All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Yes, but it is all relative isn't it. The UK market is still a poor performer overall compared to the US Market or a global tracker.
Also bear in mind alot of the companies on the stock market are either international companies or make their money, or most of it, overseas. It is not purely a domestic market.
Looks like the License Fee is on its last legs as Lisa Nandy rules out General Taxation to fund the BBC but says the BBC needs more money - it doesn't, it needs pruning not maintaining.
"Ms Nandy acknowledged that a subscription model was among the options which were left after ruling out general taxation, but added: “It also leaves a whole range of options which the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has been exploring over recent years.
“In other countries in Europe, they find different ways of raising money.
“In France, for example, they have a levy on cinemas. I’m not committing to any of these things at this stage.”"
Cinemas is a weird choice. If we want a tangential industry to part fund the license fee, we do actually have a suitable one, Premier League football. Broadcast revenues of about £4bn a year. Stick a 10% new tax on those and the Premier League would be still be the dominant league as the gap to other leagues is huge. The main impact would just be footballer salaries 10% lower (still around £3m a year for a typical Prem regular). Gives an extra £400m or 10% of the current license fee.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
It's weird how car manufacturers are treated as a special case. There wasn't this fuss over other industries being offloaded abroad.
Perhaps it's because up until now cars were part of the highly technical, specialist manufacturing that Germany/UK etc are so good at. But now, with the advent of EVs, they are more like a TV or a laptop than ever before.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
The right have moved from free markets managed well to drive meritocracy to crony capitalism subsidised by the state. The left seem a bit scared to change anything which comes across as not having a clue what to do.
Notions of right and left change over time. The Town & Country Planning Act 1948, was considered an appalling interference with property rights by Conservatives and economic liberals at the time, yet many would now die in the ditch for the Green Belt.
More recently several members of the Revolutionary Communist Party became a key part of Boris Johnsons Conservative? government.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
Regulating your own industry out of existence just proves what a regulatory superpower you are.
Insane behaviour. Should have pushed it back to 2025. The investment is going in but it takes time.
Tell that to the Chinese manufacturers who already put the investment in. The investment is going in but it takes time sounds like something a water company boss would say.
OK, we've hit the twat event horizon. Time for me to get back to work.
If you don't want to be called out for being a snide twat, well, just don't be one.
Try being courteous and civil instead.
I said investment is going in and it is. Up here, the new factory I mentioned plus also the investment in AESC to support Nissan and other suppliers are investing. No need to respond with a shitty comment.
TimS is one of the few civil posters still around.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
Regulating your own industry out of existence just proves what a regulatory superpower you are.
Insane behaviour. Should have pushed it back to 2025. The investment is going in but it takes time.
Tell that to the Chinese manufacturers who already put the investment in. The investment is going in but it takes time sounds like something a water company boss would say.
OK, we've hit the twat event horizon. Time for me to get back to work.
If you don't want to be called out for being a snide twat, well, just don't be one.
Try being courteous and civil instead.
I said investment is going in and it is. Up here, the new factory I mentioned plus also the investment in AESC to support Nissan and other suppliers are investing. No need to respond with a shitty comment.
TimS is one of the few civil posters still around.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
It would not have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates. They would be being lambasted day and night by the media, opposition parties and PB commentators about how they've broken their promise. The complaints about WFA or VAT on private school fees would be nothing in comparison.
I'd be up for a 2p increase in income tax, but the idea that the Government could have done that easily is for the birds.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
It's weird how car manufacturers are treated as a special case. There wasn't this fuss over other industries being offloaded abroad.
There certainly was from those of us working in them, I can assure you of that, and at the time our exchange rate was crucifying manufacturing in the mid to late nineties we had our unions, campaigning for no avail, to try to help it.
The car industry may have survived here but many of the Tier 1's went abroad as did white goods and other manufacturing, like Black and Decker, and the prevailing view across the political divide was if it is more cost effective to outsource then do so and we will gear up for the jobs of the future and as for cars, our car plants can become screwdriver facilities.
I suspect if it was not China and the very real threat they are dumping cheap product on us to really dominate the market/put our domestic manufacturers out of business, then it would be different.
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Yes, but it is all relative isn't it. The UK market is still a poor performer overall compared to the US Market or a global tracker.
Also bear in mind alot of the companies on the stock market are either international companies or make their money, or most of it, overseas. It is not purely a domestic market.
In a mix of tech and global - pension is up 32% from this point at 17th Jan 2024. (Contributions worth 4% of the current pot in the year)
Once again, this government feels like it's out of ideas and stale just six months in. It's going to be a very long five years for Labour and for voters who want them gone. If Labour can't turn the economy around (and there is little evidence they can so far) I think 2029 is an extinction level event for them.
I can't see it. There's a lot of voters of the stripe of Bondegezou and MexicanPete. That cohort is aging, but won't all be gone by the time of 2029. If not Lab, they need another not Tory alternative they don't hate. It's clearly not Reform. And it's going to be whoever is best placed to beat Tory or Reform. Even if the LDs or Greens were an obvious successor to the main left wing party, there are relatively few opportunitues in FPTP to take over from Lab as the left wing alternative.
I didn't vote Labour in the general election. I've never voted Labour in a general or local election.
Scott Manley has upset the SpaceX fanbois with this:
"Given that this is disrupting aircraft downrange, I would be wanting an investigation before I let starship fly again.
I'd want to know what kind of debris risk we're dealing with, starship is big and designed to handle reentry.
Is the explosion the result of a tank failure or the FTS? We might reasonably ask whether trying to destroy such a large object is the best option in an emergency or whether it's safer to let it come down in as few pieces as possible."
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
The right have moved from free markets managed well to drive meritocracy to crony capitalism subsidised by the state. The left seem a bit scared to change anything which comes across as not having a clue what to do.
In the 19th century the Tories and Conservatives under Derby and for a time Disraeli were often the party of tariffs and protectionism and under Liverpool the Corn Laws and the Whigs and Liberals were the party of free trade.
In the US too at the turn of the 20th century GOP President McKinley, Trump's hero, was heavily pro tariff and the Democrats more for free trade
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
Regulating your own industry out of existence just proves what a regulatory superpower you are.
Insane behaviour. Should have pushed it back to 2025. The investment is going in but it takes time.
Tell that to the Chinese manufacturers who already put the investment in. The investment is going in but it takes time sounds like something a water company boss would say.
OK, we've hit the twat event horizon. Time for me to get back to work.
If you don't want to be called out for being a snide twat, well, just don't be one.
Try being courteous and civil instead.
I said investment is going in and it is. Up here, the new factory I mentioned plus also the investment in AESC to support Nissan and other suppliers are investing. No need to respond with a shitty comment.
TimS is one of the few civil posters still around.
(Certainly who isn't part of the echo chamber)
As a rule of thumb, when one poster starts calling another names, it generally indicates that they have run out of sensible arguments. They are effectively conceding defeat.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
Yes, it’s very weird that concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have been turned upside-down in recent years.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
It would not have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates. They would be being lambasted day and night by the media, opposition parties and PB commentators about how they've broken their promise. The complaints about WFA or VAT on private school fees would be nothing in comparison.
I'd be up for a 2p increase in income tax, but the idea that the Government could have done that easily is for the birds.
Quite so. If Labour had raised income tax by 2p, having promised they wouldn't, they would be languishing at under 20% in the polls as the collective outrage would have been huge.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Yes, but it is all relative isn't it. The UK market is still a poor performer overall compared to the US Market or a global tracker.
Also bear in mind alot of the companies on the stock market are either international companies or make their money, or most of it, overseas. It is not purely a domestic market.
A while back I moved from Nutmeg to ii and set up some Index funds. Since then my FTSE 500 index is up 17%, my S&P 500 index is up 36%.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
Yes, it’s very weird that concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have been turned upside-down in recent years.
@BJO is fundamentally right about the modern centre left being Tories.
Scott Manley has upset the SpaceX fanbois with this:
"Given that this is disrupting aircraft downrange, I would be wanting an investigation before I let starship fly again.
I'd want to know what kind of debris risk we're dealing with, starship is big and designed to handle reentry.
Is the explosion the result of a tank failure or the FTS? We might reasonably ask whether trying to destroy such a large object is the best option in an emergency or whether it's safer to let it come down in as few pieces as possible."
(The debris came down in open international airspace, with airliners around)
Indeed.
We know from Elon's friend Mr Putin that just debris from a tiny drone can destroy about 6 oil refineries, 5 harbours, 4 oil rigs, 3 air bases, 2 oligarch's gin palaces, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Heaven knows what the leftovers from a rocket could do.
Looks like the License Fee is on its last legs as Lisa Nandy rules out General Taxation to fund the BBC but says the BBC needs more money - it doesn't, it needs pruning not maintaining.
"Ms Nandy acknowledged that a subscription model was among the options which were left after ruling out general taxation, but added: “It also leaves a whole range of options which the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has been exploring over recent years.
“In other countries in Europe, they find different ways of raising money.
“In France, for example, they have a levy on cinemas. I’m not committing to any of these things at this stage.”"
"Many countries other than Great Britain, including Israel, Malta, France, the Netherlands and Jordan, have some form of license fees. Some base their fee on color television only (like Great Britain) and some on color television and radio (for example, Denmark). Two thirds of the countries in Europe, one half in Africa and Asia and 10% of those in the Americas and Caribbean rely, at least in part, on a license fee to support their television systems."
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
No NI should be ringfenced for social care, JSA and some healthcare costs
I'm sure all of those things are backed up by general taxation anyway. We should just bite the bullet and merge.
Social services would be better in NHS overview. It would Free up local authorities somewhat.
No, we are one of the only OECD nations which funds healthcare mainly via tax rather than insurance. If we want to stop an ever bottomless pit of taxpayer funds going into the NHS (and social care too for that matter) we need to use more social insurance to fund both
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
No NI should be ringfenced for social care, JSA and some healthcare costs
I'm sure all of those things are backed up by general taxation anyway. We should just bite the bullet and merge.
Social services would be better in NHS overview. It would Free up local authorities somewhat.
No, we are one of the only OECD nations which funds healthcare mainly via tax rather than insurance. If we want to stop an ever bottomless pit of taxpayer funds going into the NHS (and social care too for that matter) we need to use more social insurance to fund both
Are you talking about actual insurance policies rather general taxation under another name? Are you suggesting that the Government incorporates a state-owned insurance firm which everyone is obliged to fund? How quickly does that get privatised to support general government spending I wonder.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h It would be a good thing if there was cross party agreement that in the long run the triple lock is unsustainable & therefore an alternative must be found. Both Torsten Bell & Kemi Badenoch seem to recognise this inescapable fact. But it's hard to see how politics will allow it.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h The same goes for social care or council tax reform. Issues where MPs privately on all sides agree something needs to be done but will stamp on their opponents' fingers the minute they touch the issue in public.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Asbestos?
(Carolla did earthquake rehabilitation of houses after the 1994 LA earthquake before he was in Radio, so he is not entirely being a blowhard here - he does know something of it.)
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
No NI should be ringfenced for social care, JSA and some healthcare costs
I'm sure all of those things are backed up by general taxation anyway. We should just bite the bullet and merge.
Social services would be better in NHS overview. It would Free up local authorities somewhat.
No, we are one of the only OECD nations which funds healthcare mainly via tax rather than insurance. If we want to stop an ever bottomless pit of taxpayer funds going into the NHS (and social care too for that matter) we need to use more social insurance to fund both
"There are a range of approaches to raising revenues to fund healthcare provision. These can be categorised into public and private sources of funding. These revenues are used to fund the different health financing schemes through which healthcare is accessed, such as government schemes, health insurance schemes or household spending.
"For the UK, around four-fifths (79%) of health expenditure is paid for through public revenues, mainly taxation. This is one of the highest shares of publicly funded healthcare out of the 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with comparable data. Several Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland) have larger shares of publicly funded healthcare and, like the UK, operate predominantly tax-funded healthcare systems (see European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies). Japan and Luxembourg are the only countries with a higher share of public revenues that operate primarily insurance-based health systems.
"Public revenues cover the bulk of healthcare financing in most countries. Switzerland is the only OECD country, for which data are available, where the share of public healthcare funding is less than private funding. This is due to Switzerland operating a healthcare system where private health insurance is mandatory for citizens. Consequently, most healthcare funding comes from private insurance contributions."
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
Yes, it’s very weird that concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have been turned upside-down in recent years.
It's because of the intellectual collapse of the statist Left following the destruction of the Soviet Union and the headlong retreat of the free-market right since the financial crisis of 2007-8. So neither left nor right have the theoretical basis they used to, and have been reduced to lowest common denominator grubbing for votes to stay in power.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
The first reply states why it might be a good idea:
"This is the same situation with every wildfire cleanup. That’s what my husband does is the cleanup. People don’t realize how toxic the debris is. They also have to contain the ash footprint, so it doesn’t get washed into the sewers, waterways, and ocean."
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
The fault lies with the car manufacturers, and is surely the opposite of trying to push the tech before it's ready. They have been sleeping at the wheel and trying to squeeze out their final few years of old ICE vehicles while dripping out high end EVs, and at the same time Chinese competitors have grabbed the bull by the horns and threaten to dominate the mass market.
With tens of billions in state subsidies. It's not a fair fight.
He's a Lib Dem, their knowledge of anything to do with manufacturing is minute.
I literally make a living from advising companies on where to locate factories.
So what. You're a middle man who makes a living as a consultant. I doubt you have any knowledge of manufacturing processes.
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Yes, but it is all relative isn't it. The UK market is still a poor performer overall compared to the US Market or a global tracker.
Also bear in mind alot of the companies on the stock market are either international companies or make their money, or most of it, overseas. It is not purely a domestic market.
In a mix of tech and global - pension is up 32% from this point at 17th Jan 2024. (Contributions worth 4% of the current pot in the year)
Nice one. My work pension has done well but I am more US and Global trackers so have done well but nowhere near that.
Labour Minister attacks Badenoch on Triple Lock 'There’s being bold and there’s being plain bonkers. No-one who thinks for 5 minutes can believe means testing the state pension is a good idea - but that is what @KemiBadenoch says she’s up for'
Once again, this government feels like it's out of ideas and stale just six months in. It's going to be a very long five years for Labour and for voters who want them gone. If Labour can't turn the economy around (and there is little evidence they can so far) I think 2029 is an extinction level event for them.
I can't see it. There's a lot of voters of the stripe of Bondegezou and MexicanPete. That cohort is aging, but won't all be gone by the time of 2029. If not Lab, they need another not Tory alternative they don't hate. It's clearly not Reform. And it's going to be whoever is best placed to beat Tory or Reform. Even if the LDs or Greens were an obvious successor to the main left wing party, there are relatively few opportunitues in FPTP to take over from Lab as the left wing alternative.
I didn't vote Labour in the general election. I've never voted Labour in a general or local election.
Apologies Bondegezou - I genuinely thought you did. Can I ask who you did vote for? And is that because you favour that party/candidate above all others or because that party/candidate is best placed to beat your least favoured party/candidate? In my half-hearted defence, I was talking about voters like you, rather than you personally - i.e. you're probably not going to slot calmly into a Tory-Ref duopoly.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Debris from burnt down houses can be full of eg asbestos, and by then it will be in a far more dangerous form.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
Yes, it’s very weird that concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have been turned upside-down in recent years.
...and not just recent. It flips occasionally. One of my bag of anecdotes is that in 1976 Carter (a Democrat) won Texas, and Ford (a Republican) won California. Labour used to be the party of the factory worker: now, not so much. Trump won because he corralled the union vote and I can see that trend continuing. Things change.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
I have shares in Novo Nordisk. Only a few. I have a small portfolio I play with for fun. Down 30%. My biggest poor performer. Most of them are green thankfully.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Debris from burnt down houses can be full of eg asbestos, and by then it will be in a far more dangerous form.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
I am not sure or not whether the Twin Towers had asbestos but plenty of people suffered ill effects and death as a result of the debris when they came down.
Once again, this government feels like it's out of ideas and stale just six months in. It's going to be a very long five years for Labour and for voters who want them gone. If Labour can't turn the economy around (and there is little evidence they can so far) I think 2029 is an extinction level event for them.
I can't see it. There's a lot of voters of the stripe of Bondegezou and MexicanPete. That cohort is aging, but won't all be gone by the time of 2029. If not Lab, they need another not Tory alternative they don't hate. It's clearly not Reform. And it's going to be whoever is best placed to beat Tory or Reform. Even if the LDs or Greens were an obvious successor to the main left wing party, there are relatively few opportunitues in FPTP to take over from Lab as the left wing alternative.
I didn't vote Labour in the general election. I've never voted Labour in a general or local election.
Apologies Bondegezou - I genuinely thought you did. Can I ask who you did vote for? And is that because you favour that party/candidate above all others or because that party/candidate is best placed to beat your least favoured party/candidate? In my half-hearted defence, I was talking about voters like you, rather than you personally - i.e. you're probably not going to slot calmly into a Tory-Ref duopoly.
I am not going to slot calmly into a Tory-Ref duopoly, no, although I might tactically vote Tory to keep out Reform. (The most important political divide, as I see it, is between reality-denying, authoritarian lunatics (Trump, RefUK, etc.) and everyone else.)
I vote LibDem. I'm in a safe Labour seat for Westminster, so my vote is irrelevant and I can vote with my heart.
Labour Minister attacks Badenoch on Triple Lock 'There’s being bold and there’s being plain bonkers. No-one who thinks for 5 minutes can believe means testing the state pension is a good idea - but that is what @KemiBadenoch says she’s up for'
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
Yes, it’s very weird that concepts of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have been turned upside-down in recent years.
It's because of the intellectual collapse of the statist Left following the destruction of the Soviet Union and the headlong retreat of the free-market right since the financial crisis of 2007-8. So neither left nor right have the theoretical basis they used to, and have been reduced to lowest common denominator grubbing for votes to stay in power.
Centre ground politics is not delivering what we think we deserve and all electable alternatives are worse. This could be where we are.
That article mentions the Sampoong Department Store collapse, which should be instructive for the no-regulation idiots.
If you let rich fuckwits do what they want, people die. Generally not just the rich fuckwits, sadly...
S Korea went through its development much more quickly than we did, and a lot of corners got cut during the post dictatorship economic boom (this is about thirty years ago). I think bribery of politicians was also involved, from what I can recall.
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
Google Lens is inconclusive. Whatchoo talking about, Willis?
Scott Manley has upset the SpaceX fanbois with this:
"Given that this is disrupting aircraft downrange, I would be wanting an investigation before I let starship fly again.
I'd want to know what kind of debris risk we're dealing with, starship is big and designed to handle reentry.
Is the explosion the result of a tank failure or the FTS? We might reasonably ask whether trying to destroy such a large object is the best option in an emergency or whether it's safer to let it come down in as few pieces as possible."
(The debris came down in open international airspace, with airliners around)
It was in the FAA defined hazard corridor - in the flight plan. Such corridors are a mandatory part of licensing for all launches. And are released as notifications to pilots.
In fact the notifications going out on airspace restrictions and hazards are the first confirmation of the scheduling of a space launch, usually. The announcement of the launch license itself often comes later.
The FTS is fired according to defined limits (again agreed with the licensing authorities) - there’s no ground button to push. The usual main ones are the vehicle leaving (or heading to leave) the hazard corridor, or loss of control. The FTS is controlled from a separate box on the vehicle that monitors various numbers.
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
Google Lens is inconclusive. Whatchoo talking about, Willis?
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
That's a nice vista. Pity about all the grass though.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
I have shares in Novo Nordisk. Only a few. I have a small portfolio I play with for fun. Down 30%. My biggest poor performer. Most of them are green thankfully.
If it's any consolation, they make excellent insulin. I have been using it since 2001.
And their insulin pens (which they invented) are beautifully engineered, and design classics. I have one on the table in front of me which is a Novopen 3, which I have had for more than a decade. My latest one does bluetooth, and I can log onto it and download my injection record.
They have a charitable foundation attached to them which is 4x more wealthy than the Wellcome Trust.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
This has undoubtedly been a success for America. It was driven by strategic reasons because they were concerned that if China took Taiwan they would lose access to their chips and be at an impossible economic disadvantage but it is also indicative that we need to look at certain key shibboleths of our macro-economic/political assumptions.
So, for example, governments can't pick winners. Well, actually, they can to the extent that they can facilitate certain sectors and create opportunities that business can exploit. Sure, this won't always work but the US policy of seeking the return of manufacturing to the US in replacement for offshoring has worked and created well paying jobs there.
Free trade is an unqualified good. No, its not. We have seen entire sectors of our economy wiped out by international competition leaving us open to exploitation by what become monopoly suppliers. The idea of comparative advantage really doesn't work when that advantage is made up of people working in something approaching slave conditions with a total disregard of safety and environmental standards. It also doesn't work when that advantage works across an entire swathe of production leaving us with nothing that can allow us to earn a living. We need to protect our manufactures from what amounts to unfair competition.
Personally, I am increasingly of the view that we need a more mercantilist system. We need to encourage, for example, battery production, Chip production and EV production here. And if that means giving up on the sort of nonsense that the EU was built on by allowing that production to be supported by the state (even if we seemed to be the only country that really applied those rules) so be it.
Reeves says she is focused on growth. But she runs policies that positively inhibits growth. She is not stupid. Why does she do this? Because our orthodoxy no longer fits our current economic circumstances. We need new thinking. Thinking that doesn't just talk about growth but takes positive steps to facilitate it.
At least give Rolls Royce the order for the SMR nuclear power stations.
There’s three competitors here, USA, UK, and China. The US is still waiting for its first order, the UK has a tentative order from a Czech company*, and the Chinese are behind in development but we know will sell them to all of their client states quickly once they’re ready.
They all desperately need to streamline the planning regs for UK nuclear, or it will take so long and cost so much to build the first one that the funding will be irrelevant.
On topic, it'd be interesting to compare these figures to Osborne's in about Dec 2010.
One of Labour's problems - the one that's driving the above figures - is that whereas Cameron and Osborne prepared the ground for austerity, and nailed the blame on Gordon Brown, Labour hasn't done the same in reverse. Sure, they blamed Liz Truss but Truss was two years before they took over and Sunak and Hunt got some credit for appearing to stabilized things.
So for Labour to now introduce austerity measures has come as a surprise and doesn't fit with their pre-election media and public narrative.
Plus, those measures are having an impact themselves, particularly the tax rises, which do seem to have prompted a reaction from business that's slowed growth, which in turn affects people's perceptions of Labour's management.
In reality, it's not all tax and spend. Labour could increase growth by removing structural barriers to it but the measures that would best work are ones they're instinctively against (less regulation and process), or are too timid to do (eg reducing trade barriers with the EU).
Cameron and Osborne also had the benefit of, in addition to inheriting a big deficit, inheriting public services that were generally in pretty good shape. They could cut/freeze spending without things being seen to immediately break. Labour don't have that luxury - inherited tight financials and public services that are clearly falling apart and need investment.
I still think they should be doing better, but it is a politically very difficult situation they've come into.
That's true. However that's also why they should have joined the dots more effectively.
I think the public would have understood 'the public estate is falling apart and is going to need more money; some tax rises are therefore necessary, justified and moral'. It wouldn't have been overly popular but I don't think that many people would have defected their support when the case was so obviously right.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
The right have moved from free markets managed well to drive meritocracy to crony capitalism subsidised by the state. The left seem a bit scared to change anything which comes across as not having a clue what to do.
Notions of right and left change over time. The Town & Country Planning Act 1948, was considered an appalling interference with property rights by Conservatives and economic liberals at the time, yet many would now die in the ditch for the Green Belt.
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
That's a nice vista. Pity about all the grass though.
Think that is animal feed, IIRC, something not actually a grass…
Labour Minister attacks Badenoch on Triple Lock 'There’s being bold and there’s being plain bonkers. No-one who thinks for 5 minutes can believe means testing the state pension is a good idea - but that is what @KemiBadenoch says she’s up for'
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
Google Lens is inconclusive. Whatchoo talking about, Willis?
I think he’s talking about buildings. In fields.
Yup. It’s just outside Chablis, in France. Smallish town.
Which is growing and will swallow the outlying villages and become a city in a few years. The locals are happy about that.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h It would be a good thing if there was cross party agreement that in the long run the triple lock is unsustainable & therefore an alternative must be found. Both Torsten Bell & Kemi Badenoch seem to recognise this inescapable fact. But it's hard to see how politics will allow it.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h The same goes for social care or council tax reform. Issues where MPs privately on all sides agree something needs to be done but will stamp on their opponents' fingers the minute they touch the issue in public.
The mistake was when the Triple Lock was created. It's a decent idea to have the state pension drift up a bit gradually for a few decades- the pure inflation lock was making the basic pension too stingy and things were getting worse. Hence the need for sticking plasters like the winter fuel topup.
What was missed at the time was the need to plan the offramp; when would it go from being useful to absurd neverending exponential growth, and what should happen after that?
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Argentina maybe. Trump won't touch Social Security or Medicare.
He will pay for his tax cuts for the 1% of the 1% with ramped up borrowing. It will be inflationary, and quite a sugar rush of growth, at the expense of long term worsening of the American finances.
Trump is very much gunning for the cost of Medicare, and the legislation that forces them to pay list price for drugs while the phama companies take doctors on fancy holidays and advertise on TV.
Pharma companies don’t take doctors on fancy holidays - that’s illegal.
Drug costs are also only 15% of healthcare costs. Yes Medicare/Medicaid should be using its pricing power, but even a 20-30% reduction will only result in a 3-4% reduction in healthcare costs. Worth having but not transformational
Oh, definitely not holidays, just conferences in Aspen in the winter and Barbados in the summer. How bad that anyone might think that these are holidays rather than important work meetings to which the attendees for some reason bring their families.
Agendas are full and attendance mandatory. Families are no longer paid for and haven’t been for 20 years.
It’s also pretty rare to get more glamorous than Orlando
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
That's a nice vista. Pity about all the grass though.
Think that is animal feed, IIRC, something not actually a grass…
Scott Manley has upset the SpaceX fanbois with this:
"Given that this is disrupting aircraft downrange, I would be wanting an investigation before I let starship fly again.
I'd want to know what kind of debris risk we're dealing with, starship is big and designed to handle reentry.
Is the explosion the result of a tank failure or the FTS? We might reasonably ask whether trying to destroy such a large object is the best option in an emergency or whether it's safer to let it come down in as few pieces as possible."
(The debris came down in open international airspace, with airliners around)
Indeed.
We know from Elon's friend Mr Putin that just debris from a tiny drone can destroy about 6 oil refineries, 5 harbours, 4 oil rigs, 3 air bases, 2 oligarch's gin palaces, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Heaven knows what the leftovers from a rocket could do.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
Regulating your own industry out of existence just proves what a regulatory superpower you are.
Insane behaviour. Should have pushed it back to 2025. The investment is going in but it takes time.
Tell that to the Chinese manufacturers who already put the investment in. The investment is going in but it takes time sounds like something a water company boss would say.
OK, we've hit the twat event horizon. Time for me to get back to work.
If you don't want to be called out for being a snide twat, well, just don't be one.
Try being courteous and civil instead.
I said investment is going in and it is. Up here, the new factory I mentioned plus also the investment in AESC to support Nissan and other suppliers are investing. No need to respond with a shitty comment.
TimS is one of the few civil posters still around.
(Certainly who isn't part of the echo chamber)
As a rule of thumb, when one poster starts calling another names, it generally indicates that they have run out of sensible arguments. They are effectively conceding defeat.
Rubbish , you need to have some fun to liven up the boring posts at times.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h It would be a good thing if there was cross party agreement that in the long run the triple lock is unsustainable & therefore an alternative must be found. Both Torsten Bell & Kemi Badenoch seem to recognise this inescapable fact. But it's hard to see how politics will allow it.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h The same goes for social care or council tax reform. Issues where MPs privately on all sides agree something needs to be done but will stamp on their opponents' fingers the minute they touch the issue in public.
The mistake was when the Triple Lock was created. It's a decent idea to have the state pension drift up a bit gradually for a few decades- the pure inflation lock was making the basic pension too stingy and things were getting worse. Hence the need for sticking plasters like the winter fuel topup.
What was missed at the time was the need to plan the offramp; when would it go from being useful to absurd neverending exponential growth, and what should happen after that?
One of those situations where no-one wants to be the person whose name is associated with stopping it for fear of unpopularity.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Debris from burnt down houses can be full of eg asbestos, and by then it will be in a far more dangerous form.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
I am not sure or not whether the Twin Towers had asbestos but plenty of people suffered ill effects and death as a result of the debris when they came down.
They were built late 1960s iirc, so would be full of it.
The latency period for asbestosis is 10 -> 50 years (lost my dad in 2009 from exposure around 1970), so cases from 9/11 are likely to peak in the 2030s and 2040s.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
No NI should be ringfenced for social care, JSA and some healthcare costs
I'm sure all of those things are backed up by general taxation anyway. We should just bite the bullet and merge.
Social services would be better in NHS overview. It would Free up local authorities somewhat.
No, we are one of the only OECD nations which funds healthcare mainly via tax rather than insurance. If we want to stop an ever bottomless pit of taxpayer funds going into the NHS (and social care too for that matter) we need to use more social insurance to fund both
"There are a range of approaches to raising revenues to fund healthcare provision. These can be categorised into public and private sources of funding. These revenues are used to fund the different health financing schemes through which healthcare is accessed, such as government schemes, health insurance schemes or household spending.
"For the UK, around four-fifths (79%) of health expenditure is paid for through public revenues, mainly taxation. This is one of the highest shares of publicly funded healthcare out of the 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with comparable data. Several Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland) have larger shares of publicly funded healthcare and, like the UK, operate predominantly tax-funded healthcare systems (see European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies). Japan and Luxembourg are the only countries with a higher share of public revenues that operate primarily insurance-based health systems.
"Public revenues cover the bulk of healthcare financing in most countries. Switzerland is the only OECD country, for which data are available, where the share of public healthcare funding is less than private funding. This is due to Switzerland operating a healthcare system where private health insurance is mandatory for citizens. Consequently, most healthcare funding comes from private insurance contributions."
Social insurance as a term can mean tax-payer funded provision (like UK) or insurance policies (public or private). Either way health and social care are paid for out of the public's pocket whether by tax, insurance premiums or direct payment. The debate is whether you share the cost by paying through tax or insurance premiums or leave it down to luck.
We've landed on our current system for good reasons including selfish ones. 1) business needs a healthy workforce 2) the well-off don't want to be surrounded by deadly infections 3) if the capital costs of the health system weren't underwritten by the state, it would probably be much smaller and more expensive
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
I’ve said for years that the next Labour Government had to be radical, and the last thing we needed was more Blair/Brown tinkering. Sadly the people at the top are straight out of that paradigm, devoid of vision.
We need investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, the green economy and our relationship with Europe. And an overhaul of local Government. If that meant putting income tax up by a penny or two then that should not have been ruled out.
It would have been really easy to blame on the last lot a 2p increase in income tax rates, with the intention to abolish before the next election, which would have given headroom for major reforms in service delivery elsewhere.
They have a huge majority, and there’s been so many issues left on the too-difficult list for too long.
Someone needs to really grasp the mettle, to merge employee NI into income tax and simplify much of the tax code.
Instead, a government run by the Process State guy intends to increase the cost of the bureaucracy, and appears wedded to Ed Miliband’s agenda of Net Zero no matter what the cost to the average man and woman in the street.
No NI should be ringfenced for social care, JSA and some healthcare costs
I'm sure all of those things are backed up by general taxation anyway. We should just bite the bullet and merge.
Social services would be better in NHS overview. It would Free up local authorities somewhat.
No, we are one of the only OECD nations which funds healthcare mainly via tax rather than insurance. If we want to stop an ever bottomless pit of taxpayer funds going into the NHS (and social care too for that matter) we need to use more social insurance to fund both
"There are a range of approaches to raising revenues to fund healthcare provision. These can be categorised into public and private sources of funding. These revenues are used to fund the different health financing schemes through which healthcare is accessed, such as government schemes, health insurance schemes or household spending.
"For the UK, around four-fifths (79%) of health expenditure is paid for through public revenues, mainly taxation. This is one of the highest shares of publicly funded healthcare out of the 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with comparable data. Several Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland) have larger shares of publicly funded healthcare and, like the UK, operate predominantly tax-funded healthcare systems (see European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies). Japan and Luxembourg are the only countries with a higher share of public revenues that operate primarily insurance-based health systems.
"Public revenues cover the bulk of healthcare financing in most countries. Switzerland is the only OECD country, for which data are available, where the share of public healthcare funding is less than private funding. This is due to Switzerland operating a healthcare system where private health insurance is mandatory for citizens. Consequently, most healthcare funding comes from private insurance contributions."
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
I have shares in Novo Nordisk. Only a few. I have a small portfolio I play with for fun. Down 30%. My biggest poor performer. Most of them are green thankfully.
If it's any consolation, they make excellent insulin. I have been using it since 2001.
And their insulin pens (which they invented) are beautifully engineered, and design classics. I have one on the table in front of me which is a Novopen 3, which I have had for more than a decade. My latest one does bluetooth, and I can log onto it and download my injection record.
They have a charitable foundation attached to them which is 4x more wealthy than the Wellcome Trust.
I sold Novo that technology 😁😊
(And technically the company is attached to the foundation not the other way around)
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
The fault lies with the car manufacturers, and is surely the opposite of trying to push the tech before it's ready. They have been sleeping at the wheel and trying to squeeze out their final few years of old ICE vehicles while dripping out high end EVs, and at the same time Chinese competitors have grabbed the bull by the horns and threaten to dominate the mass market.
With tens of billions in state subsidies. It's not a fair fight.
Maybe the EU (and the UK) might watch and learn.
Sure, but that's a hard rewiring of how western economies work, would you be comfortable with the state pumping billions into UK car companies and have those execs take home tens of millions per year still and those companies making billions in profit for their shareholders with near zero direct ROI for the state? China is able to do this because the state owns a big part of its industries so on order to ape the Chinese model you have to become comfortable with the state owning big chunks of UK industry and we all know how that went in the 70s.
No, our way forwards is, as a single voice, telling China to get fucked and lock them out of our markets until the state subsidy programmes are eliminated.
Is it - or would it be more sensible to incentivise them via tariffs to build battery manufacturing here ?
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
I have shares in Novo Nordisk. Only a few. I have a small portfolio I play with for fun. Down 30%. My biggest poor performer. Most of them are green thankfully.
If it's any consolation, they make excellent insulin. I have been using it since 2001.
And their insulin pens (which they invented) are beautifully engineered, and design classics. I have one on the table in front of me which is a Novopen 3, which I have had for more than a decade. My latest one does bluetooth, and I can log onto it and download my injection record.
They have a charitable foundation attached to them which is 4x more wealthy than the Wellcome Trust.
I sold Novo that technology 😁😊
(And technically the company is attached to the foundation not the other way around)
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
I have shares in Novo Nordisk. Only a few. I have a small portfolio I play with for fun. Down 30%. My biggest poor performer. Most of them are green thankfully.
If it's any consolation, they make excellent insulin. I have been using it since 2001.
And their insulin pens (which they invented) are beautifully engineered, and design classics. I have one on the table in front of me which is a Novopen 3, which I have had for more than a decade. My latest one does bluetooth, and I can log onto it and download my injection record.
They have a charitable foundation attached to them which is 4x more wealthy than the Wellcome Trust.
I tend to buy and hold, I am expecting them to come good in future.
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Everything is going gangbusters
More relevant is the surprise fall in December retail sales
Good. I think we all sort-of accept that many of our national problems come from buying too much imported tat on the never-never. There's no path to national financial healing that doesn't go through lower retail sales.
And no, it won't be pleasant for any of us, and I hope that those who need to find new jobs find good ones soon. But this is what hangovers are always like- they are never fun.
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Everything is going gangbusters
More relevant is the surprise fall in December retail sales
Indeed and for some far worse than others. We know Next did well and M&S seem to have done as well. For a sharp fall like that there must be some real losers out there,
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 15h The same goes for social care or council tax reform. Issues where MPs privately on all sides agree something needs to be done but will stamp on their opponents' fingers the minute they touch the issue in public.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
Regulating your own industry out of existence just proves what a regulatory superpower you are.
Insane behaviour. Should have pushed it back to 2025. The investment is going in but it takes time.
Tell that to the Chinese manufacturers who already put the investment in. The investment is going in but it takes time sounds like something a water company boss would say.
OK, we've hit the twat event horizon. Time for me to get back to work.
If you don't want to be called out for being a snide twat, well, just don't be one.
Try being courteous and civil instead.
I said investment is going in and it is. Up here, the new factory I mentioned plus also the investment in AESC to support Nissan and other suppliers are investing. No need to respond with a shitty comment.
TimS is one of the few civil posters still around.
(Certainly who isn't part of the echo chamber)
As a rule of thumb, when one poster starts calling another names, it generally indicates that they have run out of sensible arguments. They are effectively conceding defeat.
Rubbish , you need to have some fun to liven up the boring posts at times.
Not a line he would have tried on Ishmael in his pomp, that's for certain and many of us were on the receiving end of his barbs to which people taking moral high ground now were silent
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Everything is going gangbusters
More relevant is the surprise fall in December retail sales
Good. I think we all sort-of accept that many of our national problems come from buying too much imported tat on the never-never. There's no path to national financial healing that doesn't go through lower retail sales.
And no, it won't be pleasant for any of us, and I hope that those who need to find new jobs find good ones soon. But this is what hangovers are always like- they are never fun.
We also seriously need to consider how we are going to re-purpose city and town centres and shopping malls if this decline continues because, at the moment, town centres full of boarded up shops do nothing for the area and seem to be a magnet for crime like petty vandalism.
This affects pubs and restaurants as well as shops.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Debris from burnt down houses can be full of eg asbestos, and by then it will be in a far more dangerous form.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
I am not sure or not whether the Twin Towers had asbestos but plenty of people suffered ill effects and death as a result of the debris when they came down.
They were built late 1960s iirc, so would be full of it.
The latency period for asbestosis is 10 -> 50 years (lost my dad in 2009 from exposure around 1970), so cases from 9/11 are likely to peak in the 2030s and 2040s.
One of my wife's university colleagues died of mesothelioma a few years back from exposure 20-30 years prior (maintenance workers drilling into affected walls and ceiling, I think). The material was still there when she left.
Current mortality studies are inconclusive for 911 responders, but you're almost certainly right. There was a lot of asbestos (before the proof of its hazardous nature, a "wonder" material for building) in the Trade Center.
As mentioned the other day, much of the West is at the sort of tipping point we saw in 1945 and in 1979.
There needs to be radical change, and the people are going to vote for those offering it.
Starmer is fiddling while Rome burns, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, or whatever is your preferred metaphor for making only minor changes when major changes are required.
Yes but what are these “major changes” of which you speak? I imagine it’s the tired old mantra of spending cuts which affect the poorest the hardest as public services are reduced or withdrawn and tax cuts which will inevitably only make the richest richer still and accelerate wealth inequality.
It’s not either 1945 or 1979 and the “solutions” then won’t be the solutions now.
In truth nobody has come up with an effective economic model to promote growth since the collapse of the last Ponzi scheme in 2008.
Oh indeed so.
At least the Americans are about to try and do something, even if you disagree with it and dislike the characters involved. It may or may not work, but at least they’re trying.
Meanwhile, European governments are either going nowhere or electing fringe politicians.
It’s going to be a turbulent few years ahead for us all.
Biden did do something. Though it’s arguable how much the tech boom was already baked in, the CHIPS Act etc.
CHIPS Act was the one thing that even Biden’s biggest opponents supported. It really had to be done, to avoid utter dependence on China and Taiwan.
It is a shame the democrats did not really seem to get enough credit for that in the November election.
Picking a hopeless candidate probably didn't help.
It will be a good legacy for Biden.
There’s a lot of books to be written about the state of the Democratic Party in the last 18 months.
They had plenty of opportunities to have Biden stand aside and choose someone who could beat Trump, and failed to take all of them until it was far too late, so they ended up with little choice but to impose the most unsuitable candidate on the party with no competitive primaries.
There’s loads of competent Dem Governors and Senators who could have stood up and done the job.
All would likely still have lost due to cost of living, which Trump now has to deal with. Not sure his tariffs will help
If he hits Denmark with tarriffs because he wants Greenland... well, up goes the price of Ozempic.
Novo manufacture Ozempic in several sites in the USA already.
So possibly not.
And potentially insulin.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
I have shares in Novo Nordisk. Only a few. I have a small portfolio I play with for fun. Down 30%. My biggest poor performer. Most of them are green thankfully.
If it's any consolation, they make excellent insulin. I have been using it since 2001.
And their insulin pens (which they invented) are beautifully engineered, and design classics. I have one on the table in front of me which is a Novopen 3, which I have had for more than a decade. My latest one does bluetooth, and I can log onto it and download my injection record.
They have a charitable foundation attached to them which is 4x more wealthy than the Wellcome Trust.
I sold Novo that technology 😁😊
(And technically the company is attached to the foundation not the other way around)
I did like her nick Robinson interview today, to paraphrase, I wouldn’t call myself the Iron Chancellor but if everyone else would like to that would be great.
Her biggest f up which she should be vilified for, more than any of the other decisions, was the purely politically driven talking down of the economy. She thought she was being clever in giving the Tories a big kicking whilst they were already down and internally haemorrhaging but ultimately this political act caused huge economic damage.
Childish student politics has big repercussions.
I don't think that was the biggest mistake (there's some stiff competition) but it was a big mistake. A bigger one imo was to do what I've heard a commentator (can't remember who sadly) describe as Labour's normal habit on the economy, start grim and tough (Stick to Tory spending plans) and end in a flurry of giveaways as the GE looms. That was what all this 'tough decisions early on' bollocks they've been spouting in interviews has been about. It was projection.
As they are now realising, the economy (especially in its current weakened state) is not a prop in Labour's political pointscoring game. They have now fucked things so much that borrowing costs are through the roof and there won't be any money for pre-election bribes. A peculiar combination of uncaring malice and stupidity.
“Fiona and Dan don't think any future CQC investigation into Leeds could be independent with the trust's former chief executive in charge of the regulator.
Sir Julian Hartley led the trust for 10 years, until January 2023, and was in post when Aliona died. He took over the CQC in December 2024.”
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
The fault lies with the car manufacturers, and is surely the opposite of trying to push the tech before it's ready. They have been sleeping at the wheel and trying to squeeze out their final few years of old ICE vehicles while dripping out high end EVs, and at the same time Chinese competitors have grabbed the bull by the horns and threaten to dominate the mass market.
With tens of billions in state subsidies. It's not a fair fight.
Maybe the EU (and the UK) might watch and learn.
Sure, but that's a hard rewiring of how western economies work, would you be comfortable with the state pumping billions into UK car companies and have those execs take home tens of millions per year still and those companies making billions in profit for their shareholders with near zero direct ROI for the state? China is able to do this because the state owns a big part of its industries so on order to ape the Chinese model you have to become comfortable with the state owning big chunks of UK industry and we all know how that went in the 70s.
No, our way forwards is, as a single voice, telling China to get fucked and lock them out of our markets until the state subsidy programmes are eliminated.
Is it - or would it be more sensible to incentivise them via tariffs to build battery manufacturing here ?
Otherwise we just fall further behind.
Isn't that the same as telling China to get fucked, putting up mega tariffs against China is basically excluding them from our markets. I agree we should do it but Starmer seems to be going down the other route and is inviting China in rather than excluding them.
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Everything is going gangbusters
More relevant is the surprise fall in December retail sales
Indeed and for some far worse than others. We know Next did well and M&S seem to have done as well. For a sharp fall like that there must be some real losers out there,
Asda seems to be the biggest loser and not just among the big supermarkets, they seem to have lost across all categories in food and non-food.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Debris from burnt down houses can be full of eg asbestos, and by then it will be in a far more dangerous form.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
I am not sure or not whether the Twin Towers had asbestos but plenty of people suffered ill effects and death as a result of the debris when they came down.
They were built late 1960s iirc, so would be full of it.
The latency period for asbestosis is 10 -> 50 years (lost my dad in 2009 from exposure around 1970), so cases from 9/11 are likely to peak in the 2030s and 2040s.
One of my wife's university colleagues died of mesothelioma a few years back from exposure 20-30 years prior (maintenance workers drilling into affected walls and ceiling, I think). The material was still there when she left.
Current mortality studies are inconclusive for 911 responders, but you're almost certainly right. There was a lot of asbestos (before the proof of its hazardous nature, a "wonder" material for building) in the Trade Center.
The Mesothelioma centre puts it at a 19% greater chance for Firefighters to die after 911 compared to a normal event.
I made the comment as I remembered the "Dust Lady" who ended up succumbing to Stomach cancer in 2014 which was attributed to 911.
Are any of theatre's great dames other than Judi Dench still left ?
Eileen Atkins & Helen Mirren surely qualify.
Disgracefully I only got round to watching Gosford Park over the festive period, cracking film with a good An Inspector Calls, boot the class system in the balls vibe. Didn’t seem dated at all unlike a lot of stuff made 20+ years ago.
I disagree. There is a veneer of economic output in places, and not even that in large parts of the country. Hospitality appears to have had a poor Christmas, retail likewise. People are struggling for money and that means they can't spend it in sufficient quantities to keep the economy turning.
Seriously, there's an awful lot of towns and some cities which are visibly broken in places, with a lack of money and ideas to turn it around. When your community is visibly tatty and its getting worse not better, its no wonder people feel gloomy.
I disagree as well and suspect some people who live a pretty nice life in a pretty nice part of the UK really have not got a clue as to what it is like in these places so just make an assumption.
Hospitality did badly over Xmas as did the high street. We were out in Newcastle a couple of times and it was quiet compared to previous years, especially prior to COVID. New Years eve afternoon may be down to the weather but not everything can be.
Our MP has now started a page for people to report potholes for the new fund. Together we can beat the pothole !!!! It is making a virtue out of a situation that should never be allowed to happen at the scale it has.
People don’t want a centrally-financed “potholes fund”, requiring thousands of pounds of form-filling cost. They want the council to come and fill in the damn potholes.
The key to all of this is the social care problem, which the government has decided to push to 2028.
Absolutely on both counts. It is the biggest deriliction of duty of labour to kick the can down the road and, I am afraid, those with the deeper pockets will have to pay. The current system is crucifying councils up and down the country.
Was the "death tax" really such a bad idea.
Our MP is cynically using potholes for his own benefit and I do not blame him.
It was a good idea, even if details would have needed ironing out. And it was bold to mention it rather than fudge it until after the election (mandate doesn’t mean anything if you have the numbers).
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
You don't have to take every tweet that William posts at face value. In reality, the chances that EU car makers will pay anything to Chinese manufactures are approximately zero. While you might argue that the EU's approach towards driving the shift to EVs is flawed, the blame for falling behind the Chinese on EV production lies more with the car companies themselves than with the EU.
No, the blame lies entirely with the EU (and UK) for trying to push a technology that isn’t ready, including the infrastructure.
So the technology is ready for the Chinese but not for the EU and UK? That makes no sense at all.
Yes the Chinese are ahead on the technology.
So European governments have decided to sell out to the Chinese in the name of “Net Zero” rather than support their own domestic industries.
There's a bizarre left/right reversal going on here*, re subsidies/tariffs versus free trade. The new right is quite different to the one I grew up with and so, it seems, is the left. I'm still somewhere in the centre, but some of my formerly left-wing positions now seem right-wing and vice-versa!
*and elsewhere, US, for example
The right have moved from free markets managed well to drive meritocracy to crony capitalism subsidised by the state. The left seem a bit scared to change anything which comes across as not having a clue what to do.
Notions of right and left change over time. The Town & Country Planning Act 1948, was considered an appalling interference with property rights by Conservatives and economic liberals at the time, yet many would now die in the ditch for the Green Belt.
You get used to the status quo. People try now to treat any field like its Green Belt, and even scrubland in the Belt like its the heart of the Cotswolds. Ridiculous.
European carmakers led by Volkswagen could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Chinese electric vehicle rivals to buy carbon credits, as the auto sector tries to avoid potential fines for failing to meet 2025 pollution rules set by Brussels.
What the hell are they drinking in Brussels?
Trying to push the tech before it’s ready, is going to turn over the whole car industry to China.
Germany is about to become like the UK, only making top-end $100k domestic cars, with mass-production all either outsourced or imports.
The fault lies with the car manufacturers, and is surely the opposite of trying to push the tech before it's ready. They have been sleeping at the wheel and trying to squeeze out their final few years of old ICE vehicles while dripping out high end EVs, and at the same time Chinese competitors have grabbed the bull by the horns and threaten to dominate the mass market.
With tens of billions in state subsidies. It's not a fair fight.
Maybe the EU (and the UK) might watch and learn.
Sure, but that's a hard rewiring of how western economies work, would you be comfortable with the state pumping billions into UK car companies and have those execs take home tens of millions per year still and those companies making billions in profit for their shareholders with near zero direct ROI for the state? China is able to do this because the state owns a big part of its industries so on order to ape the Chinese model you have to become comfortable with the state owning big chunks of UK industry and we all know how that went in the 70s.
No, our way forwards is, as a single voice, telling China to get fucked and lock them out of our markets until the state subsidy programmes are eliminated.
Is it - or would it be more sensible to incentivise them via tariffs to build battery manufacturing here ?
Otherwise we just fall further behind.
Isn't that the same as telling China to get fucked, putting up mega tariffs against China is basically excluding them from our markets. I agree we should do it but Starmer seems to be going down the other route and is inviting China in rather than excluding them.
No, I don't think it is. Trump (or at least his proposed policies) are one extreme; allowing unfettered imposts another. Carrot and stick would be somewhere in the middle.
Time will tell with Starmer, but I'm no more confident than you are that he'll navigate this well.
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Debris from burnt down houses can be full of eg asbestos, and by then it will be in a far more dangerous form.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
I am not sure or not whether the Twin Towers had asbestos but plenty of people suffered ill effects and death as a result of the debris when they came down.
They were built late 1960s iirc, so would be full of it.
The latency period for asbestosis is 10 -> 50 years (lost my dad in 2009 from exposure around 1970), so cases from 9/11 are likely to peak in the 2030s and 2040s.
One of my wife's university colleagues died of mesothelioma a few years back from exposure 20-30 years prior (maintenance workers drilling into affected walls and ceiling, I think). The material was still there when she left.
Current mortality studies are inconclusive for 911 responders, but you're almost certainly right. There was a lot of asbestos (before the proof of its hazardous nature, a "wonder" material for building) in the Trade Center.
Watching builders at work, the next big scandals will be painting and insulation.
Insulation - the use of fibre products without PPE. *any* microscopic fibres in the lungs are bad.
Painting - to get a good finish, you fill, sand, paint, sand… Power tools are great but produce huge quantities of very fine particulates. A lot of people using no PPE.
The building firm I’m associated with insists on masks, eye protection. For some stuff, wearing disposable protective suits.
That way we don’t have young men coughing like they are smoking 40 a day.
“Fiona and Dan don't think any future CQC investigation into Leeds could be independent with the trust's former chief executive in charge of the regulator.
Sir Julian Hartley led the trust for 10 years, until January 2023, and was in post when Aliona died. He took over the CQC in December 2024.”
All those who dabble in the UK stock market have never had it so good. Today it's at at least a ten year high........
Everything is going gangbusters
More relevant is the surprise fall in December retail sales
Indeed and for some far worse than others. We know Next did well and M&S seem to have done as well. For a sharp fall like that there must be some real losers out there,
Asda seems to be the biggest loser and not just among the big supermarkets, they seem to have lost across all categories in food and non-food.
I know a few people who work for them or worked for them, the new owners are woeful.
It seems the money now goes to pay interest and dividends these days rather than on stores or product development/review.
There is no reason that we should not be having decent economic growth.
Our demographics are not that bad.
Technology is still developing in leaps and bounds.
The problem is far too many people have a vested interest in preventing growth.
Tackle that, everything else goes away. But the problem is tackling that will entail telling voters they don't have the right to stand in the way of growth and we need politicians with the cojones to do that.
I hoped a newly elected Government with 5 years and a landslide majority might do it. Sadly, no, it seems.
It’s pretty simple. Do you like this?
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
I'm fairly neutral on monoculture farmland like that - neither like nor dislike - but yes, all that green stuff is clear evidence of growth, isn't it?
The factory (or whatever - warehouse?) in the background looks fine too.
Comments
Also bear in mind alot of the companies on the stock market are either international companies or make their money, or most of it, overseas. It is not purely a domestic market.
Perhaps it's because up until now cars were part of the highly technical, specialist manufacturing that Germany/UK etc are so good at. But now, with the advent of EVs, they are more like a TV or a laptop than ever before.
(Certainly who isn't part of the echo chamber)
https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1879992579049287922
Curran was the lead USSS officer of Trump’s personal detail, and is the man on the right hand side of the famous photo of Trump after he was shot.
I'd be up for a 2p increase in income tax, but the idea that the Government could have done that easily is for the birds.
The car industry may have survived here but many of the Tier 1's went abroad as did white goods and other manufacturing, like Black and Decker, and the prevailing view across the political divide was if it is more cost effective to outsource then do so and we will gear up for the jobs of the future and as for cars, our car plants can become screwdriver facilities.
I suspect if it was not China and the very real threat they are dumping cheap product on us to really dominate the market/put our domestic manufacturers out of business, then it would be different.
Hence Biden's tariffs.
"Given that this is disrupting aircraft downrange, I would be wanting an investigation before I let starship fly again.
I'd want to know what kind of debris risk we're dealing with, starship is big and designed to handle reentry.
Is the explosion the result of a tank failure or the FTS? We might reasonably ask whether trying to destroy such a large object is the best option in an emergency or whether it's safer to let it come down in as few pieces as possible."
https://x.com/DJSnM/status/1880036142202098017
(The debris came down in open international airspace, with airliners around)
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/video-shows-fire-burning-at-site-of-vistra-corp-power-plant-in-california-229567557724
In the US too at the turn of the 20th century GOP President McKinley, Trump's hero, was heavily pro tariff and the Democrats more for free trade
So possibly not.
We know from Elon's friend Mr Putin that just debris from a tiny drone can destroy about 6 oil refineries, 5 harbours, 4 oil rigs, 3 air bases, 2 oligarch's gin palaces, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Heaven knows what the leftovers from a rocket could do.
"Many countries other than Great Britain, including Israel, Malta, France, the Netherlands and Jordan, have some form of license fees. Some base their fee on color television only (like Great Britain) and some on color television and radio (for example, Denmark). Two thirds of the countries in Europe, one half in Africa and Asia and 10% of those in the Americas and Caribbean rely, at least in part, on a license fee to support their television systems."
https://x.com/adamcarolla/status/1879934612119646483
Los Angeles authorities preventing removal of fire debris without approval from some inspections agency.
Novo Nordisk are one of the big 3. Get shares in Eli Lilly?
Never mind Lego.
@theobertram
·
15h
It would be a good thing if there was cross party agreement that in the long run the triple lock is unsustainable & therefore an alternative must be found. Both Torsten Bell & Kemi Badenoch seem to recognise this inescapable fact. But it's hard to see how politics will allow it.
Theo Bertram
@theobertram
·
15h
The same goes for social care or council tax reform. Issues where MPs privately on all sides agree something needs to be done but will stamp on their opponents' fingers the minute they touch the issue in public.
https://x.com/theobertram
(Carolla did earthquake rehabilitation of houses after the 1994 LA earthquake before he was in Radio, so he is not entirely being a blowhard here - he does know something of it.)
"There are a range of approaches to raising revenues to fund healthcare provision. These can be categorised into public and private sources of funding. These revenues are used to fund the different health financing schemes through which healthcare is accessed, such as government schemes, health insurance schemes or household spending.
"For the UK, around four-fifths (79%) of health expenditure is paid for through public revenues, mainly taxation. This is one of the highest shares of publicly funded healthcare out of the 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with comparable data. Several Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland) have larger shares of publicly funded healthcare and, like the UK, operate predominantly tax-funded healthcare systems (see European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies). Japan and Luxembourg are the only countries with a higher share of public revenues that operate primarily insurance-based health systems.
"Public revenues cover the bulk of healthcare financing in most countries. Switzerland is the only OECD country, for which data are available, where the share of public healthcare funding is less than private funding. This is due to Switzerland operating a healthcare system where private health insurance is mandatory for citizens. Consequently, most healthcare funding comes from private insurance contributions."
"This is the same situation with every wildfire cleanup. That’s what my husband does is the cleanup. People don’t realize how toxic the debris is. They also have to contain the ash footprint, so it doesn’t get washed into the sewers, waterways, and ocean."
https://x.com/TorstenBell/status/1880022179485741267
In my half-hearted defence, I was talking about voters like you, rather than you personally - i.e. you're probably not going to slot calmly into a Tory-Ref duopoly.
The EPA only managed to finally ban the last form of asbestos in use in building 2024, having had rules to ban most forms overturned by the courts in to 1989.
I think the EPA is one of the Federal Bodies undermined by the (checks) Supreme Court removing the Chevron vs NRDC precedent. And Mr Chump plans to gut it further.
Usonia really do seem to want to compete for the shortest life expectancy.
If you do, you like growth. If you don’t, you don’t.
I vote LibDem. I'm in a safe Labour seat for Westminster, so my vote is irrelevant and I can vote with my heart.
He's used her faux pas but widened the line of attack.
I think bribery of politicians was also involved, from what I can recall.
In fact the notifications going out on airspace restrictions and hazards are the first confirmation of the scheduling of a space launch, usually. The announcement of the launch license itself often comes later.
The FTS is fired according to defined limits (again agreed with the licensing authorities) - there’s no ground button to push. The usual main ones are the vehicle leaving (or heading to leave) the hazard corridor, or loss of control. The FTS is controlled from a separate box on the vehicle that monitors various numbers.
And their insulin pens (which they invented) are beautifully engineered, and design classics. I have one on the table in front of me which is a Novopen 3, which I have had for more than a decade. My latest one does bluetooth, and I can log onto it and download my injection record.
They have a charitable foundation attached to them which is 4x more wealthy than the Wellcome Trust.
I think the public would have understood 'the public estate is falling apart and is going to need more money; some tax rises are therefore necessary, justified and moral'. It wouldn't have been overly popular but I don't think that many people would have defected their support when the case was so obviously right.
https://x.com/UKLabour/status/1880017923449954735
Which is growing and will swallow the outlying villages and become a city in a few years. The locals are happy about that.
What was missed at the time was the need to plan the offramp; when would it go from being useful to absurd neverending exponential growth, and what should happen after that?
It’s also pretty rare to get more glamorous than Orlando
https://x.com/zebulgar/status/1880031186870993098
The latency period for asbestosis is 10 -> 50 years (lost my dad in 2009 from exposure around 1970), so cases from 9/11 are likely to peak in the 2030s and 2040s.
Either way health and social care are paid for out of the public's pocket whether by tax, insurance premiums or direct payment. The debate is whether you share the cost by paying through tax or insurance premiums or leave it down to luck.
We've landed on our current system for good reasons including selfish ones.
1) business needs a healthy workforce
2) the well-off don't want to be surrounded by deadly infections
3) if the capital costs of the health system weren't underwritten by the state, it would probably be much smaller and more expensive
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/howdoesukhealthcarespendingcomparewithothercountries/2019-08-29
(And technically the company is attached to the foundation not the other way around)
Otherwise we just fall further behind.
And no, it won't be pleasant for any of us, and I hope that those who need to find new jobs find good ones soon. But this is what hangovers are always like- they are never fun.
Paul Smith
@Paul_SLG
The latest planning application statistics are out - and the number of homes consented has fallen again.
https://x.com/Paul_SLG/status/1880199167798395199
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1880022179485741267
https://x.com/iaponomarenko/status/1880198456616083631
This affects pubs and restaurants as well as shops.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/jan/17/joan-plowright-dies-after-long-stage-and-screen-career
Are any of theatre's great dames other than Judi Dench still left ?
(edit) Apols to Eileen Atkins, who is still with us at 90.
Current mortality studies are inconclusive for 911 responders, but you're almost certainly right. There was a lot of asbestos (before the proof of its hazardous nature, a "wonder" material for building) in the Trade Center.
Definitely more of a southern problem than anything else.
The great and the good in the artistic world are dropping like flies this week.
As they are now realising, the economy (especially in its current weakened state) is not a prop in Labour's political pointscoring game. They have now fucked things so much that borrowing costs are through the roof and there won't be any money for pre-election bribes. A peculiar combination of uncaring malice and stupidity.
“Fiona and Dan don't think any future CQC investigation into Leeds could be independent with the trust's former chief executive in charge of the regulator.
Sir Julian Hartley led the trust for 10 years, until January 2023, and was in post when Aliona died. He took over the CQC in December 2024.”
I made the comment as I remembered the "Dust Lady" who ended up succumbing to Stomach cancer in 2014 which was attributed to 911.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34061442
I would guess, given the timescales, it will be at least another decade until we know conclusively.
Disgracefully I only got round to watching Gosford Park over the festive period, cracking film with a good An Inspector Calls, boot the class system in the balls vibe. Didn’t seem dated at all unlike a lot of stuff made 20+ years ago.
Trump (or at least his proposed policies) are one extreme; allowing unfettered imposts another. Carrot and stick would be somewhere in the middle.
Time will tell with Starmer, but I'm no more confident than you are that he'll navigate this well.
Insulation - the use of fibre products without PPE. *any* microscopic fibres in the lungs are bad.
Painting - to get a good finish, you fill, sand, paint, sand… Power tools are great but produce huge quantities of very fine particulates. A lot of people using no PPE.
The building firm I’m associated with insists on masks, eye protection. For some stuff, wearing disposable protective suits.
That way we don’t have young men coughing like they are smoking 40 a day.
It seems the money now goes to pay interest and dividends these days rather than on stores or product development/review.
Con 25%
Lab 26%
Reform 23%
Lib Dem 12%
Green 7%.
The factory (or whatever - warehouse?) in the background looks fine too.