One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
America was a surplus nation then. You can’t compare it with the current situation.
Of course you can compare it to the current situation.
If every country tries to protect exports via the use of retaliatory tariffs - as is entirely possible - then we will all get poorer.
It is deeply naive to assume (a) that free trade is the cause of America's trade deficits, and (b) that tariffs are a consequence free way to solve the issue.
For what it's worth, I blame Germany and China at least as much as the US for the predicament: they should be consuming a lot more of what they produce, and they should be implementing pro-consumption policies. (Sadly the "Swabian housewife attitude still infects German politics.)
Talk about being deeply naive! You seem to have completely bought into the propaganda about free trade allowing everyone to get rich together as if we can all live in the 1990s forever, but the reality is that economics cannot be separated from politics. China is intentionally acquiring a dominant position in order to assert its political goals.
Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU. It's perverse to think you can solve anything by having them buy more of their own cars.
"Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU."
So what? It's consumption relative to income that determines your trade balance.
Of course but it's a form of denial to think that you can redress the balance by increasing their domestic consumption. You need to destroy Germany's productive capacity and move it somewhere else if that's your goal.
It's not denial at all.
A country's trade balance is a consequence of whether it is consuming more than it is producing or not. If you you consumer more than you produce, you run a trade deficit. And vice versa.
There are *many* countries where household consumption is higher than Germany's. For example, Americans buy 0.05 cars per capita (i.e. one new car for every twenty Americans), while for Germans it is 0.03 (i.e. one new car for every thirty three Germans). If Germans refreshed their cars as often as Americans, it would soak up a significant portion of the German trade surplus.
The problem is that certain countries - *cough* Germany *cough* - have fetishized saving. And that causes imbalances in the world (as well as making the Eurozone fundamentally unstable.)
Remember: for every saver there has to be a borrower. Saving and borrowing are flip sides of the same coin. If I am deferring consumption, you need to be bringing it forward.
Have you changed your views on trade deficits? I seem to remember you arguing that they didn't matter and using the analogy of a personal trade deficit with the supermarket you buy food from.
Your conclusion is that trade deficits are neither good nor bad, so why do you now see Germany's surplus as a problem?
To quote my first video:
"I haven't really answered the question about whether trade deficits or surpluses are good or bad and there's a reason for that the reason is they aren't either. They should just be natural parts the economic cycle of consumers and households increase and decrease their savings rates in response to rising or falling confidence. Economics is ultimately cyclical and balance will come eventually. We just sometimes don't see the cycles because they're so long."
The problem with Germany's policies is that during slowdowns, instead of encouraging consumers to spend, they instead encourage them to save. This is bad for Germany, because its people don't benefit materially as much as they should.
It also distorts international capital flows, because the Germany economy isn't able to absorb those savings (because everyone is saving and no one is borrowing), and that capital gets shipped off to the US instead, pushing down the price of borrowing there, and therefore worsening the US's consumption issues.
If Germany (and others, I've just picked on them) implemented cyclical policies that encouraged household consumption during slowdowns, it could significantly reduce global imbalances. Of course, it would help if the US implemented policies that encouraged more saving at the same time.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
America was a surplus nation then. You can’t compare it with the current situation.
Of course you can compare it to the current situation.
If every country tries to protect exports via the use of retaliatory tariffs - as is entirely possible - then we will all get poorer.
It is deeply naive to assume (a) that free trade is the cause of America's trade deficits, and (b) that tariffs are a consequence free way to solve the issue.
For what it's worth, I blame Germany and China at least as much as the US for the predicament: they should be consuming a lot more of what they produce, and they should be implementing pro-consumption policies. (Sadly the "Swabian housewife attitude still infects German politics.)
Talk about being deeply naive! You seem to have completely bought into the propaganda about free trade allowing everyone to get rich together as if we can all live in the 1990s forever, but the reality is that economics cannot be separated from politics. China is intentionally acquiring a dominant position in order to assert its political goals.
Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU. It's perverse to think you can solve anything by having them buy more of their own cars.
"Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU."
So what? It's consumption relative to income that determines your trade balance.
Of course but it's a form of denial to think that you can redress the balance by increasing their domestic consumption. You need to destroy Germany's productive capacity and move it somewhere else if that's your goal.
It's not denial at all.
A country's trade balance is a consequence of whether it is consuming more than it is producing or not. If you you consumer more than you produce, you run a trade deficit. And vice versa.
There are *many* countries where household consumption is higher than Germany's. For example, Americans buy 0.05 cars per capita (i.e. one new car for every twenty Americans), while for Germans it is 0.03 (i.e. one new car for every thirty three Germans). If Germans refreshed their cars as often as Americans, it would soak up a significant portion of the German trade surplus.
The problem is that certain countries - *cough* Germany *cough* - have fetishized saving. And that causes imbalances in the world (as well as making the Eurozone fundamentally unstable.)
Remember: for every saver there has to be a borrower. Saving and borrowing are flip sides of the same coin. If I am deferring consumption, you need to be bringing it forward.
Have you changed your views on trade deficits? I seem to remember you arguing that they didn't matter and using the analogy of a personal trade deficit with the supermarket you buy food from.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
America was a surplus nation then. You can’t compare it with the current situation.
Of course you can compare it to the current situation.
If every country tries to protect exports via the use of retaliatory tariffs - as is entirely possible - then we will all get poorer.
It is deeply naive to assume (a) that free trade is the cause of America's trade deficits, and (b) that tariffs are a consequence free way to solve the issue.
For what it's worth, I blame Germany and China at least as much as the US for the predicament: they should be consuming a lot more of what they produce, and they should be implementing pro-consumption policies. (Sadly the "Swabian housewife attitude still infects German politics.)
Talk about being deeply naive! You seem to have completely bought into the propaganda about free trade allowing everyone to get rich together as if we can all live in the 1990s forever, but the reality is that economics cannot be separated from politics. China is intentionally acquiring a dominant position in order to assert its political goals.
Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU. It's perverse to think you can solve anything by having them buy more of their own cars.
"Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU."
So what? It's consumption relative to income that determines your trade balance.
Of course but it's a form of denial to think that you can redress the balance by increasing their domestic consumption. You need to destroy Germany's productive capacity and move it somewhere else if that's your goal.
It's not denial at all.
A country's trade balance is a consequence of whether it is consuming more than it is producing or not. If you you consumer more than you produce, you run a trade deficit. And vice versa.
There are *many* countries where household consumption is higher than Germany's. For example, Americans buy 0.05 cars per capita (i.e. one new car for every twenty Americans), while for Germans it is 0.03 (i.e. one new car for every thirty three Germans). If Germans refreshed their cars as often as Americans, it would soak up a significant portion of the German trade surplus.
The problem is that certain countries - *cough* Germany *cough* - have fetishized saving. And that causes imbalances in the world (as well as making the Eurozone fundamentally unstable.)
Remember: for every saver there has to be a borrower. Saving and borrowing are flip sides of the same coin. If I am deferring consumption, you need to be bringing it forward.
Have you changed your views on trade deficits? I seem to remember you arguing that they didn't matter and using the analogy of a personal trade deficit with the supermarket you buy food from.
Your conclusion is that trade deficits are neither good nor bad, so why do you now see Germany's surplus as a problem?
To quote my first video:
"I haven't really answered the question about whether trade deficits or surpluses are good or bad and there's a reason for that the reason is they aren't either. They should just be natural parts the economic cycle of consumers and households increase and decrease their savings rates in response to rising or falling confidence. Economics is ultimately cyclical and balance will come eventually. We just sometimes don't see the cycles because they're so long."
The problem with Germany's policies is that during slowdowns, instead of encouraging consumers to spend, they instead encourage them to save. This is bad for Germany, because its people don't benefit materially as much as they should.
It also distorts international capital flows, because the Germany economy isn't able to absorb those savings (because everyone is saving and no one is borrowing), and that capital gets shipped off to the US instead, pushing down the price of borrowing there, and therefore worsening the US's consumption issues.
If Germany (and others, I've just picked on them) implemented cyclical policies that encouraged household consumption during slowdowns, it could significantly reduce global imbalances. Of course, it would help if the US implemented policies that encouraged more saving at the same time.
It seems like you are deliberately handicapping the possible policy responses by taking things like tariffs and capital controls off the table, but why do that? It all very well to blame Germany, but other countries are not powerless to influence things.
The government is facing growing pressure from trade unions to increase Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).
A total of 24 union leaders have written to the prime minister, concerned that Labour's manifesto commitment to "strengthen" sick pay is not being honoured, and warning that workers who are ill are being forced into debt.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
America was a surplus nation then. You can’t compare it with the current situation.
Of course you can compare it to the current situation.
If every country tries to protect exports via the use of retaliatory tariffs - as is entirely possible - then we will all get poorer.
It is deeply naive to assume (a) that free trade is the cause of America's trade deficits, and (b) that tariffs are a consequence free way to solve the issue.
For what it's worth, I blame Germany and China at least as much as the US for the predicament: they should be consuming a lot more of what they produce, and they should be implementing pro-consumption policies. (Sadly the "Swabian housewife attitude still infects German politics.)
Talk about being deeply naive! You seem to have completely bought into the propaganda about free trade allowing everyone to get rich together as if we can all live in the 1990s forever, but the reality is that economics cannot be separated from politics. China is intentionally acquiring a dominant position in order to assert its political goals.
Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU. It's perverse to think you can solve anything by having them buy more of their own cars.
"Germany in absolute terms has one of the highest rates of per capita consumption in the EU."
So what? It's consumption relative to income that determines your trade balance.
Of course but it's a form of denial to think that you can redress the balance by increasing their domestic consumption. You need to destroy Germany's productive capacity and move it somewhere else if that's your goal.
It's not denial at all.
A country's trade balance is a consequence of whether it is consuming more than it is producing or not. If you you consumer more than you produce, you run a trade deficit. And vice versa.
There are *many* countries where household consumption is higher than Germany's. For example, Americans buy 0.05 cars per capita (i.e. one new car for every twenty Americans), while for Germans it is 0.03 (i.e. one new car for every thirty three Germans). If Germans refreshed their cars as often as Americans, it would soak up a significant portion of the German trade surplus.
The problem is that certain countries - *cough* Germany *cough* - have fetishized saving. And that causes imbalances in the world (as well as making the Eurozone fundamentally unstable.)
Remember: for every saver there has to be a borrower. Saving and borrowing are flip sides of the same coin. If I am deferring consumption, you need to be bringing it forward.
Have you changed your views on trade deficits? I seem to remember you arguing that they didn't matter and using the analogy of a personal trade deficit with the supermarket you buy food from.
Your conclusion is that trade deficits are neither good nor bad, so why do you now see Germany's surplus as a problem?
To quote my first video:
"I haven't really answered the question about whether trade deficits or surpluses are good or bad and there's a reason for that the reason is they aren't either. They should just be natural parts the economic cycle of consumers and households increase and decrease their savings rates in response to rising or falling confidence. Economics is ultimately cyclical and balance will come eventually. We just sometimes don't see the cycles because they're so long."
The problem with Germany's policies is that during slowdowns, instead of encouraging consumers to spend, they instead encourage them to save. This is bad for Germany, because its people don't benefit materially as much as they should.
It also distorts international capital flows, because the Germany economy isn't able to absorb those savings (because everyone is saving and no one is borrowing), and that capital gets shipped off to the US instead, pushing down the price of borrowing there, and therefore worsening the US's consumption issues.
If Germany (and others, I've just picked on them) implemented cyclical policies that encouraged household consumption during slowdowns, it could significantly reduce global imbalances. Of course, it would help if the US implemented policies that encouraged more saving at the same time.
It seems like you are deliberately handicapping the possible policy responses by taking things like tariffs and capital controls off the table, but why do that? It all very well to blame Germany, but other countries are not powerless to influence things.
I'm not deliberately handicapping, I am merely pointing out that - as I make the point in the bilateral trade deficits video - that applying tariffs without addressing the underlying issue just changes with whom you have the trade deficit.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
Isn't there a danger that woke gets replaced by obnoxiousness? Because my feeling is that that was what was always behind it in the first place, a general disgruntlement.
There absolutely is but that will be a function of its hysterical overreach in the first place, that took no prisoners and destroyed careers and livelihoods of those who objected.
One watery bright spot is that ‘populist’ Farage doesn’t seem that popular on the inane clapping metric.
He annoyed the woman who said no to all asylum seekers by saying it is sometimes right to accept them. She probably won't be happy if/when she finds out he's also anti-capital punishment.
Looking through the baby names spreadsheet from the ONS, I just noticed that in addition to a Mohammed-Harris (yes really), there was also a Mohammed-Dean.
I guess that's giving the kid full flexibility - you want to go with your Muslim heritage first, go with Mohammed... and if you want to go with the whole WWC, then you always go with Dean.
It might also be a play on the concept of Deen.
There were a number of Mohammed-Deen's, so that makes sense; presumably deliberately choosing to anglicize it somewhat.
I have spotted no Mohammed-Kevin's yet, but I did see a Maryam-Sharon.
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
I like to think "Windrush" is a reference to Mr Windrush (played by Ian Carmichael) in "I'm Alright, Jack!"
And the Suffragette City line is just a belated nod to David Bowie.
Local news announced a deal has been secured to save the Hitachi factory in Newton Aycliffe which was in danger due to a gap in orders.
Controversial view: it should close.
They got the initial deal by cheating; their trains are cr@p and break (literally...), and we need to preserve trainbuilding in Derby, which has been done for over 175 years.
(More seriously: do we have room for two or three trainbuilders in the UK; and if so, the DfT need to ensure they are 'fed' with regular orders for new trains, rather than having gluts followed by lack of orders.)
Meanwhile, in the Australia v India Alien v Predator cricket match, the visitors are 82/4 at lunch dinner having won the toss and put themselves in first.
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
That is the sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle, and what's the exit.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
A Verstappen-Russell title would be quite the spitefest.
Good to see at least one driver stand up to the only one of their number who’s ever been done for dangerous driving resulting in a collision, and also the only one ever to have engaged in a physical altercation with a competitor.
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
The sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
I got one to invest in "Genius:George Best the Movie" today, on Monday it was AI GPU Servers with a 150% return.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
Increasingly what Reform voters want is not merely zero net immigration, there's a desire to deport people who are legally here.
We are getting into very dark times. The parallels with the 1930s are not overdone.
AFAICS Reform have no offer or destination or success criteria. It is just "things are terrible" ,"we hate (invent your option)", and "let's go .... thataway".
Opposing value-free politics is tricky, until it arrives and proves itself empty. And by then it's too late.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
Increasingly what Reform voters want is not merely zero net immigration, there's a desire to deport people who are legally here.
We are getting into very dark times. The parallels with the 1930s are not overdone.
AFAICS Reform have no offer or destination or success criteria. It is just "things are terrible" ,"we hate (invent your option)", and "let's go .... thataway".
Opposing value-free politics is tricky, until it arrives and proves itself empty. And by then it's too late.
(edited)
As the Lib Dems found once they entered coalition.
A Verstappen-Russell title would be quite the spitefest.
I was following that yesterday; it's all a bit of fun. I would say it's totally manufactured now the driver's title is decided, but the constructor's title race is still ongoing and generating enough stories. So I think it's fairly genuine between the two of them.
He's selling his 69-car race car collection, which may be worth over half a billion pounds. Sadly, Bernie's looking increasingly frail nowadays, and that's the first ever interview I've seen with him where he has not seemed as sharp as a tack. Then again, he is 94.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
Increasingly what Reform voters want is not merely zero net immigration, there's a desire to deport people who are legally here.
We are getting into very dark times. The parallels with the 1930s are not overdone.
AFAICS Reform have no offer or destination or success criteria. It is just "things are terrible" ,"we hate (invent your option)", and "let's go .... thataway".
Opposing value-free politics is tricky, until it arrives and proves itself empty. And by then it's too late.
(edited)
It isn't empty. It then becomes: "It isn't our fault; it's THEIRS!!!" as they point at someone else, usually a minority.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC it is not his "plan" to have any more tax rises before the next election - but says he could not rule them out in the event of "unforeseen" circumstances.
Well the IFS have already pointed out some very likely circumstances....unless we are getting austerity in 2 years time. Which is why some of the more switched on member of the cabinet wouldn't repeat what Rachel from Customer Services said to the CBI.
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
The sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
I got one to invest in "Genius:George Best the Movie" today, on Monday it was AI GPU Servers with a 150% return.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
I think it's less hope for sale vapourware than movies, tbh, but a sure thing it is not.
They have had a number of rounds of investment, including crowdfunding.
It feels like one for the "high risk / willing to lose" 5-10% of a portfolio, alongside some others, where the total will give a good to excellent return if one or two succeed.
It's like investing in an aeroplane company building metal skinned aircraft in the mid-1920s, perhaps. It has some record, and could fly or die or be bought out, plus there's the position of shareholders of being the ones left holding the baby.
I suppose another possible comparison would be those companies building new types of motor vehicle, or developing e-cycling delivery vans several years ago.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC it is not his "plan" to have any more tax rises before the next election - but says he could not rule them out in the event of "unforeseen" circumstances.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC it is not his "plan" to have any more tax rises before the next election - but says he could not rule them out in the event of "unforeseen" circumstances.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
It’s actually worth a debate, so long as everyone can engage in good faith. I’ll have a go.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
The sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
I got one to invest in "Genius:George Best the Movie" today, on Monday it was AI GPU Servers with a 150% return.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
They have had a number of rounds of investment, including crodwfunding.
It feels like one for the "high risk / willing to lose" 5-10% of a portfolio, alongside some others, where the total will give a good to excellent return if one or two succeed.
It's like investing in an aeroplane company building metal skinned aircraft in the mid-1920s, perhaps. It has some record, and could fly or die or be bought out, plus there's the position of shareholders of being the ones left holding the baby.
Given there have been a number of rounds of investment does that mean the original investors have seen their share diluted or are they just releasing additional equity.
More often than not with these sort of investments the shareholders are the ones who end up losing out. This one may well be a winner but with investments like this I always think are they just burning through cash. When's the return coming.
It is something I personally would steer well clear of. But at nearly 60 I am not really one for taking high risk investments.
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
The sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
I got one to invest in "Genius:George Best the Movie" today, on Monday it was AI GPU Servers with a 150% return.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
It could be worse. Twitter is full of “Hawk Tuah Coin” stories today.
You don’t want to ask if you don’t know already, but on the face of it a viral social media influencer and her team just walked away with millions in what was clearly a cryptocurrency scam, totally overshadowing the crypto community’s celebration of Bitcoin hitting $100,000.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC it is not his "plan" to have any more tax rises before the next election - but says he could not rule them out in the event of "unforeseen" circumstances.
Well the IFS have already pointed out some very likely circumstances....unless we are getting austerity in 2 years time. Which is why some of the more switched on member of the cabinet wouldn't repeat what Rachel from Customer Services said to the CBI.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC it is not his "plan" to have any more tax rises before the next election - but says he could not rule them out in the event of "unforeseen" circumstances.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
It’s actually worth a debate, so long as everyone can engage in good faith. I’ll have a go.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
I really don't think this the reason that immigration has become such a hot topic politically.
Anti-immigrant feeling is not restricted to areas with high house prices. Indeed Reform voting is highest in the places with either tiny immigrant populations (east coast seaside towns for example) and where housing is cheapest. The major issue is cultural change, hence all the fuss about Mohammad being the number one boys name.
Neither is it about highly skilled migrants being fine. People do not want immigrant bosses, they want to be their bosses.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
It’s actually worth a debate, so long as everyone can engage in good faith. I’ll have a go.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
I also think people will care alot less about immigration, especially in Reform areas and reform leaning areas, if these towns and regions had more opportunity, had better jobs and prospects for the young, and were properly levelled up, rather than just declining and not having (as is happening in parts of the North East) problem families and poor families from wealthy southern council areas dumped on them then the likes of Reform are neutered.
You are right about high skilled migration. Polling from the Migration observatory showed people cared far less about where migrants were from and far more about what skills they had to offer.
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
The sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
I got one to invest in "Genius:George Best the Movie" today, on Monday it was AI GPU Servers with a 150% return.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
It could be worse. Twitter is full of “Hawk Tuah Coin” stories today.
You don’t want to ask if you don’t know already, but on the face of it a viral social media influencer and her team just walked away with millions in what was clearly a cryptocurrency scam, totally overshadowing the crypto community’s celebration of Bitcoin hitting $100,000.
Yeah, I have been reading this too. Coffeezilla is already on the case.
He's a class act.
Why didn't she preserve her legacy by doing OF instead.
If they had known that a bit of tinkering would lead them toward such unpopularity, they might have decided to raise some proper money and actually get some stuff done
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
The sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
I got one to invest in "Genius:George Best the Movie" today, on Monday it was AI GPU Servers with a 150% return.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
It could be worse. Twitter is full of “Hawk Tuah Coin” stories today.
You don’t want to ask if you don’t know already, but on the face of it a viral social media influencer and her team just walked away with millions in what was clearly a cryptocurrency scam, totally overshadowing the crypto community’s celebration of Bitcoin hitting $100,000.
Yeah, I have been reading this too. Coffeezilla is already on the case.
He's a class act.
Why didn't she preserve her legacy by doing OF instead.
Between personal appearances and her podcast revenue doesn't even need to do that. Already made millions.
There are *many* countries where household consumption is higher than Germany's. For example, Americans buy 0.05 cars per capita (i.e. one new car for every twenty Americans), while for Germans it is 0.03 (i.e. one new car for every thirty three Germans). If Germans refreshed their cars as often as Americans, it would soak up a significant portion of the German trade surplus.
The problem is that certain countries - *cough* Germany *cough* - have fetishized saving. And that causes imbalances in the world (as well as making the Eurozone fundamentally unstable.)
Remember: for every saver there has to be a borrower. Saving and borrowing are flip sides of the same coin. If I am deferring consumption, you need to be bringing it forward.
(May have borked quotes)
You have to think of transport in that conversation, perhaps, not just cars, and domestic / overseas production. The USA exports very few cars to Europe because we need their type of cars in the same way that we need size 76 underpants for the whole population.
But on that particular stat, it is a fascinatingly close parallel to use of private motor vehicles.
Checking very briefly, in the USA private cars have a modal share by passenger journey of 89%. In Germany it is around 50%. For passenger miles, it is more like 85% and 60%.
Used less frequently, they need replacing less often.
I'm intrigued by the idea that the number of journeys, by whatever mode, is relatively constant. Each person only having the same time per day and per annum argues for that principle.
Lots of other factors are involved of course - USA has little or no MOT test so bangers hang around but their home made cars traditionally are lower stressed for performance, different mileage etc.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
It’s actually worth a debate, so long as everyone can engage in good faith. I’ll have a go.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
I also think people will care alot less about immigration, especially in Reform areas and reform leaning areas, if these towns and regions had more opportunity, had better jobs and prospects for the young, and were properly levelled up, rather than just declining and not having (as is happening in parts of the North East) problem families and poor families from wealthy southern council areas dumped on them then the likes of Reform are neutered.
You are right about high skilled migration. Polling from the Migration observatory showed people cared far less about where migrants were from and far more about what skills they had to offer.
Good point on regional opportunity, the country has become far too London-centric.
There needs to be more encouragement of regional investment by government, but the investment itself should be mostly private sector aside from transport, with significant tax breaks such as Employer NI and business rates for large employers investing in areas of below-average national income.
But as always it needs to be tied to housing, otherwise you end up with a repeat of the gentrification of Salford from the BBC moving in and pushing the locals out of affordability.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
I think the polling on this is quite interesting, from YouGov:
From spring 2021 - Conservatives no longer trusted on immigration
From summer 2022 - crossover, with immigration seen as more bad than good
July 2024 - significant, positive change in whether people think immigration is being handled well ("badly" has fallen from 86% to 67%)
Concerns about immigration are lower than they were before Brexit, but now approaching that level
The rising concerns are about pressure on housing and public services, as well as terrorism. Concerns about crime and wages are much lower.
Significant majority in favour of current levels of asylum seekers (or think we should welcome even more)
Even higher support for people coming here to work in the NHS
A lot of this is quite contradictory. People tend to be quite keen about the idea of providing a safe haven and having immigrants look after them in their care homes and hospitals, but nevertheless have concerns about the pressure they put on services. Very difficult to navigate for any political party, particularly when the welfare of pensioners really depends on immigration.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
It’s actually worth a debate, so long as everyone can engage in good faith. I’ll have a go.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
I really don't think this the reason that immigration has become such a hot topic politically.
Anti-immigrant feeling is not restricted to areas with high house prices. Indeed Reform voting is highest in the places with either tiny immigrant populations (east coast seaside towns for example) and where housing is cheapest. The major issue is cultural change, hence all the fuss about Mohammad being the number one boys name.
Neither is it about highly skilled migrants being fine. People do not want immigrant bosses, they want to be their bosses.
And the thing about the cultural change factor is that it's much more potent in the next town along than in the places actually undergoing change. So Reform's strength in Essex is driven by what's (perceived to be) happening in East London.
Something similar with Woke- the places where War on Woke works as a policy are the places where it's experienced second hand.
The partisan and age splits on immigration concern are also interesting;
The proportion mentioning immigration as a big issue has fallen by five points since October, meaning it is now the second-biggest issue for the country. However, public concern remains significant, with a third (33%) mentioning it as an issue. Concern is still strongly concentrated among supporters of Reform UK (77%) and the Conservative party (51%), as well as those aged 55 and over (47%)
If they had known that a bit of tinkering would lead them toward such unpopularity, they might have decided to raise some proper money and actually get some stuff done
Boxing themselves off as to what they could do before the election was an act of rank stupidity.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
It’s actually worth a debate, so long as everyone can engage in good faith. I’ll have a go.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
I also think people will care alot less about immigration, especially in Reform areas and reform leaning areas, if these towns and regions had more opportunity, had better jobs and prospects for the young, and were properly levelled up, rather than just declining and not having (as is happening in parts of the North East) problem families and poor families from wealthy southern council areas dumped on them then the likes of Reform are neutered.
You are right about high skilled migration. Polling from the Migration observatory showed people cared far less about where migrants were from and far more about what skills they had to offer.
Good point on regional opportunity, the country has become far too London-centric.
There needs to be more encouragement of regional investment by government, but the investment itself should be mostly private sector aside from transport, with significant tax breaks such as Employer NI and business rates for large employers investing in areas of below-average national income.
But as always it needs to be tied to housing, otherwise you end up with a repeat of the gentrification of Salford from the BBC moving in and pushing the locals out of affordability.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
I think the polling on this is quite interesting, from YouGov:
From spring 2021 - Conservatives no longer trusted on immigration
From summer 2022 - crossover, with immigration seen as more bad than good
July 2024 - significant, positive change in whether people think immigration is being handled well ("badly" has fallen from 86% to 67%)
Concerns about immigration are lower than they were before Brexit, but now approaching that level
The rising concerns are about pressure on housing and public services, as well as terrorism. Concerns about crime and wages are much lower.
Significant majority in favour of current levels of asylum seekers (or think we should welcome even more)
Even higher support for people coming here to work in the NHS
A lot of this is quite contradictory. People tend to be quite keen about the idea of providing a safe haven and having immigrants look after them in their care homes and hospitals, but nevertheless have concerns about the pressure they put on services. Very difficult to navigate for any political party, particularly when the welfare of pensioners really depends on immigration.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
Increasingly what Reform voters want is not merely zero net immigration, there's a desire to deport people who are legally here.
We are getting into very dark times. The parallels with the 1930s are not overdone.
I followed a link from here to a post by Badenoch on twitter. One of the first replies was someone saying that she could be a great future PM of Nigeria. They went on to elaborate they, after becoming British PM, she could start a policy of repatriation, repatriate herself, and become PM of Nigeria.
Strategically, I think it makes sense for Labour to not put a figure on immigration. Because they’ve seen what happened to the last government.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
I know Goodwin suggests a cap, but I can't remember what it is. I'd go for 250k gross inward (not including Ireland). I think this would be politically acceptable and achievable, and it would lay down the principle of a limit. It could then be adjusted up or down as public enthusiasm waxed and waned.
Comments
"I haven't really answered the question about whether trade deficits or surpluses are good or bad and there's a reason for that the reason is they aren't either. They should just be natural parts the economic cycle of consumers and households increase and decrease their savings rates in response to rising or falling confidence. Economics is ultimately cyclical and balance will come eventually. We just sometimes don't see the cycles because they're so long."
The problem with Germany's policies is that during slowdowns, instead of encouraging consumers to spend, they instead encourage them to save. This is bad for Germany, because its people don't benefit materially as much as they should.
It also distorts international capital flows, because the Germany economy isn't able to absorb those savings (because everyone is saving and no one is borrowing), and that capital gets shipped off to the US instead, pushing down the price of borrowing there, and therefore worsening the US's consumption issues.
If Germany (and others, I've just picked on them) implemented cyclical policies that encouraged household consumption during slowdowns, it could significantly reduce global imbalances. Of course, it would help if the US implemented policies that encouraged more saving at the same time.
YouTube probably made them unavailable for one reason or another.
https://x.com/BNOFeed/status/1864843727849615758
Don't panic Mr Mainwaring
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-appoints-former-paypal-coo-david-sacks-ai-crypto-czar-2024-12-06/
A total of 24 union leaders have written to the prime minister, concerned that Labour's manifesto commitment to "strengthen" sick pay is not being honoured, and warning that workers who are ill are being forced into debt.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36epj8z108o
That said, David is no dummy, and he's (historically) been one of the few people able to tell Elon to "shut the fuck up".
He's normally far too busy in the Vatican.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPrADtoZV4g
New Zealand bat deepEngland can't bowl a tail out...."It's outta sight".
They got the initial deal by cheating; their trains are cr@p and break (literally...), and we need to preserve trainbuilding in Derby, which has been done for over 175 years.
(More seriously: do we have room for two or three trainbuilders in the UK; and if so, the DfT need to ensure they are 'fed' with regular orders for new trains, rather than having gluts followed by lack of orders.)
Not a good day for batsmen anywhere.
But my question for PB is: what would be an acceptable level of immigration every year that the public would be happy with?
An investment promoter from Hybrid Air Vehicles ie Airships, suggesting a possible return of 20x by 2030.
That is the sort of numbers one hope for from early lifecycle investments. But ... it's been a very long early lifecycle, and what's the exit.
At the start of November we revised the terms on our initial institutional round and for a limited time we’re offering qualifying investors the opportunity to participate on enhanced terms. There is now the chance to purchase shares at a price of £0.86 per share which, according to our internal modelling, could see a 20X return by 2030.
F1: handbags!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cn4x21xwp8go
A Verstappen-Russell title would be quite the spitefest.
We are getting into very dark times. The parallels with the 1930s are not overdone.
Do any of these ever make money or are they simply something rich people use to mitigate tax liabilities.
I used to get lots of emails for whiskey cask investment too.
Opposing value-free politics is tricky, until it arrives and proves itself empty. And by then it's too late.
(edited)
Incidentally, there's a very good interview on YouTube with Bernie Ecclestone that is IMV well worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13gvu5rGo0
He's selling his 69-car race car collection, which may be worth over half a billion pounds. Sadly, Bernie's looking increasingly frail nowadays, and that's the first ever interview I've seen with him where he has not seemed as sharp as a tack. Then again, he is 94.
CBI downgrades UK economic growth forecasts amid Budget pressures on firms
Why don't they just take it out of profits, like some on the left say they should ?
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/cbi-downgrades-uk-economic-growth-forecasts-amid-budget-pressures-on-firms/ar-AA1vm5Ar?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=eed9727d86564c67b4bd3393f39195f0&ei=19
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC it is not his "plan" to have any more tax rises before the next election - but says he could not rule them out in the event of "unforeseen" circumstances.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjwl09yq19yo
Well the IFS have already pointed out some very likely circumstances....unless we are getting austerity in 2 years time. Which is why some of the more switched on member of the cabinet wouldn't repeat what Rachel from Customer Services said to the CBI.
They have had a number of rounds of investment, including crowdfunding.
It feels like one for the "high risk / willing to lose" 5-10% of a portfolio, alongside some others, where the total will give a good to excellent return if one or two succeed.
It's like investing in an aeroplane company building metal skinned aircraft in the mid-1920s, perhaps. It has some record, and could fly or die or be bought out, plus there's the position of shareholders of being the ones left holding the baby.
I suppose another possible comparison would be those companies building new types of motor vehicle, or developing e-cycling delivery vans several years ago.
I cannot see them wanting to impose austerity a couple of years before an election.
The number one issue is housing. People will care a lot less about immigration if housing wasn’t so expensive. Build more houses, and be seen to be building lots more houses, if you want to win support for immigration. There’s a perception in many areas that immigrants are jumping queues for local authority housing.
The number two issue is healthcare. There’s wide support for allowing immigration to cover gaps in the healthcare sector, which is mostly public sector plus care homes and more easily controlled than immigration to the general population.
A trickier area is in skilled trades, which saw the amount of immigration under EU membership as undercutting their wages.
Another tricky area is students, and more specifically allowing students to bring families. Overseas students are a large boon to the economy, to universities, and to the balance of payments, but it should be on the universities to provide housing for them. University campuses should be free zones as far as housing is concerned, allowed to build as much as they like. Dependents should be paying for healthcare and child education themselves.
No-one cares too much about high-skilled immigration, if you can earn say double the median regional wage then you’re going to be a net contributor.
Lastly there’s asylum, the trickiest one of them all because of the visibility of what’s actually a relatively small number of people. It doesn’t seem fair to me, that if I want to move to the UK with my wife we need to spend thousands and possibly a year or more apart in order to do the paperwork properly, but that if she were to just turn up on a beach near Dover in a boat she can either quickly disappear into the black economy or have a 90% chance of being regularised at no expense to herself. Not dealing with the boats problem undermines trust in government to do the right thing, and was a significant factor in the kicking the last government received.
To answer the quantative question posed, until the housing problems are sorted out then David Cameron was right - it should be tens of thousands, healthcare workers and students excepted.
More often than not with these sort of investments the shareholders are the ones who end up losing out. This one may well be a winner but with investments like this I always think are they just burning through cash. When's the return coming.
It is something I personally would steer well clear of. But at nearly 60 I am not really one for taking high risk investments.
You don’t want to ask if you don’t know already, but on the face of it a viral social media influencer and her team just walked away with millions in what was clearly a cryptocurrency scam, totally overshadowing the crypto community’s celebration of Bitcoin hitting $100,000.
Anti-immigrant feeling is not restricted to areas with high house prices. Indeed Reform voting is highest in the places with either tiny immigrant populations (east coast seaside towns for example) and where housing is cheapest. The major issue is cultural change, hence all the fuss about Mohammad being the number one boys name.
Neither is it about highly skilled migrants being fine. People do not want immigrant bosses, they want to be their bosses.
You are right about high skilled migration. Polling from the Migration observatory showed people cared far less about where migrants were from and far more about what skills they had to offer.
He's a class act.
Why didn't she preserve her legacy by doing OF instead.
NEW THREAD
You have to think of transport in that conversation, perhaps, not just cars, and domestic / overseas production. The USA exports very few cars to Europe because we need their type of cars in the same way that we need size 76 underpants for the whole population.
But on that particular stat, it is a fascinatingly close parallel to use of private motor vehicles.
Checking very briefly, in the USA private cars have a modal share by passenger journey of 89%. In Germany it is around 50%. For passenger miles, it is more like 85% and 60%.
Used less frequently, they need replacing less often.
I'm intrigued by the idea that the number of journeys, by whatever mode, is relatively constant. Each person only having the same time per day and per annum argues for that principle.
Lots of other factors are involved of course - USA has little or no MOT test so bangers hang around but their home made cars traditionally are lower stressed for performance, different mileage etc.
There needs to be more encouragement of regional investment by government, but the investment itself should be mostly private sector aside from transport, with significant tax breaks such as Employer NI and business rates for large employers investing in areas of below-average national income.
But as always it needs to be tied to housing, otherwise you end up with a repeat of the gentrification of Salford from the BBC moving in and pushing the locals out of affordability.
- From spring 2021 - Conservatives no longer trusted on immigration
- From summer 2022 - crossover, with immigration seen as more bad than good
- July 2024 - significant, positive change in whether people think immigration is being handled well ("badly" has fallen from 86% to 67%)
- Concerns about immigration are lower than they were before Brexit, but now approaching that level
- The rising concerns are about pressure on housing and public services, as well as terrorism. Concerns about crime and wages are much lower.
- Significant majority in favour of current levels of asylum seekers (or think we should welcome even more)
- Even higher support for people coming here to work in the NHS
A lot of this is quite contradictory. People tend to be quite keen about the idea of providing a safe haven and having immigrants look after them in their care homes and hospitals, but nevertheless have concerns about the pressure they put on services. Very difficult to navigate for any political party, particularly when the welfare of pensioners really depends on immigration.Something similar with Woke- the places where War on Woke works as a policy are the places where it's experienced second hand.
The partisan and age splits on immigration concern are also interesting;
The proportion mentioning immigration as a big issue has fallen by five points since October, meaning it is now the second-biggest issue for the country. However, public concern remains significant, with a third (33%) mentioning it as an issue. Concern is still strongly concentrated among supporters of Reform UK (77%) and the Conservative party (51%), as well as those aged 55 and over (47%)
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-concern-about-economy-continues-rise-its-highest-level-year
Farage might end up looking like a moderate.