Right now the Guardian website has four stories at the top, all different versions of “Rachel Reeves is a cruel, lying, incompetent clown”
Unbelievable hostility to a Labour Chancellor. I wonder if Labour’s polling might dip below 20
Unfair on Reeves because she's doing the right thing and no-one likes it.
If I may politely disagree. The function of the Labour Party is to increase the wealth and opportunities of the working class and the poor. To do this it increases equality by taxing the rich and spreading that wealth to the poor. But the belief has spread that one cannot tax the rich (because they leave) so the only tool Labour have left is to impoverish and immiserate the poor and/or working class, therefore obviating the entire point of the Labour movement.
If things keep going this way the South Wales Valleys will go Reform in 2029, which is Olympus has fallen for Labour. Starmer flirts unthinking with the destruction of his party, which as a metropolitan elite lawyer he failks to understand or even intuit.
You do have to think that a Labour Government taking a quarter of a million more into poverty has a fundamental problem.
But then, all Labour Governments leave office with fewer employed than they inherited.
At some point, voters WILL realise their business model is shite.
Employment in April 1997: 26.5mn Employment in April 2010: 29.5mn
Employment rate in April 1997: 58.1% Employment rate in April 2010: 58.2%
UK population rise between 1997 and 2010: 4.45m
That doesn't affect the rate though does it.
Because of the changing age pyramid in the country that expansion of the population is almost entirely of the retired. The working age population is pretty much unchanged. Without immigration taxes would be higher or pensions would be less, or both. This is the debate on immigration that we never have. Do we want to be pure but poor?
We need to increase our birthrate, on that Musk is right
We need to learn to live with a lower birth rate. Constantly trying to grow the population to maintain growth and create youngsters to provide for an ever increasing ageing population just leads water shortages, food shortages, migration, wars and climate warming.
We need alternative solutions, whatever they may be, but which does not mean Logan's run.
Do you appreciate how good robots are, now?
They are this good. This is not fake, this is not speeded up, this is real. They can, also, now do fine motor tasks - they can stack dishwashers and peel apples, they will be able to do nursing, tiling and plumbing
Why do you think China is pouring trillions into robotics (Unitree is a Chinese company)? This is the answer to falling birth rates
Well good. Problem solved then. Let's not keep trying to force people to have babies. We cannot keep increasing the planet's population and a decrease would be good for the planet.
A rare moment of complete agreement. There are, simply, far too many people on the planet. I see it on my travels. We are trashing our home and destroying nature. We need to get the human population down to about 2bn, which it was as recently as 1950
All the nasty jobs can be done by the Chinese robots
I like to think we agree more, I just don't go into hyperbole (he says having predicted the end of the world) unlike yourself so it just doesn't get noticed. I say this bearing in mind I am a liberal in the very sense of personal freedoms.
So because of the hyperbole I push back on stuff that if put more moderately I might be agreeing with you on.
The reasons that birth rates are falling across the world are fascinating. One of my theories is that birth rate is falling because there are simply too many people on the planet: excess people leads to excess demand for housing, which drives up housing costs, which drives down the amount of money we have for everything else (e.g. babies). Having children in the modern world is ruinously expensive. This is true anywhere in the world with an urban population (and it is only places late to urbanise like Niger that still have high birth rates.) Why are birth rates falling? Because there are too many people.
I have toyed with writing a thread on birth rates. I find it fascinating that such a profound change is going on and has only recently started to attract a bit of attention. I find it even more fascinating that there is no consensus to why it happens.
I think there is a doom loop that goes something like this (I'm not 100% sure)...
People want to spend more time travelling/working/having fun (this is a good thing)
This means there are fewer couples, so more bedrooms and homes are needed for the same number of young people in urban areas
(There is a similar effect from divorces, the end of multi-generational households, and older people not down-sizing)
All of the cost of this increased demand flows to young people, and all the benefit towards older people, because older people have got smaller mortgages or, increasingly, own their homes outright.
This means that while housing costs overall are lower than at any point since the early 80s, this masks an imbalance where they are falling for older people while increasing for younger people
These increased costs make it harder for young people to build enough capital to get on the housing ladder and raise children, which makes travelling, yoga classes and other consumables relatively more achievable - and that's us back at the beginning again.
I think is simpler than that. Developed urban societies have delayed the onset of childbearing to the mean age of thirty or so, leaving little time for big families. In addition significant numbers never have children because either they don't want them, or never find a partner that they want to have children with.
A large part of this is due to extending childhood well past the school leaving age of my youth (14 then 16) so financial independence is rarely reached until mid to late twenties. Add in the delayed onset of dating, exacerbated by Incel teens and the atomisation of social life via social media, and you have a low fertility rate.
The issue has many factors. Another big one (thankfully!) is that far fewer babies and young children die young. In ye olden days, it was perfectly possible to have only two or three children of ten survive to adulthood, especially amongst the poor. This meant to have a family, the woman would have to be a baby-bearing machine. Now, a woman can have two babies and expect them to grow up hale and hearty. This gives women more time for careers, and the opportunity to start a family later.
So a simple 'solution' to the problem would be to increase infant mortality. The anti-vaxxers in the states are already on the case...
Worth noting that age at childbirth was unusually young for boomers and Gen X. It used to be higherin the Twenties and Thirties too, not just in recent years.
We need to get youngsters off their phones, off their heads on drink and drugs and behind the bikesheds, just like the good old days.
Now do age of mother at birth of first child... Suspect 100 years ago people were having more children, which would push the average age up..
Right now the Guardian website has four stories at the top, all different versions of “Rachel Reeves is a cruel, lying, incompetent clown”
Unbelievable hostility to a Labour Chancellor. I wonder if Labour’s polling might dip below 20
Unfair on Reeves because she's doing the right thing and no-one likes it.
If I may politely disagree. The function of the Labour Party is to increase the wealth and opportunities of the working class and the poor. To do this it increases equality by taxing the rich and spreading that wealth to the poor. But the belief has spread that one cannot tax the rich (because they leave) so the only tool Labour have left is to impoverish and immiserate the poor and/or working class, therefore obviating the entire point of the Labour movement.
If things keep going this way the South Wales Valleys will go Reform in 2029, which is Olympus has fallen for Labour. Starmer flirts unthinking with the destruction of his party, which as a metropolitan elite lawyer he failks to understand or even intuit.
You do have to think that a Labour Government taking a quarter of a million more into poverty has a fundamental problem.
But then, all Labour Governments leave office with fewer employed than they inherited.
At some point, voters WILL realise their business model is shite.
Employment in April 1997: 26.5mn Employment in April 2010: 29.5mn
Employment rate in April 1997: 58.1% Employment rate in April 2010: 58.2%
UK population rise between 1997 and 2010: 4.45m
That doesn't affect the rate though does it.
Because of the changing age pyramid in the country that expansion of the population is almost entirely of the retired. The working age population is pretty much unchanged. Without immigration taxes would be higher or pensions would be less, or both. This is the debate on immigration that we never have. Do we want to be pure but poor?
We need to increase our birthrate, on that Musk is right
We need to learn to live with a lower birth rate. Constantly trying to grow the population to maintain growth and create youngsters to provide for an ever increasing ageing population just leads water shortages, food shortages, migration, wars and climate warming.
We need alternative solutions, whatever they may be, but which does not mean Logan's run.
Do you appreciate how good robots are, now?
They are this good. This is not fake, this is not speeded up, this is real. They can, also, now do fine motor tasks - they can stack dishwashers and peel apples, they will be able to do nursing, tiling and plumbing
Why do you think China is pouring trillions into robotics (Unitree is a Chinese company)? This is the answer to falling birth rates
Well good. Problem solved then. Let's not keep trying to force people to have babies. We cannot keep increasing the planet's population and a decrease would be good for the planet.
A rare moment of complete agreement. There are, simply, far too many people on the planet. I see it on my travels. We are trashing our home and destroying nature. We need to get the human population down to about 2bn, which it was as recently as 1950
All the nasty jobs can be done by the Chinese robots
I like to think we agree more, I just don't go into hyperbole (he says having predicted the end of the world) unlike yourself so it just doesn't get noticed. I say this bearing in mind I am a liberal in the very sense of personal freedoms.
So because of the hyperbole I push back on stuff that if put more moderately I might be agreeing with you on.
The reasons that birth rates are falling across the world are fascinating. One of my theories is that birth rate is falling because there are simply too many people on the planet: excess people leads to excess demand for housing, which drives up housing costs, which drives down the amount of money we have for everything else (e.g. babies). Having children in the modern world is ruinously expensive. This is true anywhere in the world with an urban population (and it is only places late to urbanise like Niger that still have high birth rates.) Why are birth rates falling? Because there are too many people.
I have toyed with writing a thread on birth rates. I find it fascinating that such a profound change is going on and has only recently started to attract a bit of attention. I find it even more fascinating that there is no consensus to why it happens.
I think there is a doom loop that goes something like this (I'm not 100% sure)...
People want to spend more time travelling/working/having fun (this is a good thing)
This means there are fewer couples, so more bedrooms and homes are needed for the same number of young people in urban areas
(There is a similar effect from divorces, the end of multi-generational households, and older people not down-sizing)
All of the cost of this increased demand flows to young people, and all the benefit towards older people, because older people have got smaller mortgages or, increasingly, own their homes outright.
This means that while housing costs overall are lower than at any point since the early 80s, this masks an imbalance where they are falling for older people while increasing for younger people
These increased costs make it harder for young people to build enough capital to get on the housing ladder and raise children, which makes travelling, yoga classes and other consumables relatively more achievable - and that's us back at the beginning again.
I think is simpler than that. Developed urban societies have delayed the onset of childbearing to the mean age of thirty or so, leaving little time for big families. In addition significant numbers never have children because either they don't want them, or never find a partner that they want to have children with.
A large part of this is due to extending childhood well past the school leaving age of my youth (14 then 16) so financial independence is rarely reached until mid to late twenties. Add in the delayed onset of dating, exacerbated by Incel teens and the atomisation of social life via social media, and you have a low fertility rate.
The issue has many factors. Another big one (thankfully!) is that far fewer babies and young children die young. In ye olden days, it was perfectly possible to have only two or three children of ten survive to adulthood, especially amongst the poor. This meant to have a family, the woman would have to be a baby-bearing machine. Now, a woman can have two babies and expect them to grow up hale and hearty. This gives women more time for careers, and the opportunity to start a family later.
So a simple 'solution' to the problem would be to increase infant mortality. The anti-vaxxers in the states are already on the case...
Worth noting that age at childbirth was unusually young for boomers and Gen X. It used to be higherin the Twenties and Thirties too, not just in recent years.
We need to get youngsters off their phones, off their heads on drink and drugs and behind the bikesheds, just like the good old days.
The Housing Theory Of Everything explains this. Cheap housing, full employment and social security = lots of babies. Expensive housing, gig economy and precarity = few babies.
‼️ 🇫🇷🇬🇧🇺🇦 Allied countries today formalised the role of France and Britain as “co-pilots” of a “coalition of the willing” to bolster Ukraine’s defence and provide “reassurance forces” in the case of a ceasefire with Russia, President @EmmanuelMacron announced.
Not keen on that COTW branding. It reminds me of EyeRack.
Breaking News: Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested that there was not likely to be a criminal inquiry into the sharing of military plans in an unsecured chat.
Says it all, doesn't it. FBI or whichever police are not being encouraged by Trump's White House gang this time.
I'm doing shots on "but Hillary" mentions this afternoon. I'm already well pissed.
Nation's highest ranking law officer...
Q: “In terms of the Signal chat controversy…is the DOJ involved at this point?”
Bondi: “…We're not going to comment any further on that. If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was at Hillary Clinton's home that she was trying to BleachBit.” https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1905279324753633772
Only a 2nd choice but that sounds like quite a partisan Attorney General.
Right now the Guardian website has four stories at the top, all different versions of “Rachel Reeves is a cruel, lying, incompetent clown”
Unbelievable hostility to a Labour Chancellor. I wonder if Labour’s polling might dip below 20
Unfair on Reeves because she's doing the right thing and no-one likes it.
If I may politely disagree. The function of the Labour Party is to increase the wealth and opportunities of the working class and the poor. To do this it increases equality by taxing the rich and spreading that wealth to the poor. But the belief has spread that one cannot tax the rich (because they leave) so the only tool Labour have left is to impoverish and immiserate the poor and/or working class, therefore obviating the entire point of the Labour movement.
If things keep going this way the South Wales Valleys will go Reform in 2029, which is Olympus has fallen for Labour. Starmer flirts unthinking with the destruction of his party, which as a metropolitan elite lawyer he failks to understand or even intuit.
You do have to think that a Labour Government taking a quarter of a million more into poverty has a fundamental problem.
But then, all Labour Governments leave office with fewer employed than they inherited.
At some point, voters WILL realise their business model is shite.
Employment in April 1997: 26.5mn Employment in April 2010: 29.5mn
Employment rate in April 1997: 58.1% Employment rate in April 2010: 58.2%
UK population rise between 1997 and 2010: 4.45m
That doesn't affect the rate though does it.
Because of the changing age pyramid in the country that expansion of the population is almost entirely of the retired. The working age population is pretty much unchanged. Without immigration taxes would be higher or pensions would be less, or both. This is the debate on immigration that we never have. Do we want to be pure but poor?
We need to increase our birthrate, on that Musk is right
We need to learn to live with a lower birth rate. Constantly trying to grow the population to maintain growth and create youngsters to provide for an ever increasing ageing population just leads water shortages, food shortages, migration, wars and climate warming.
We need alternative solutions, whatever they may be, but which does not mean Logan's run.
Do you appreciate how good robots are, now?
They are this good. This is not fake, this is not speeded up, this is real. They can, also, now do fine motor tasks - they can stack dishwashers and peel apples, they will be able to do nursing, tiling and plumbing
Why do you think China is pouring trillions into robotics (Unitree is a Chinese company)? This is the answer to falling birth rates
Well good. Problem solved then. Let's not keep trying to force people to have babies. We cannot keep increasing the planet's population and a decrease would be good for the planet.
A rare moment of complete agreement. There are, simply, far too many people on the planet. I see it on my travels. We are trashing our home and destroying nature. We need to get the human population down to about 2bn, which it was as recently as 1950
All the nasty jobs can be done by the Chinese robots
I like to think we agree more, I just don't go into hyperbole (he says having predicted the end of the world) unlike yourself so it just doesn't get noticed. I say this bearing in mind I am a liberal in the very sense of personal freedoms.
So because of the hyperbole I push back on stuff that if put more moderately I might be agreeing with you on.
The reasons that birth rates are falling across the world are fascinating. One of my theories is that birth rate is falling because there are simply too many people on the planet: excess people leads to excess demand for housing, which drives up housing costs, which drives down the amount of money we have for everything else (e.g. babies). Having children in the modern world is ruinously expensive. This is true anywhere in the world with an urban population (and it is only places late to urbanise like Niger that still have high birth rates.) Why are birth rates falling? Because there are too many people.
I have toyed with writing a thread on birth rates. I find it fascinating that such a profound change is going on and has only recently started to attract a bit of attention. I find it even more fascinating that there is no consensus to why it happens.
All true, to a point (and I share your fascination), but birth rates are also declining in rich countries with lots of room and no housing problems
They are falling in democracies and autocracies, in Islamic, Christian and secular countries, in superpowers and tiny statelets, they are falling in South Korea and North Korea, they are falling despite many attempts to reverse them, worldwide. It'sa huge puzzle with varying answers. Female education is definitely a driver, but there are also physiological facts - sperm counts dropping, men becoming feminised. At the same time humanity is getting stupider quite fast
Most nations still have above or at replacement level fertility outside of Europe, the West and Far East.
More women having full time careers, fewer younger people religious in the West and Far East and housing costs all issues
That's absolutely not true. Fertility rates are now below replacement around the world. About the only exceptions are Africa, bits of Mid East, central Asia, and Israel/Palestine
eg they are below replacement across South America - Brazil is 1.6
Globally the fertility rate is 2.4 so still above replacement level.
In Afghanistan it is 4.5, so making fun illegal effectively and restricting female education and banning women from most careers clearly has an impact. The Taliban have many faults but they have kept a high birthrate even if their tactics go too far even for Andrew Tate
Putin announces Trump is determined to acquire Greenland, so he is strengthening the Russian military across the Artic to protect his interests
And so it escalates as we watch in considerable unease and dismay
Starmer and Macron have summit after summit, and demand Europe is at the table over Ukraine but to what end ?
I cannot think of anytime outside the last war when we have looked so utterly powerless in the face of aggression, and really we are a sideshow and irrelevant unless Starmer and Macron with allies enter the war against Ukraine fighting alongside Ukraine to take on Russia
Of course it is inconceivable that individual countries across Europe will be able to acquire the democratic mandate to literally go to war v Russia so we are utterly helpless and at the behest of Trump and Putin
Whoever would have thought this when Russia invaded Ukraine
It is very depressing and I do not see it ending well for Ukraine or Europe
Also borrowing costs are rising and in less than 24 hours Reeves has lost half of her reserve
Breaking News: Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested that there was not likely to be a criminal inquiry into the sharing of military plans in an unsecured chat.
Says it all, doesn't it. FBI or whichever police are not being encouraged by Trump's White House gang this time.
I'm doing shots on "but Hillary" mentions this afternoon. I'm already well pissed.
Nation's highest ranking law officer...
Q: “In terms of the Signal chat controversy…is the DOJ involved at this point?”
Bondi: “…We're not going to comment any further on that. If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was at Hillary Clinton's home that she was trying to BleachBit.” https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1905279324753633772
Only a 2nd choice but that sounds like quite a partisan Attorney General.
With a history of personal corruption, and using her position to facilitate corruption and the undermining of the rule of law !!
Right now the Guardian website has four stories at the top, all different versions of “Rachel Reeves is a cruel, lying, incompetent clown”
Unbelievable hostility to a Labour Chancellor. I wonder if Labour’s polling might dip below 20
Unfair on Reeves because she's doing the right thing and no-one likes it.
If I may politely disagree. The function of the Labour Party is to increase the wealth and opportunities of the working class and the poor. To do this it increases equality by taxing the rich and spreading that wealth to the poor. But the belief has spread that one cannot tax the rich (because they leave) so the only tool Labour have left is to impoverish and immiserate the poor and/or working class, therefore obviating the entire point of the Labour movement.
If things keep going this way the South Wales Valleys will go Reform in 2029, which is Olympus has fallen for Labour. Starmer flirts unthinking with the destruction of his party, which as a metropolitan elite lawyer he failks to understand or even intuit.
You do have to think that a Labour Government taking a quarter of a million more into poverty has a fundamental problem.
But then, all Labour Governments leave office with fewer employed than they inherited.
At some point, voters WILL realise their business model is shite.
Employment in April 1997: 26.5mn Employment in April 2010: 29.5mn
Employment rate in April 1997: 58.1% Employment rate in April 2010: 58.2%
UK population rise between 1997 and 2010: 4.45m
That doesn't affect the rate though does it.
Because of the changing age pyramid in the country that expansion of the population is almost entirely of the retired. The working age population is pretty much unchanged. Without immigration taxes would be higher or pensions would be less, or both. This is the debate on immigration that we never have. Do we want to be pure but poor?
We need to increase our birthrate, on that Musk is right
We need to learn to live with a lower birth rate. Constantly trying to grow the population to maintain growth and create youngsters to provide for an ever increasing ageing population just leads water shortages, food shortages, migration, wars and climate warming.
We need alternative solutions, whatever they may be, but which does not mean Logan's run.
Do you appreciate how good robots are, now?
They are this good. This is not fake, this is not speeded up, this is real. They can, also, now do fine motor tasks - they can stack dishwashers and peel apples, they will be able to do nursing, tiling and plumbing
Why do you think China is pouring trillions into robotics (Unitree is a Chinese company)? This is the answer to falling birth rates
Well good. Problem solved then. Let's not keep trying to force people to have babies. We cannot keep increasing the planet's population and a decrease would be good for the planet.
A rare moment of complete agreement. There are, simply, far too many people on the planet. I see it on my travels. We are trashing our home and destroying nature. We need to get the human population down to about 2bn, which it was as recently as 1950
All the nasty jobs can be done by the Chinese robots
I like to think we agree more, I just don't go into hyperbole (he says having predicted the end of the world) unlike yourself so it just doesn't get noticed. I say this bearing in mind I am a liberal in the very sense of personal freedoms.
So because of the hyperbole I push back on stuff that if put more moderately I might be agreeing with you on.
The reasons that birth rates are falling across the world are fascinating. One of my theories is that birth rate is falling because there are simply too many people on the planet: excess people leads to excess demand for housing, which drives up housing costs, which drives down the amount of money we have for everything else (e.g. babies). Having children in the modern world is ruinously expensive. This is true anywhere in the world with an urban population (and it is only places late to urbanise like Niger that still have high birth rates.) Why are birth rates falling? Because there are too many people.
I have toyed with writing a thread on birth rates. I find it fascinating that such a profound change is going on and has only recently started to attract a bit of attention. I find it even more fascinating that there is no consensus to why it happens.
All true, to a point (and I share your fascination), but birth rates are also declining in rich countries with lots of room and no housing problems
They are falling in democracies and autocracies, in Islamic, Christian and secular countries, in superpowers and tiny statelets, they are falling in South Korea and North Korea, they are falling despite many attempts to reverse them, worldwide. It'sa huge puzzle with varying answers. Female education is definitely a driver, but there are also physiological facts - sperm counts dropping, men becoming feminised. At the same time humanity is getting stupider quite fast
Most nations still have above or at replacement level fertility outside of Europe, the West and Far East.
More women having full time careers, fewer younger people religious in the West and Far East and housing costs all issues
That's absolutely not true. Fertility rates are now below replacement around the world. About the only exceptions are Africa, bits of Mid East, central Asia, and Israel/Palestine
eg they are below replacement across South America - Brazil is 1.6
Globally the fertility rate is 2.4 so still above replacement level.
In Afghanistan it is 4.5, so making fun illegal effectively and restricting female education and banning women from most careers clearly has an impact. The Taliban have many faults but they have kept a high birthrate even if their tactics go too far even for Andrew Tate
Comments
NEW THREAD
Putin announces Trump is determined to acquire Greenland, so he is strengthening the Russian military across the Artic to protect his interests
And so it escalates as we watch in considerable unease and dismay
Starmer and Macron have summit after summit, and demand Europe is at the table over Ukraine but to what end ?
I cannot think of anytime outside the last war when we have looked so utterly powerless in the face of aggression, and really we are a sideshow and irrelevant unless Starmer and Macron with allies enter the war against Ukraine fighting alongside Ukraine to take on Russia
Of course it is inconceivable that individual countries across Europe will be able to acquire the democratic mandate to literally go to war v Russia so we are utterly helpless and at the behest of Trump and Putin
Whoever would have thought this when Russia invaded Ukraine
It is very depressing and I do not see it ending well for Ukraine or Europe
Also borrowing costs are rising and in less than 24 hours Reeves has lost half of her reserve
My question is - what have you done America?