And Your Party backs @zarahsultana’s preferred option to allow members also to be members of other left wing parties and groups - subject to the agreement of the party executive.
I see Your Party have agreed that neither Corbyn nor Sultana will be party leader but instead it will be led by a panel of members. So if Your Party won the next general election would we then be led by a panel of Prime Ministers?
More likely, we would have a nominal (one might also say Constitutional) Prime Minister, but they would be required to defer to the leadership panel for any actual decision-making.
Like Benn's model for early 80s Labour, only far worse.
They could get a people carrier to take them to the Palace
I would have thought something like this would be more ecologically responsible;
(Actually, The Goodies would be a pretty appropriately self-righteous name for a political party. Instead, the nitiwts seem to have gone with Your Party.)
And AMD were founded in 1969, so they’re not a new entrant and run against Malmesbury’s hypothesis.
That's debatable, AMD in its current from only dates to 2009. They started design work on the Zen architecture, which saved them, in 2012.
If you take an established company, spin-off almost all of it, sack most of the staff and bring in new management you have something that's not too far away from a start-up. They have no baggage and not much left to lose.
That's not quite true: there's a fair amount of old AMD/ATI DNA in there, if you don't mind the pun
Getting a bit pedantic, but AFAIK the team that worked on the Zen architecture was almost completely new, recruited from outside by Jim Keller when he started at AMD. You'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of people at AMD on the CPU/platform side who worked there before 2009.
ATI, yes, agreed, there's more of the old school there because ATI were (and to some degree still are) geographically separate. That possibly explains why the graphics side of AMD is always the problem child.
But the point I'm making is, AMD had no market left to protect, no viable products and no bureaucracy left to get in the way. Same environment as a start-up, but with a recognisable, if rather tarnished, brand.
"hundreds of thousands of children lifted out of poverty" very Brownian spreadsheet thinking and talking
Though that is money that gets recycled quickly in our economy.
Much of our economy is driven by consumer spending. If consumers are skint then there is no growth.
There’s a large amount of money tied up in savings. Try freeing that up.
Saving money does free it up, unless saved in an old sock in notes and coins. Few would be able to buy a house but for the savings of others. All investment - new buildings, machinery, fleets of vehicles - comes from money not used for some other purpose. The general term for such money is 'savings'.
Britain's savings rate is the highest it’s been for decades. Household and corporate debt are historically very low. Yes, we are saving too much and spending too little.
We have real life stats to show the power of spending on economic growth. Not only UK historical GDP but also country comparisons: the USA at one extreme and Japan at the other.
We do need investment. Massively more of it. Not surplus rainy day saving in low yielding assets. But investment is spending. Every pound you spend on that new extension or your child’s university fees is investment, as is every pound your employer spends on training or automation.
A country which runs a continuous trade deficit is not under consuming.
Falling household debt (does that include student debt BTW ?) has been matched by increased government debt and household debt is still way above the levels of the 1980s and 1990s:
UK household debt peaked in 2008 - do you remember what happened to the economy that year ? It should be a warning about the dangers of excessive household debt.
Three points here.
1. You make my point for me on government debt. See also Japan (our ghost of Christmas yet to come in so many ways). The less companies and consumers spend, the more government spends and the more debt it racks up. Especially in a country where VAT is a big revenue source.
2. 2008 is both a straw man (spending and borrowing more doesn’t mean spending and borrowing to excess) and only a partial analogue. Despite protestations to the contrary across politics - but generally not by economists - the cause of 2008 was not over-extended British consumers, it was overextended financial institutions exposed to a group of overextended US consumers, triggering a systemic crisis. But banks are now under extended and sweating their assets too much.
3. Our corporate savings are even more woefully high than our household savings. And corporates not spending is an even bigger problem. We have pretty much the lowest business investment rates in the developed world. Then people wonder why productivity doesn’t rise as quickly as in France or the US. The bean counters rule the roost. It’s not necessarily a problem primarily of policy: I think it’s cultural. We are a nation of asset sweaters.
Bring back boom and bust.
A more basic problem is that the conveyer belt of growing, profitable new business is barely a trickle.
The big firms that the government love to cuddle can sustain the system - to an extent.
But for growth and innovation you need new entrants.
Consider the Riddle of Steel
To make green steel is possible. In the Goode Olde Days, someone would have set up a new company, built a new steelworks for their new process.
Why doesn’t that happen?
What’s your evidence that growth depends on new entrants rather than existing companies (of various sizes) doing more? Do you have some economic analysis that shows this?
Look at the big companies, around the world, over the time period from 1800, onward.
Notice something?
Innovation rarely comes from big, existing companies. Due to socio-economic resistance to change.
That depends what you mean by big existing company. This one is two decades old, and still funding scores of new business plans every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
There are plenty older ones doing something similar. A number of the larger US corporations also have their Vcap subsidiaries, or invest externally via Vcap.
I think Starmer/Reeves probably know they've walked into a trap over the child benefit cap, but they have a parliamentary party of over 400 MPs to manage - many of whom are very left-wing - just to stay in office.
Good morning
Badenoch unequivocally said this morning she will reinstate the 2 child cap - 'we have to draw the line somewhere'
She is right but the savings should be put into increasing child benefit for most parents which is a better use of taxpayer funds than ending the child benefit cap for parents on university credit
What is the justification for redirecting funding from children living in poverty to those not living in poverty, which is the effect of Kemi's proposal?
Problem with this is it's a particularly poor "when did you stop beating your wife" question.
If we were actually concerned with children in poverty, we'd almost certainly get way more bang for our £3bn bucks by sending it as overseas aid to places that are genuinely poor.
Instead we're borrowing £3bn we haven't got to dole it out to the feckless parents of kids who are pretty well off in global terms - and doing it in a way that doesn't improve the kids life chances.
The IFS did a (very balanced) podcast a month or so ago on the two child limit, and the really striking thing was that their study found *no* effect in the school readiness survey from imposing the two child limit. So we can reduce *child poverty* via scrapping the two child limit, but without actually improving outcomes for children.
That's quite remarkable (I was expecting at least some measurable effort), and tells you that the problems for these kids are not really related to household income.
My sister did a load of education stats for one of the devolved governments. Her comment to me was that the *only* "inputs" which influence educational outputs are those which function as proxies for parent interest in their kids. Everything else was just noise.
So poor parents who care - their kids do fine. Poor parents who don't care - their kids outcomes are unfortunately poor, and no amount of government largesse will fix them because it's not really a money problem.
Would eugenics solve the problem? Asking for a freund.
It will never not amuse me that the British Green party somehow manages to be against our only highspeed rail project, most of our actual offshore wind projects and most of our large scale solar projects. https://x.com/stuarthammond14/status/1994798606948471105
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
There are upsides. It's appropriate for a collectivist party to have an overtly collective leadership. It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality. A further advantage, esp if they were to win power and disappoint, is it denies the media and the public a 'face' to pour their bile onto. There'd be no "lettuce" or "wanker" or any of that dispiriting abuse. People could criticise, of course, but it would have to take the form of a reasoned critique of policy.
I think Starmer/Reeves probably know they've walked into a trap over the child benefit cap, but they have a parliamentary party of over 400 MPs to manage - many of whom are very left-wing - just to stay in office.
Good morning
Badenoch unequivocally said this morning she will reinstate the 2 child cap - 'we have to draw the line somewhere'
She is right but the savings should be put into increasing child benefit for most parents which is a better use of taxpayer funds than ending the child benefit cap for parents on university credit
What is the justification for redirecting funding from children living in poverty to those not living in poverty, which is the effect of Kemi's proposal?
Problem with this is it's a particularly poor "when did you stop beating your wife" question.
If we were actually concerned with children in poverty, we'd almost certainly get way more bang for our £3bn bucks by sending it as overseas aid to places that are genuinely poor.
Instead we're borrowing £3bn we haven't got to dole it out to the feckless parents of kids who are pretty well off in global terms - and doing it in a way that doesn't improve the kids life chances.
The IFS did a (very balanced) podcast a month or so ago on the two child limit, and the really striking thing was that their study found *no* effect in the school readiness survey from imposing the two child limit. So we can reduce *child poverty* via scrapping the two child limit, but without actually improving outcomes for children.
That's quite remarkable (I was expecting at least some measurable effort), and tells you that the problems for these kids are not really related to household income.
My sister did a load of education stats for one of the devolved governments. Her comment to me was that the *only* "inputs" which influence educational outputs are those which function as proxies for parent interest in their kids. Everything else was just noise.
So poor parents who care - their kids do fine. Poor parents who don't care - their kids outcomes are unfortunately poor, and no amount of government largesse will fix them because it's not really a money problem.
Would eugenics solve the problem? Asking for a freund.
And yet: why are certain groups so keen to kill the lifting of the two child cap so keen to allow the spending of lots of private money (and, via academization, lots of state money) on their own children, to improve their life chances? Something is odd somewhere. And the IFS isn't thought of as very right wing by the standards of such things, is it?
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality.
Best be wary of whomever becomes the general secretary of the committee.
Somehow I doubt such leadership would prevent a face for the pouring of bile though. Some person or persons on it would inevitably become more prominent and known - as anyone who's ever sat on a committee knows, not all participants will be of equal ability/drive/influence.
People would just get angry at the leadership, even if they were unlikely to remember everyone who was a part of it. That's one reason people voted for Corbyn when he ran for the leadership surely - most people won't have known much about the various candidates, but they knew who was an outsider to the old leadership and who was not.
Plus I expect the factions vying to get people onto the ruling committee would make it known who to blame for things.
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
There are upsides. It's appropriate for a collectivist party to have an overtly collective leadership. It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality. A further advantage, esp if they were to win power and disappoint, is it denies the media and the public a 'face' to pour their bile onto. There'd be no "lettuce" or "wanker" or any of that dispiriting abuse. People could criticise, of course, but it would have to take the form of a reasoned critique of policy.
There would have to be a leader of course. But because the leader won't be a leader as such then any criticism of the leader would be untenable as it would be a criticism of the party. The party is arranged in such a way that it represents all and thus any criticism isn't really terribly valid.
It will never not amuse me that the British Green party somehow manages to be against our only highspeed rail project, most of our actual offshore wind projects and most of our large scale solar projects. https://x.com/stuarthammond14/status/1994798606948471105
Also nuclear.
As the ultimate NIMBY party I am astonished the Greens do not already have a solid working majority in the Commons.
I think Starmer/Reeves probably know they've walked into a trap over the child benefit cap, but they have a parliamentary party of over 400 MPs to manage - many of whom are very left-wing - just to stay in office.
Good morning
Badenoch unequivocally said this morning she will reinstate the 2 child cap - 'we have to draw the line somewhere'
She is right but the savings should be put into increasing child benefit for most parents which is a better use of taxpayer funds than ending the child benefit cap for parents on university credit
What is the justification for redirecting funding from children living in poverty to those not living in poverty, which is the effect of Kemi's proposal?
Problem with this is it's a particularly poor "when did you stop beating your wife" question.
If we were actually concerned with children in poverty, we'd almost certainly get way more bang for our £3bn bucks by sending it as overseas aid to places that are genuinely poor.
Instead we're borrowing £3bn we haven't got to dole it out to the feckless parents of kids who are pretty well off in global terms - and doing it in a way that doesn't improve the kids life chances.
The IFS did a (very balanced) podcast a month or so ago on the two child limit, and the really striking thing was that their study found *no* effect in the school readiness survey from imposing the two child limit. So we can reduce *child poverty* via scrapping the two child limit, but without actually improving outcomes for children.
That's quite remarkable (I was expecting at least some measurable effort), and tells you that the problems for these kids are not really related to household income.
My sister did a load of education stats for one of the devolved governments. Her comment to me was that the *only* "inputs" which influence educational outputs are those which function as proxies for parent interest in their kids. Everything else was just noise.
So poor parents who care - their kids do fine. Poor parents who don't care - their kids outcomes are unfortunately poor, and no amount of government largesse will fix them because it's not really a money problem.
Would eugenics solve the problem? Asking for a freund.
If you dig, there is a hilarious story of how the Nazis tried to eliminate dysfunctional families.
We’re talking drinking, drugs, child abuse, criminality of the especially stupid kind - all the stuff modern social workers would recognise.
The Nazis started with social work. Then moving them to special concrete built houses (fire proof, damage resistant). Then put barbed wire round the outside… they still couldn’t fix the problem…
In the end, the war came. The policy became to break the families up. The women were sometimes sterilised. The men conscripted. Being chaotic they ended up in the punishment battalions. Quite a few ended up in the Dirlewanger Brigade.
After the war, there was still no shortage of this kind of “anti-social” behaviour.
Where’s the hilarity, you ask? Well, every time someone says they can eliminate this stuff…
I think Starmer/Reeves probably know they've walked into a trap over the child benefit cap, but they have a parliamentary party of over 400 MPs to manage - many of whom are very left-wing - just to stay in office.
Good morning
Badenoch unequivocally said this morning she will reinstate the 2 child cap - 'we have to draw the line somewhere'
She is right but the savings should be put into increasing child benefit for most parents which is a better use of taxpayer funds than ending the child benefit cap for parents on university credit
What is the justification for redirecting funding from children living in poverty to those not living in poverty, which is the effect of Kemi's proposal?
Problem with this is it's a particularly poor "when did you stop beating your wife" question.
If we were actually concerned with children in poverty, we'd almost certainly get way more bang for our £3bn bucks by sending it as overseas aid to places that are genuinely poor.
Instead we're borrowing £3bn we haven't got to dole it out to the feckless parents of kids who are pretty well off in global terms - and doing it in a way that doesn't improve the kids life chances.
The IFS did a (very balanced) podcast a month or so ago on the two child limit, and the really striking thing was that their study found *no* effect in the school readiness survey from imposing the two child limit. So we can reduce *child poverty* via scrapping the two child limit, but without actually improving outcomes for children.
That's quite remarkable (I was expecting at least some measurable effort), and tells you that the problems for these kids are not really related to household income.
My sister did a load of education stats for one of the devolved governments. Her comment to me was that the *only* "inputs" which influence educational outputs are those which function as proxies for parent interest in their kids. Everything else was just noise.
So poor parents who care - their kids do fine. Poor parents who don't care - their kids outcomes are unfortunately poor, and no amount of government largesse will fix them because it's not really a money problem.
Would eugenics solve the problem? Asking for a freund.
Yes, but you'd have to find someone to adopt the kids after euthanasing the parents... <\sarcasm>
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
There are upsides. It's appropriate for a collectivist party to have an overtly collective leadership. It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality. A further advantage, esp if they were to win power and disappoint, is it denies the media and the public a 'face' to pour their bile onto. There'd be no "lettuce" or "wanker" or any of that dispiriting abuse. People could criticise, of course, but it would have to take the form of a reasoned critique of policy.
There would have to be a leader of course. But because the leader won't be a leader as such then any criticism of the leader would be untenable as it would be a criticism of the party. The party is arranged in such a way that it represents all and thus any criticism isn't really terribly valid.
Yes, they'll presumably have to say who would be PM. We don't have a presidential system but people want to know that when they're voting.
It will never not amuse me that the British Green party somehow manages to be against our only highspeed rail project, most of our actual offshore wind projects and most of our large scale solar projects. https://x.com/stuarthammond14/status/1994798606948471105
Also nuclear.
Sensible Green and Activist Green are very different philosophies.
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
There are upsides. It's appropriate for a collectivist party to have an overtly collective leadership. It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality. A further advantage, esp if they were to win power and disappoint, is it denies the media and the public a 'face' to pour their bile onto. There'd be no "lettuce" or "wanker" or any of that dispiriting abuse. People could criticise, of course, but it would have to take the form of a reasoned critique of policy.
There would have to be a leader of course. But because the leader won't be a leader as such then any criticism of the leader would be untenable as it would be a criticism of the party. The party is arranged in such a way that it represents all and thus any criticism isn't really terribly valid.
Yes, they'll presumably have to say who would be PM. We don't have a presidential system but people want to know that when they're voting.
Well. It's nice as a joke. But a little all too real in reality.
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality.
Best be wary of whomever becomes the general secretary of the committee.
Somehow I doubt such leadership would prevent a face for the pouring of bile though. Some person or persons on it would inevitably become more prominent and known - as anyone who's ever sat on a committee knows, not all participants will be of equal ability/drive/influence.
People would just get angry at the leadership, even if they were unlikely to remember everyone who was a part of it. That's one reason people voted for Corbyn when he ran for the leadership surely - most people won't have known much about the various candidates, but they knew who was an outsider to the old leadership and who was not.
Plus I expect the factions vying to get people onto the ruling committee would make it known who to blame for things.
You're probably right. Although judging by how things are going so far it's all pretty much the definition of hypothetical. What a shambles. Polanski (for better or worse and imo worse) seems far more attuned to the times.
I think Starmer/Reeves probably know they've walked into a trap over the child benefit cap, but they have a parliamentary party of over 400 MPs to manage - many of whom are very left-wing - just to stay in office.
Good morning
Badenoch unequivocally said this morning she will reinstate the 2 child cap - 'we have to draw the line somewhere'
She is right but the savings should be put into increasing child benefit for most parents which is a better use of taxpayer funds than ending the child benefit cap for parents on university credit
What is the justification for redirecting funding from children living in poverty to those not living in poverty, which is the effect of Kemi's proposal?
Problem with this is it's a particularly poor "when did you stop beating your wife" question.
If we were actually concerned with children in poverty, we'd almost certainly get way more bang for our £3bn bucks by sending it as overseas aid to places that are genuinely poor.
Instead we're borrowing £3bn we haven't got to dole it out to the feckless parents of kids who are pretty well off in global terms - and doing it in a way that doesn't improve the kids life chances.
The IFS did a (very balanced) podcast a month or so ago on the two child limit, and the really striking thing was that their study found *no* effect in the school readiness survey from imposing the two child limit. So we can reduce *child poverty* via scrapping the two child limit, but without actually improving outcomes for children.
That's quite remarkable (I was expecting at least some measurable effort), and tells you that the problems for these kids are not really related to household income.
My sister did a load of education stats for one of the devolved governments. Her comment to me was that the *only* "inputs" which influence educational outputs are those which function as proxies for parent interest in their kids. Everything else was just noise.
So poor parents who care - their kids do fine. Poor parents who don't care - their kids outcomes are unfortunately poor, and no amount of government largesse will fix them because it's not really a money problem.
Would eugenics solve the problem? Asking for a freund.
Yes, but you'd have to find someone to adopt the kids after euthanasing the parents... <\sarcasm>
It was a cheap shot but such is the state of politics these days, people search for easy answers within a TikTok timeframe. Serious politics takes both time and consensus. Perhaps FPTP which generates a two party system is not appropriate for today's society.
And on a personal note, I recognise some of the stuff you are doing in your business. Chapeau.
I think Starmer/Reeves probably know they've walked into a trap over the child benefit cap, but they have a parliamentary party of over 400 MPs to manage - many of whom are very left-wing - just to stay in office.
Good morning
Badenoch unequivocally said this morning she will reinstate the 2 child cap - 'we have to draw the line somewhere'
She is right but the savings should be put into increasing child benefit for most parents which is a better use of taxpayer funds than ending the child benefit cap for parents on university credit
What is the justification for redirecting funding from children living in poverty to those not living in poverty, which is the effect of Kemi's proposal?
Problem with this is it's a particularly poor "when did you stop beating your wife" question.
If we were actually concerned with children in poverty, we'd almost certainly get way more bang for our £3bn bucks by sending it as overseas aid to places that are genuinely poor.
Instead we're borrowing £3bn we haven't got to dole it out to the feckless parents of kids who are pretty well off in global terms - and doing it in a way that doesn't improve the kids life chances.
The IFS did a (very balanced) podcast a month or so ago on the two child limit, and the really striking thing was that their study found *no* effect in the school readiness survey from imposing the two child limit. So we can reduce *child poverty* via scrapping the two child limit, but without actually improving outcomes for children.
That's quite remarkable (I was expecting at least some measurable effort), and tells you that the problems for these kids are not really related to household income.
My sister did a load of education stats for one of the devolved governments. Her comment to me was that the *only* "inputs" which influence educational outputs are those which function as proxies for parent interest in their kids. Everything else was just noise.
So poor parents who care - their kids do fine. Poor parents who don't care - their kids outcomes are unfortunately poor, and no amount of government largesse will fix them because it's not really a money problem.
Would eugenics solve the problem? Asking for a freund.
And yet: why are certain groups so keen to kill the lifting of the two child cap so keen to allow the spending of lots of private money (and, via academization, lots of state money) on their own children, to improve their life chances? Something is odd somewhere. And the IFS isn't thought of as very right wing by the standards of such things, is it?
I think because private money aligns with the parental interest factor - state money doesn't, which is why it achieves very little.
I'm not sure that academies have anything to do with the cash question - the point of them was to break the power of LEAs and teaching unions, and thus some of the worst elements of producer capture in the state school system. I don't think they get any more cash than Lea run schools, just more freedom in how it is spent. The massive improvement in England's standing in the international league tables (especially compared to Wales) suggests that this has actually worked, even if some of those involved were demonstrably idiots.
It's interesting Your Party have gone for collective leadership just as the Greens have reverted back to a single leader approach.
It also guards against any sort of cult of personality developing since a committee can't be expected to have a personality.
Best be wary of whomever becomes the general secretary of the committee.
Somehow I doubt such leadership would prevent a face for the pouring of bile though. Some person or persons on it would inevitably become more prominent and known - as anyone who's ever sat on a committee knows, not all participants will be of equal ability/drive/influence.
People would just get angry at the leadership, even if they were unlikely to remember everyone who was a part of it. That's one reason people voted for Corbyn when he ran for the leadership surely - most people won't have known much about the various candidates, but they knew who was an outsider to the old leadership and who was not.
Plus I expect the factions vying to get people onto the ruling committee would make it known who to blame for things.
You're probably right. Although judging by how things are going so far it's all pretty much the definition of hypothetical. What a shambles. Polanski (for better or worse and imo worse) seems far more attuned to the times.
"hundreds of thousands of children lifted out of poverty" very Brownian spreadsheet thinking and talking
Though that is money that gets recycled quickly in our economy.
Much of our economy is driven by consumer spending. If consumers are skint then there is no growth.
There’s a large amount of money tied up in savings. Try freeing that up.
Saving money does free it up, unless saved in an old sock in notes and coins. Few would be able to buy a house but for the savings of others. All investment - new buildings, machinery, fleets of vehicles - comes from money not used for some other purpose. The general term for such money is 'savings'.
Yeh, I know how it works but thanks anyway 👍
Point being many consumers aren’t skint and choose not to spend.
Couple of factors there, I reckon.
The easy one is that everyone who can is squirrelling away more rainy day money than is collectively helpful. The feeling that the welfare state will only help in the most grudging sense if things go wrong (means testing, 2 child limit) doesn't help.
The harder one to solve is that the more you have, the harder it is to justify spending more on other stuff. Partly needs shading into wants, but also Sam Vimes's boots. Once you can spend more upfront, it's cheaper over a lifetime. Good for the individual, less good for the economy.
What I found so difficult to get into my head when I retired was the mindset that I am no longer a saver. I’m, effectively, asking myself for permission to spend what I’ve put aside. It’s an incredibly hard mindset to get out of and I should spend more.
I’m still saving, and annoyed with myself that I’m not saving as much as when I was working. When I first retired, I spent much more, doing all the things I didn’t have time for when I was working. Now I’m spending less, because of worrying what will happen to my SIPP if there is another 2008 crash, coupled with the knowledge that if I invest more cautiously, it won’t grow as fast over the longer term. The children have their own homes, and don’t really need an inheritance. I am trying desperately to convince myself to spend more, but it goes against the grain.
I’ve found giving it away solves that problem - it’s not really “spending” but you can find a local cause that you like and put something back into the community
My extended families need a fair amount of support which happily I'm in a position to supply. I may not spend much myself but everything I give away goes straight into the economy immediately. What makes me feel badly is the nest egg which I look on as there for maintaining the house and funding my latter years. It's small by many standards, but huge by others, and I wonder if it's really right to hang on to it.
"hundreds of thousands of children lifted out of poverty" very Brownian spreadsheet thinking and talking
Though that is money that gets recycled quickly in our economy.
Much of our economy is driven by consumer spending. If consumers are skint then there is no growth.
There’s a large amount of money tied up in savings. Try freeing that up.
Saving money does free it up, unless saved in an old sock in notes and coins. Few would be able to buy a house but for the savings of others. All investment - new buildings, machinery, fleets of vehicles - comes from money not used for some other purpose. The general term for such money is 'savings'.
Yeh, I know how it works but thanks anyway 👍
Point being many consumers aren’t skint and choose not to spend.
Couple of factors there, I reckon.
The easy one is that everyone who can is squirrelling away more rainy day money than is collectively helpful. The feeling that the welfare state will only help in the most grudging sense if things go wrong (means testing, 2 child limit) doesn't help.
The harder one to solve is that the more you have, the harder it is to justify spending more on other stuff. Partly needs shading into wants, but also Sam Vimes's boots. Once you can spend more upfront, it's cheaper over a lifetime. Good for the individual, less good for the economy.
What I found so difficult to get into my head when I retired was the mindset that I am no longer a saver. I’m, effectively, asking myself for permission to spend what I’ve put aside. It’s an incredibly hard mindset to get out of and I should spend more.
I’m still saving, and annoyed with myself that I’m not saving as much as when I was working. When I first retired, I spent much more, doing all the things I didn’t have time for when I was working. Now I’m spending less, because of worrying what will happen to my SIPP if there is another 2008 crash, coupled with the knowledge that if I invest more cautiously, it won’t grow as fast over the longer term. The children have their own homes, and don’t really need an inheritance. I am trying desperately to convince myself to spend more, but it goes against the grain.
I’ve found giving it away solves that problem - it’s not really “spending” but you can find a local cause that you like and put something back into the community
My extended families need a fair amount of support which happily I'm in a position to supply. I may not spend much myself but everything I give away goes straight into the economy immediately. What makes me feel badly is the nest egg which I look on as there for maintaining the house and funding my latter years. It's small by many standards, but huge by others, and I wonder if it's really right to hang on to it.
You don't know till you need it - and by then it's too late to change your mind. I wouldn't be too guilty. Even a few thousand here and there and now and then can make a huge difference.
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(Actually, The Goodies would be a pretty appropriately self-righteous name for a political party. Instead, the nitiwts seem to have gone with Your Party.)
ATI, yes, agreed, there's more of the old school there because ATI were (and to some degree still are) geographically separate. That possibly explains why the graphics side of AMD is always the problem child.
But the point I'm making is, AMD had no market left to protect, no viable products and no bureaucracy left to get in the way. Same environment as a start-up, but with a recognisable, if rather tarnished, brand.
Answered upthread.
This one is two decades old, and still funding scores of new business plans every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
There are plenty older ones doing something similar.
A number of the larger US corporations also have their Vcap subsidiaries, or invest externally via Vcap.
https://x.com/stuarthammond14/status/1994798606948471105
Also nuclear.
Somehow I doubt such leadership would prevent a face for the pouring of bile though. Some person or persons on it would inevitably become more prominent and known - as anyone who's ever sat on a committee knows, not all participants will be of equal ability/drive/influence.
People would just get angry at the leadership, even if they were unlikely to remember everyone who was a part of it. That's one reason people voted for Corbyn when he ran for the leadership surely - most people won't have known much about the various candidates, but they knew who was an outsider to the old leadership and who was not.
Plus I expect the factions vying to get people onto the ruling committee would make it known who to blame for things.
We’re talking drinking, drugs, child abuse, criminality of the especially stupid kind - all the stuff modern social workers would recognise.
The Nazis started with social work. Then moving them to special concrete built houses (fire proof, damage resistant). Then put barbed wire round the outside… they still couldn’t fix the problem…
In the end, the war came. The policy became to break the families up. The women were sometimes sterilised. The men conscripted. Being chaotic they ended up in the punishment battalions. Quite a few ended up in the Dirlewanger Brigade.
After the war, there was still no shortage of this kind of “anti-social” behaviour.
Where’s the hilarity, you ask? Well, every time someone says they can eliminate this stuff…
This is why being the person picking placeholder names/options is so important, people will so often go with that.
And on a personal note, I recognise some of the stuff you are doing in your business. Chapeau.
I'm not sure that academies have anything to do with the cash question - the point of them was to break the power of LEAs and teaching unions, and thus some of the worst elements of producer capture in the state school system. I don't think they get any more cash than Lea run schools, just more freedom in how it is spent. The massive improvement in England's standing in the international league tables (especially compared to Wales) suggests that this has actually worked, even if some of those involved were demonstrably idiots.
(Edit: seeing the below I realise not)