tidal power
Build nuclear power
Build renewables, pylons and storage
Build EV chargers, lots of them
Build houses, and towns
Build tunnels and bridges
Allow people to build factories
And somehow keep on paying the bills until the economy grows in response.
Yes, of course we want to be kind to people - and support them where we can - but people will have to take and make much more provision for their welfare in future or the country will bankrupt itself, and then it'll be the law of the jungle.
If they had really wanted to implement what they claimed to want NI would be at 6% and income tax at 22% because that is complete tax neutral for workers...
I would reject the whole concept of "personal independence payments". People shouldn't drown but I don't agree the State should provide them with sufficient income that they would have had if they were working full-time to live a full and independent life, if they happen to be misfortunate enough to suffer from a mix of physical and mental ailments. I'd have to go and live with my family or friends if I fell on hard times and, well, that's life. I wouldn't expect the general taxpayer to keep me in my own place.
Instead, they can be supported to subsist in their communities or with their extended friends and family and government support should be directed at giving them some form of employment and support to employers to take them, and then any extra they earn can be used to increase their independence.
The fact they are not doing so shows how toxic Trump is to many voters...
I think that's why this election is so hard to call both sides deserve to lose it..
It's obviously great that we've got much better at stopping people from dying suddenly in their 60s*/early 70s, but the costs in healthcare and pensions and social care are a challenge we have to deal with.
*Alex Salmond came as a bit of a shock, but there would have been many more slightly portly politicians dying at similar ages in the past.
Her landlord gets £11k, her carers get £10k, she gets the rest from which she'll have to cover bills and any difference between rent+care and hb+pip
If you need a new team to deal with treating cancers we couldnt treat 15 years ago, that is headcount.
And so on.
If there was a plan to migrate national insurance into income tax, it wasn't going to begin until after the 2028/9 election. The alternative theory- that it was a desperate, opportunistic pre-election gimmick- fits the observations much better.
Biden shouldn’t have been doing a zoom call at exactly the same time as the Harris speech and I do think this will have harmed her campaign . Not in terms of losing votes of those already voting for her but It could help GOP turnout .
The Harris message of moving on from the division and trying to unite the country was hit by the Biden gaffe or apostrophe gate!
She needs to come out with something in response today , as to what that might be not sure yet !
This however does give her more license to break from Biden , those who were pissed off that he was dumped must surely realize now that he would have been a disaster if he had stayed on the ticket .