To @eek and the others questioning a Trump trade deal - I understand and have never really wanted a trade deal with the US anyway, however the negotiations for one were done by the last Tory Government with Trump before Biden came in and stopped it, so they are already quite progressed.
Agriculture is the sticking point . So it’s not going to happen .
Well it will only happen if the Government wishes to be known as the Government who destroyed farming and introduced chlorinated chicken to the UK.
So as you correctly state - it's not going to happen...
It should though. UK farming is inefficient and should go the same way as other inefficient industries. Opening our ports to cheap foreign food will reduce the cost of living, especially for the poorest who spend a higher proportion of their budget on food, as it did in the nineteenth century.
It will also enable unproductive agricultural land (and labour and capital) to be used for productive purposes such as houses or industry.
The government, dismal in most respects, has made a decent start by gradually reducing farm subsidies since we left the EU and removing the indefensible inheritance tax exemption but needs to go much further and faster.
Of course the farmers and their protectionist Trumpian allies will complain, as they always do with anything that smacks of economic literacy.
UK farming is relatively efficient - compared with many European countries.
A major reason for inefficiency is the massive legal constraints on farming. See the discussion on US sourced chicken yesterday. We have as a society, mandated that farming land must be used in a constrained fashion.
It's about choices. You could get production prices down to the lowest in the world, if you let rip. But people like hedge rows. And limits on chemicals. And....
As to using agricultural land for other purposes (houses) - that is carefully and expressly forbidden. Hence the chap I knew, who could never get the police to come out for thefts and vandalism. But the authorities raced to his farm when he started putting the roof back on an old, abandoned building. For fear of he might be creating.... a house!
There is a security aspect - it's not difficult to envisage global disruption of shipping lanes which would rapidly make dependence on imports dangerous. AFAIC remember, there is a figure of around 70% domestic production which is regarded as reasonably safe - one can fly in some products which simply can't be produced here.
But apart from that, our emphasis on low-rise housing and protected countryside makes the inexorable rise in property prices inevitable. I understand the preference for detached housing, but think it's hard to imagine that skyscraper housing at 35% off wouldn't be snapped up. I think the history of poorly-built and poorly maintained tower blocks after WW2 casts an incredibly long shadow. I grew up in this well-maintained block: https://bdtu.dk/accommodations/property-overview/?key=20_2 - ideally located between a village on one side and a mainline railway station on the other. The 5-room flat quoted there is £1900/month, or there's a 1-bed flat for sale at £300K, both fairly reasonable given Danish wages. Copenhagen is quite small - you can easily walk across it in a day - so low-quality housing is squeezed out. Wouldn't many people opt for places like that rather than wait till they're 50 to afford a semi?
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Interesting. To my mind it was the sort of ad a party puts out when they're scared and have nothing else.
Good morning, everyone.
It was stupid. And on the official account, on Twatter*, of a political party. Therefore it is highly probable that it was a Cunning Plan.
Office cleaning firm charge up 9.8% from last year.
Min wage and employers NI ?
Yes, it'll be that. And I don't think they're ripping us off as @Eek has said.
No they won’t, or it’s unlikely. The cleaning contract I managed had a set formula and set inputs. So when the min wage changed or any other input changed it simply recalculated accordingly.
As the bulk of the costs of these contracts are labour if you benchmark it you will get similar results.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Interesting. To my mind it was the sort of ad a party puts out when they're scared and have nothing else.
Just as Starmer wants every school to show Adolescence, I wonder if a future US President* having reinstated the Department of Education will mandate that all High Schools screen Idiocracy before their students reach voting age
*assuming the US emerges from trump as a functioning democracy
It will of course be a history lesson at that point
FTSE now down 4.5% Dax 7% - less bad than Asia - maybe stabilising. Could be worse....
It will be! Another 10-15% to come in my mind.
Not sure. Got to be people with cash looking at the cheap prices ..
Market crashes overshoot and then bounce back fairly quickly. My best guess would be the Dow bottoms out around 30-33k and ends the year around 40k. Buying now for long term is not terrible imo, but is really bad if any chance of getting spooked and selling in next few weeks.
TBH if people get spooked by what’s going on or cannot handle a 20-25% correction in investing hen they shouldn’t bother as it’s not for them.
This week is key. It appears that the trade war is heating up, not cooling down. MAGA claims to have dozens of countries now negotiating with the US. Really? And a negotiation that will go to the US position?
America voted for this. I hope they enjoy Gilead. Because we know where this is going. The US vs ROW trade war makes Murica even more insulated. One of the free speech things they are trying to ram down our throats is the "christian" right funding anti-Abortion campaigners here. As the US closes its borders to the world, with illegal aliens being rounded up out of their homes and workplaces, the womenfolk are next.
As the rout continues this week I hope that global consumers apply even more pressure as Canadian ones have done.
The war on women has been going on for some time now.
There's no reasoning with economic illiterates like Trump. The deficit he complains about would disappear if we all stopped buying US goods. So we'd better get on with doing just that and rebuild a trading area that ignores the US.
As for US people who have lost money I couldn't care less about them, They voted for this nonsense. I didn't and have lost out. So no to any trade deal with an untrustworthy country intent on causing harm.
To @eek and the others questioning a Trump trade deal - I understand and have never really wanted a trade deal with the US anyway, however the negotiations for one were done by the last Tory Government with Trump before Biden came in and stopped it, so they are already quite progressed.
Agriculture is the sticking point . So it’s not going to happen .
Well it will only happen if the Government wishes to be known as the Government who destroyed farming and introduced chlorinated chicken to the UK.
So as you correctly state - it's not going to happen...
It should though. UK farming is inefficient and should go the same way as other inefficient industries. Opening our ports to cheap foreign food will reduce the cost of living, especially for the poorest who spend a higher proportion of their budget on food, as it did in the nineteenth century.
It will also enable unproductive agricultural land (and labour and capital) to be used for productive purposes such as houses or industry.
The government, dismal in most respects, has made a decent start by gradually reducing farm subsidies since we left the EU and removing the indefensible inheritance tax exemption but needs to go much further and faster.
Of course the farmers and their protectionist Trumpian allies will complain, as they always do with anything that smacks of economic literacy.
UK farming is relatively efficient - compared with many European countries.
A major reason for inefficiency is the massive legal constraints on farming. See the discussion on US sourced chicken yesterday. We have as a society, mandated that farming land must be used in a constrained fashion.
It's about choices. You could get production prices down to the lowest in the world, if you let rip. But people like hedge rows. And limits on chemicals. And....
As to using agricultural land for other purposes (houses) - that is carefully and expressly forbidden. Hence the chap I knew, who could never get the police to come out for thefts and vandalism. But the authorities raced to his farm when he started putting the roof back on an old, abandoned building. For fear of he might be creating.... a house!
There is a security aspect - it's not difficult to envisage global disruption of shipping lanes which would rapidly make dependence on imports dangerous. AFAIC remember, there is a figure of around 70% domestic production which is regarded as reasonably safe - one can fly in some products which simply can't be produced here.
But apart from that, our emphasis on low-rise housing and protected countryside makes the inexorable rise in property prices inevitable. I understand the preference for detached housing, but think it's hard to imagine that skyscraper housing at 35% off wouldn't be snapped up. I think the history of poorly-built and poorly maintained tower blocks after WW2 casts an incredibly long shadow. I grew up in this well-maintained block: https://bdtu.dk/accommodations/property-overview/?key=20_2 - ideally located between a village on one side and a mainline railway station on the other. The 5-room flat quoted there is £1900/month, or there's a 1-bed flat for sale at £300K, both fairly reasonable given Danish wages. Copenhagen is quite small - you can easily walk across it in a day - so low-quality housing is squeezed out. Wouldn't many people opt for places like that rather than wait till they're 50 to afford a semi?
There's no especial need to squeeze everyone into small flats. If we doubled the amount of land used for housing in this country, it would a few percentage points of usage.
As to why people don't like high buildings, the inability of fire brigades to fight fires at height is just the start of the fun.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Interesting. To my mind it was the sort of ad a party puts out when they're scared and have nothing else.
Good morning, everyone.
Nothing wrong with the underlying message- vote for Badenoch and you risk getting Farage, and vice versa. Conservatives have rightly been doing it to LibLabs for ever.
And at least some of the horror at the expression of the attack is partisan pearl-clutching. Unless KB's sex and skin colour make insults off-limits.
But that defence only goes so far, and not far enough. It's a bad advert, even if it's not evil.
And @Roger is probably right- this shows the dangers of not getting professionals in to do your attack ads. You see the same thing in education, and I'm sure in other fields as well. Computer technology lets us all produce things that are superficially professional-looking, but don't have professional wisdom underpinning them.
Oh, and good morning to you, as Rabbi Lionel Blue used to say.
Voters may not like being taken for fools but I'm afraid that is what Trump voters are. Anybody with a brain cell could see he was likely to be a disaster.
Republicans are frightened of speaking out against Trump in case they get primaried by Musk.
Wisconsin has show that to be an empty threat.
At what point do they discover their spine?
There's 19 months until the mid-terms which is the only imminent election of any moment. You'd have to be fucking stupid to put your head above the parapet at this stage. The pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land, etc.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Interesting. To my mind it was the sort of ad a party puts out when they're scared and have nothing else.
Good morning, everyone.
I can't see that. What fear would a very badly executed and ineffective ad help with?
Republicans are frightened of speaking out against Trump in case they get primaried by Musk.
Wisconsin has show that to be an empty threat.
At what point do they discover their spine?
There's 19 months until the mid-terms which is the only imminent election of any moment. You'd have to be fucking stupid to put your head above the parapet at this stage. The pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land, etc.
As noted elsewhere "Who will bell the cat" is a Global problem at this point, but there is a choice to be made between being complicit in this fucking madness or trying to distance yourself from it, surely. The electoral math (sic) can't all point the same way in these unprecedented times
EDIT: There's 19 months until the mid-terms. I don't think there is 19 months till the riots
FTSE now down 4.5% Dax 7% - less bad than Asia - maybe stabilising. Could be worse....
It will be! Another 10-15% to come in my mind.
Not sure. Got to be people with cash looking at the cheap prices ..
Market crashes overshoot and then bounce back fairly quickly. My best guess would be the Dow bottoms out around 30-33k and ends the year around 40k. Buying now for long term is not terrible imo, but is really bad if any chance of getting spooked and selling in next few weeks.
Trump will surely change course well before the DOW gets down to 30,000. Although the US was arguably due a correction anyway, making one your own fault isn't smart for any politician.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Interesting. To my mind it was the sort of ad a party puts out when they're scared and have nothing else.
Good morning, everyone.
I can't see that. What fear would a very badly executed and ineffective ad help with?
Have you not encountered what happens when people at the top of an organisation panic? Executing stupid ideas is the first thing they do, very often.
Voters may not like being taken for fools but I'm afraid that is what Trump voters are. Anybody with a brain cell could see he was likely to be a disaster.
They like still less being shown to be fools. Really am off now.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
We've talked about this before. The NHS cannot tell (some) junior doctors where their next training post will be, so the doctors can't plan their moves in advance.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is the new NHS job-planning system which, well:-
Previously, students were ranked and jobs were allocated based on merit, but this was changed for fear it was stressful for students and particularly unfair on those from deprived backgrounds and ethnic minorities.
They tended to perform less well, and therefore were more likely to be posted to regions they did not favour, according to the UK Foundation Programme.
The old system was unfair to some doctors, so they've replaced it with a new system that is unfair to lots more doctors but if it's unfair to everyone then that's fair!
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
While Putin may want to rebuild the USSR even he has said he does not want to invade Western Europe
Oh well, that’s fine then: serial liar and megalomaniac autocrat says he has no intention of extending his control to Western Europe. Relax everyone!
If he really doesn't want to invade it, he will presumably be fairly relaxed about nuking it.
We've talked about this before. The NHS cannot tell (some) junior doctors where their next training post will be, so the doctors can't plan their moves in advance.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is the new NHS job-planning system which, well:-
Previously, students were ranked and jobs were allocated based on merit, but this was changed for fear it was stressful for students and particularly unfair on those from deprived backgrounds and ethnic minorities.
They tended to perform less well, and therefore were more likely to be posted to regions they did not favour, according to the UK Foundation Programme.
The old system was unfair to some doctors, so they've replaced it with a new system that is unfair to lots more doctors but if it's unfair to everyone then that's fair!
I recall accounts of married doctors being told that their postings were at opposite ends of the country.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
They had an economy that had record employment, inflation coming down to target, a rapidly increasing number of new industrial jobs and benefitting from more infrastructure spending than had been seen in decades.
There was a lot wrong too, a large trade deficit, a significant, if declining, fiscal deficit and very little improvement in the standard of living for many Americans. But compared with what they have now, it was nirvana.
Doesnt that rather depend on who you are ?
The people at the top had it great, those at the bottom less so.
Hence the reference to "very little improvement in the standard of living for many Americans". But Biden's CHIP Act and other policies to encourage internal production, whilst probably breaching the now defunct WTO rules, were putting the US back towards a viable path, certainly more viable than a step off a cliff.
Biden was taking the US to bankruptcy a step at a time. Trump may be doing the same with a great leap, but alternatively if he stops the rot he'll have earned his keep.
Too early to say how this works out.
Given a few Trump supporters here are oddly silent about their hero in recent days, it’s nice to see someone standing by his economic strategy.
Sorry, did I say “nice”? I meant, “bonkers”.
Trump is not stopping the rot. He has no understanding of how anything works. He has wrecked the world economy. He is ignoring the rule of law at home. He is going to make Americans, and us, poorer.
You dont know what the outcome will be any more than I do.
You just jump on the usual Trump bandwagon and scream like a banshee.
In fact in Trump 1.0 he called several things right. Europeans not carrying their fair share of defence, over dependency of Russian energy, China.
In Trump 2.0 it will be the same he will get some things right and some things wrong. Some of them like tariffs will impact the UK, but the UKs problems fundamentally can only be solved by the UK and Trump is just a distraction.
I can see what the outcome is so far. I can see that Trump doesn't understand what a trade deficit is, or how a tariff works. If you want to keep your eyes shut, that's your problem.
I don't think Trump and his family are big stock-holders. I thought they worked on long-term loans, so the stock market doesn't mean all that much to them. What would affect them is if interest rates started to rise significantly. I still have nightmares about British interest rates in the 80's when I'd managed to get myself some significant debt.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
Not to mention that Trump is 79 in a couple of months and the VP is a heartbeat from the presidency.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
Where on earth is 007?
Sold to Amazon, so guess which side he'll be on...
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
He can't do 25th as it requires Cabinet to support it and no way Trump's handpicked ultra loyalists are gonna do that.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
Where on earth is 007?
Sold to Amazon, so guess which side he'll be on...
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
There are only two ways it can be resolved:
1) The Senate & the House find a backbone & take away Trump's power to set tariffs.
OR
2) The courts step in & issue an injunction blocking the tariffs.
(A conservative group funded by Charles Koch is suing Trump over the tariffs. The fact that the plaintiffs are conservatives leads me to think that they must have pretty solid legal grounds for suing. Also, when the case reaches the Supreme Court, there is a high likelihood that at least Thomas & possibly also Alito might rule in favour, if Charles Koch is one of the parties to the dispute.)
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
FTSE now down 4.5% Dax 7% - less bad than Asia - maybe stabilising. Could be worse....
It will be! Another 10-15% to come in my mind.
Not sure. Got to be people with cash looking at the cheap prices ..
Market crashes overshoot and then bounce back fairly quickly. My best guess would be the Dow bottoms out around 30-33k and ends the year around 40k. Buying now for long term is not terrible imo, but is really bad if any chance of getting spooked and selling in next few weeks.
Trump will surely change course well before the DOW gets down to 30,000. Although the US was arguably due a correction anyway, making one your own fault isn't smart for any politician.
What does Trump changing course look like?
Not increasing China tariffs to 76% perhaps? He can't just row them back completely and quickly.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Quite a few of the people I follow on X starting to doubt Trump's plan. I'd say they're all reasonably MAGA till now.
Pulpy, you have been a distinguished poster on this Site for many years, and although your brand may not be one that I personally subscribe too it is nevertheless respected and honest.
Are you really going to trash it now by admitting you follow people on X?
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Interesting. To my mind it was the sort of ad a party puts out when they're scared and have nothing else.
Good morning, everyone.
I can't see that. What fear would a very badly executed and ineffective ad help with?
Well, I can't see what Labour have to fear from either party at the moment, but when I saw the image it resurrected in my mind a reported remark from long ago that went something like Absolutely bloody brilliant which heralded a disaster of PR, if I recall correctly. Maybe my memory is at fault.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
The ultimate irony would be if Musk gets arrested for bribing voters.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
Not to mention that Trump is 79 in a couple of months and the VP is a heartbeat from the presidency.
That's the desperate Plan C. Shock and enrage Trump with a very public display of disloyalty (Vance starts 25th Amendment process) that Trump has a heart attack/stroke and dies or is disabled.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
You may be fearing your 401k is no longer enough for you to retire. But with all the cuts to NIH and Medicare you also won't live as long. So the policies are integrated.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
He can't do 25th as it requires Cabinet to support it and no way Trump's handpicked ultra loyalists are gonna do that.
Nobody in the GOP has a spine and the US provides much greater security of tenure to its leaders than the UK system, so all those hoping there’ll be some kind of men in grey suits forcing him out a la Truss is I fear being somewhat optimistic.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
I suspect @Roger is right. Done in-house, probably in a hurry by someone who was told to do 'something ..... anything' but has never really thought about advertising before.
I don't think Trump and his family are big stock-holders. I thought they worked on long-term loans, so the stock market doesn't mean all that much to them. What would affect them is if interest rates started to rise significantly. I still have nightmares about British interest rates in the 80's when I'd managed to get myself some significant debt.
I remember that. We had just moved to a bigger house when the mortgage rate increased to 15%. We were involuntary vegetarians.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
While Putin may want to rebuild the USSR even he has said he does not want to invade Western Europe
You believe him?
Maybe he doesn't need to if he can get Special Agent Donald to do it for him.
Oil men would be inconceivably richer if they had skipped the election, chilled out, enjoyed nice sunsets, and learned about a Harris win in an old Economist left in the departures lounge of a private airport on the way back from a heliski trip
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
Sorry, Elon, you're too late. You're associated with it now.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Elon probably praying to be dumped now tbh.
Bit late for him to have a rethink. It's like with those German magnates who thought they could control Hitler.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I wonder what is was about losing eleventy billion dollars over the weekend that first attracted him to free trade...
Oil men would be inconceivably richer if they had skipped the election, chilled out, enjoyed nice sunsets, and learned about a Harris win in an old Economist left in the departures lounge of a private airport on the way back from a heliski trip
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
I suspect @Roger is right. Done in-house, probably in a hurry by someone who was told to do 'something ..... anything' but has never really thought about advertising before.
Ever watched the Apprentice? As bad as that is, it is far more polished than a total newbies work.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
While Putin may want to rebuild the USSR even he has said he does not want to invade Western Europe
You believe him?
Maybe he doesn't need to if he can get Special Agent Donald to do it for him.
He won't, for starters as France and the UK have nuclear weapons and if he invaded a NATO nation it would be WW3 even if the US stayed neutral
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
FTSE now down 4.5% Dax 7% - less bad than Asia - maybe stabilising. Could be worse....
It will be! Another 10-15% to come in my mind.
Not sure. Got to be people with cash looking at the cheap prices ..
Market crashes overshoot and then bounce back fairly quickly. My best guess would be the Dow bottoms out around 30-33k and ends the year around 40k. Buying now for long term is not terrible imo, but is really bad if any chance of getting spooked and selling in next few weeks.
Trump will surely change course well before the DOW gets down to 30,000. Although the US was arguably due a correction anyway, making one your own fault isn't smart for any politician.
What does Trump changing course look like?
Not increasing China tariffs to 76% perhaps? He can't just row them back completely and quickly.
He's done so once already.
Congress is getting its act together to challenge his legal ability to act using emergency powers that were designed for a wartime situation.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Elon probably praying to be dumped now tbh.
Bit late for him to have a rethink. It's like with those German magnates who thought they could control Hitler.
I was reading somewhere that during WWI when the Germans retreated from a trench they left someone with a machine-gun to fire at the Allied troops when they came into the trench. He had limited ammunition and was expected to surrender when it ran out. Unfortunately for him the general response to his surrender was "too late, mate." Bang!
FTSE now down 4.5% Dax 7% - less bad than Asia - maybe stabilising. Could be worse....
It will be! Another 10-15% to come in my mind.
Not sure. Got to be people with cash looking at the cheap prices ..
Market crashes overshoot and then bounce back fairly quickly. My best guess would be the Dow bottoms out around 30-33k and ends the year around 40k. Buying now for long term is not terrible imo, but is really bad if any chance of getting spooked and selling in next few weeks.
Trump will surely change course well before the DOW gets down to 30,000. Although the US was arguably due a correction anyway, making one your own fault isn't smart for any politician.
What does Trump changing course look like?
Not increasing China tariffs to 76% perhaps? He can't just row them back completely and quickly.
He's done so once already.
Congress is getting its act together to challenge his legal ability to act using emergency powers that were designed for a wartime situation.
The Senate appear to be, tentatively, growing some balls, but it will mean nothing if the House Speaker continues to block anything.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
I suspect @Roger is right. Done in-house, probably in a hurry by someone who was told to do 'something ..... anything' but has never really thought about advertising before.
Ever watched the Apprentice? As bad as that is, it is far more polished than a total newbies work.
Yes, I've watched Apprentice, and while you may be right, I wonder if the designer was an Apprentice candidate.
Comments
But apart from that, our emphasis on low-rise housing and protected countryside makes the inexorable rise in property prices inevitable. I understand the preference for detached housing, but think it's hard to imagine that skyscraper housing at 35% off wouldn't be snapped up. I think the history of poorly-built and poorly maintained tower blocks after WW2 casts an incredibly long shadow. I grew up in this well-maintained block: https://bdtu.dk/accommodations/property-overview/?key=20_2 - ideally located between a village on one side and a mainline railway station on the other. The 5-room flat quoted there is £1900/month, or there's a 1-bed flat for sale at £300K, both fairly reasonable given Danish wages. Copenhagen is quite small - you can easily walk across it in a day - so low-quality housing is squeezed out. Wouldn't many people opt for places like that rather than wait till they're 50 to afford a semi?
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Mrfut-FSw
As the bulk of the costs of these contracts are labour if you benchmark it you will get similar results.
*assuming the US emerges from trump as a functioning democracy
It will of course be a history lesson at that point
There's no reasoning with economic illiterates like Trump. The deficit he complains about would disappear if we all stopped buying US goods. So we'd better get on with doing just that and rebuild a trading area that ignores the US.
As for US people who have lost money I couldn't care less about them, They voted for this nonsense. I didn't and have lost out. So no to any trade deal with an untrustworthy country intent on causing harm.
As to why people don't like high buildings, the inability of fire brigades to fight fires at height is just the start of the fun.
Wisconsin has show that to be an empty threat.
At what point do they discover their spine?
And at least some of the horror at the expression of the attack is partisan pearl-clutching. Unless KB's sex and skin colour make insults off-limits.
But that defence only goes so far, and not far enough. It's a bad advert, even if it's not evil.
And @Roger is probably right- this shows the dangers of not getting professionals in to do your attack ads. You see the same thing in education, and I'm sure in other fields as well. Computer technology lets us all produce things that are superficially professional-looking, but don't have professional wisdom underpinning them.
Oh, and good morning to you, as Rabbi Lionel Blue used to say.
Sounds about right.
EDIT: There's 19 months until the mid-terms. I don't think there is 19 months till the riots
I'm blaming you.
Really am off now.
I think I am the only one on contraction.
But he's very canny and he wants to be President.
So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045l5r467ko
We've talked about this before. The NHS cannot tell (some) junior doctors where their next training post will be, so the doctors can't plan their moves in advance.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is the new NHS job-planning system which, well:-
Previously, students were ranked and jobs were allocated based on merit, but this was changed for fear it was stressful for students and particularly unfair on those from deprived backgrounds and ethnic minorities.
They tended to perform less well, and therefore were more likely to be posted to regions they did not favour, according to the UK Foundation Programme.
Instead, jobs are assigned randomly, which means a higher proportion of students are not getting what they asked for.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045l5r467ko
The old system was unfair to some doctors, so they've replaced it with a new system that is unfair to lots more doctors but if it's unfair to everyone then that's fair!
Would be surprised if many don't have the name Trump.
I still have nightmares about British interest rates in the 80's when I'd managed to get myself some significant debt.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
https://x.com/manishkumar_dev/status/1908752157958152594
1) The Senate & the House find a backbone & take away Trump's power to set tariffs.
OR
2) The courts step in & issue an injunction blocking the tariffs.
(A conservative group funded by Charles Koch is suing Trump over the tariffs. The fact that the plaintiffs are conservatives leads me to think that they must have pretty solid legal grounds for suing. Also, when the case reaches the Supreme Court, there is a high likelihood that at least Thomas & possibly also Alito might rule in favour, if Charles Koch is one of the parties to the dispute.)
Not increasing China tariffs to 76% perhaps? He can't just row them back completely and quickly.
@Bubblebathgirl
“If tariffs don’t work, then why are we being tariffed by all these other countries?”
https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1908354800078438525
Are you really going to trash it now by admitting you follow people on X?
Presidential pardon for $100bn.
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
@joshtpm.bsky.social
You may be fearing your 401k is no longer enough for you to retire. But with all the cuts to NIH and Medicare you also won't live as long. So the policies are integrated.
https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lm6s7dfrp22s
... and who can blame them?
Maybe he doesn't need to if he can get Special Agent Donald to do it for him.
The fossil fuel lobby paid to get utterly rinsed.
Oil men would be inconceivably richer if they had skipped the election, chilled out, enjoyed nice sunsets, and learned about a Harris win in an old Economist left in the departures lounge of a private airport on the way back from a heliski trip
https://bsky.app/profile/thehistoryguy.bsky.social/post/3lm7n4ljtz22k
"Oh - I'm not sure we should be buying American Coca Cola now should we?"
She put it back.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
Congress is getting its act together to challenge his legal ability to act using emergency powers that were designed for a wartime situation.
He had limited ammunition and was expected to surrender when it ran out.
Unfortunately for him the general response to his surrender was "too late, mate." Bang!