And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
I think you're both right, it's technically true that the winner of the presidency generally wins Florida, since it's a little bit GOP but most Dems who have won lately have won by a fairly big bit. But that also doesn't mean that you *need* to win Florida to win the presidency, and it's several states past Biden's finish line on current polling.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
That`s a superb post. Proper environmentalists - that is, deep ecologists - recognise the intrinsic value of nature and they despair over the annihilation of the planet, its flora,fauna and geology, by a strain of just one species: post agricultural revolution homo sapiens. Many such ecologists have given up.
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
The actual problem is back to good old PC - the developed world population is stable/shrinking. The developing world is still expanding, generally.
Which means that advocating population control is to advocate less of....
Well, it's to advocate improving women's rights, healthcare, education and economic independence, since those are the factors that are mostly responsible for reducing the birth rate in the developed world.
One of the things we can contribute towards with a generous International Development budget that isn't diverted to satisfy the whims of the Foreign Office, or to plug holes in the MoD budget... Darn.
Another day, another leading epidemiologist struggles to even attempt answer why Sweden is different. At first he just refuses to engage. Later there is some waffle about "Sweden has had some issues" (never defined) and then back to the R rate in England.
Why can't these people even admit that SW may show that we have got this all wrong (as any good scientist should - look at the bloody evidence). Even WHO are starting to openly wonder whether SW has this right.
He does struggle but one sympathizes. Because of all the challenges that face a scientist explaining Covid one of the very toughest is dumbing down sufficiently to communicate with Julia Hartley Brewer.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
The main one is that Florida may be pointing towards Biden early on the early announcements are for postal and early voting that supposedly favours Biden more than Trump.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
The property rights that can deal with environmental degradation and climate change are patents. They give businesses the incentive to invest in the R&D that will lead to the solutions we need. When the Tories were a pro-business party, they understood this. Now, though, populism combined with Cummings' data obsession means they have lost sight of it. You are seeing something similar in the US on both sides of the aisle, thanks largely to huge lobbying spends by Silicon Valley tech giants who see strong patents as a threat to their dominance. Ironically, China - where patents remain highly valued assets - may prove to the exception to the rue that delivers us the answers we need.
Patents are highly honoured in China - in the blatant use of patented designs etc in products without compensation to the patent holder.
As to the rest of the world - in the US patent trolling harms innovation, not helps it.
Not true. In China, patents are almost always successfully enforced when infringed - foreign patent owners enjoying higher rates of success in the courts than local ones.
As for the US patent troll narrative. It is one that Silicon Valley has pushed incredibly aggressively over the last decade as a means to discredit patents, which enable smaller, faster, more innovative businesses compete in a way that threatens the de facto monopolies BigTech has secured for itself. There are indications that both the courts and legislators are finally cottoning onto this. Here's a decent starter article if this is an area that interests you:
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Shame that in the real world the market is catastrophically failing. Having been assured by free-marketeers that "greed is good", it turns out that greed is leading us to potentially the worst disaster in human history.
But yes to carbon taxes!
The market is not catastrophically failing and the market hasn't led to "potentially the worst disaster in human history". Humanity is emitting emissions whether they have a market economy or any other type of economy, the market is not and never was the problem.
The market though is developing the solutions. The solutions, the technology is being developed across the free world and will be exported to the rest of the world.
Yet it is the so-called free market right who have been blocking all the attempts to take the essential measures to avoid recklessly endangering a reasonably inhabitable planet in the not too distant future. It is a massive failure of the "market", only an fanatic ideologue could fail to see this.
About half the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution we've added since the IPCC was set up in 1988, when it was even clear to the UN that we were recklessly endangering the environment on which we and all future generations depend. This is absolutely crazy, but it is the free market right who have every step of the way claimed that the right of billionaires to keep on making a fast buck is more important than the rights of everyone else, including future generations.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Shame that in the real world the market is catastrophically failing. Having been assured by free-marketeers that "greed is good", it turns out that greed is leading us to potentially the worst disaster in human history.
But yes to carbon taxes!
The market is not catastrophically failing and the market hasn't led to "potentially the worst disaster in human history". Humanity is emitting emissions whether they have a market economy or any other type of economy, the market is not and never was the problem.
The market though is developing the solutions. The solutions, the technology is being developed across the free world and will be exported to the rest of the world.
Yet it is the so-called free market right who have been blocking all the attempts to take the essential measures to avoid recklessly endangering a reasonably inhabitable planet in the not too distant future. It is a massive failure of the "market", only an fanatic ideologue could fail to see this.
About half the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution we've added since the IPCC was set up in 1988, when it was even clear to the UN that we were recklessly endangering the environment on which we and all future generations depend. This is absolutely crazy, but it is the free market right who have every step of the way claimed that the right of billionaires to keep on making a fast buck is more important than the rights of everyone else, including future generations.
Trump now just 0.7% below his 2016 voteshare then and Biden 1.8% above Hillary's 2016 voteshare, so most of the movement to Biden relative to Hillary in 2016 clearly coming from Other candidates and non voters
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Shame that in the real world the market is catastrophically failing. Having been assured by free-marketeers that "greed is good", it turns out that greed is leading us to potentially the worst disaster in human history.
But yes to carbon taxes!
The market is not catastrophically failing and the market hasn't led to "potentially the worst disaster in human history". Humanity is emitting emissions whether they have a market economy or any other type of economy, the market is not and never was the problem.
The market though is developing the solutions. The solutions, the technology is being developed across the free world and will be exported to the rest of the world.
Yet it is the so-called free market right who have been blocking all the attempts to take the essential measures to avoid recklessly endangering a reasonably inhabitable planet in the not too distant future. It is a massive failure of the "market", only an fanatic ideologue could fail to see this.
About half the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution we've added since the IPCC was set up in 1988, when it was even clear to the UN that we were recklessly endangering the environment on which we and all future generations depend. This is absolutely crazy, but it is the free market right who have every step of the way claimed that the right of billionaires to keep on making a fast buck is more important than the rights of everyone else, including future generations.
No its not the "free market right" who have been blocking attempts, the free market right in this country have led a transformation of our country and clean energy.
The USA and China have been dragging their heels and that has nothing to do with the "free market right" in either nation. Only a fanatic ideologue would think dictatorial Communist China's emissions are a "market failure".
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
TBF I'm on Trump in Florida. At better odds than 8/11 mind.
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Odd! Possibly worth checking the specialist banks dealing with currency exchange like Starling. I've been considering opening an account with them because a quarter of my income comes in Euros and Swiss francs (mostly translation), but First Direct who I bank with just vaguely say they're using the current exchange rate, and I'm not clear whether Starling is really better (does anyone know?). They definitely do business banking, though.
The bank* in question is Tide. Starling was my first choice, refused to accept my application as despite accepting international payments my client paying me from international for my business which is entirely UK based means I am "based abroad". Same advice from Monzo.
Tide on the other hand were happy to open an account and to be fair they're easy to deal with, integrate into Quickbooks etc. Hadn't thought to check if they allow electronic transfers because why wouldn't they! There are very very few banks of any description opening business accounts at the moment - and the handful of ones that are have wait times stretching into months!
I do at least have a business account. Just forces a non-optimal route to get invoices paid into it.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
TBF I'm on Trump in Florida. At better odds than 8/11 mind.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
TBF I'm on Trump in Florida. At better odds than 8/11 mind.
If Trump has only one good result on the nite I reckon it's likely to be Florida. I'd want 2/1 to back either side though.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
Let`s look at it the other way. Can Trump win the presidency WITHOUT winning Florida?
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
Let`s look at it the other way. Can Trump win the presidency WITHOUT winning Florida?
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Odd! Possibly worth checking the specialist banks dealing with currency exchange like Starling. I've been considering opening an account with them because a quarter of my income comes in Euros and Swiss francs (mostly translation), but First Direct who I bank with just vaguely say they're using the current exchange rate, and I'm not clear whether Starling is really better (does anyone know?). They definitely do business banking, though.
Only used their personal account but revolut have been both very good value and easy to use, they also offer business banking with multi currencies, according to their own blurb at "always at the real (interbank) exchange rate" but do check the small print.
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Odd! Possibly worth checking the specialist banks dealing with currency exchange like Starling. I've been considering opening an account with them because a quarter of my income comes in Euros and Swiss francs (mostly translation), but First Direct who I bank with just vaguely say they're using the current exchange rate, and I'm not clear whether Starling is really better (does anyone know?). They definitely do business banking, though.
The bank* in question is Tide. Starling was my first choice, refused to accept my application as despite accepting international payments my client paying me from international for my business which is entirely UK based means I am "based abroad". Same advice from Monzo.
Tide on the other hand were happy to open an account and to be fair they're easy to deal with, integrate into Quickbooks etc. Hadn't thought to check if they allow electronic transfers because why wouldn't they! There are very very few banks of any description opening business accounts at the moment - and the handful of ones that are have wait times stretching into months!
I do at least have a business account. Just forces a non-optimal route to get invoices paid into it.
*not a bank. A banking service provider...
Is it related to the issue in the link below, i.e. an unintended consequence of Brexit? The issue was discussed on R4 Moneybox a couple of weeks ago:
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
TBF I'm on Trump in Florida. At better odds than 8/11 mind.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
When you don't like the polls pretend the punters know better. It's a view I suppose.
TBF I'm on Trump in Florida. At better odds than 8/11 mind.
I also think Trump will probably win Florida.
Yeah I think Trump will win Florida but Biden wins the EC 312-226.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
The problem is that a rather large number of people
- Really, really hate restrictions. - Do not have the mental structure to override their wishes/desires/feelings with factual information* - So they seek out "better" facts.
*This is not an insult. Many people cannot deal with facts that impinge on their world view, their desires/wants etc. I had an interesting experience in staging a play based on the Cold Equations at university. The reactions from various people during the process were fascinating.
There is also lived personal experience. The vast majority will know people who had Corona and survived. Still more will know people who died but were very ill anyway. The number who know people who were healthy and had corona and died?
Very small.
And how big of a number does it have to be before your level of tolerance for deaths is overcome?
How many unnecessary cancer and heart disease deaths are you prepared to countenance before you admit lockdown does not work?
With Corona and other viruses we sacrifice people who are over 80 with two co-morbidities. Lockdown kills completely arbitrarily, regardless of age, and blights the lives of millions more.
I'm not in favour of a lockdown so stop throwing it back at me. There is a middle ground between "lockdown" and "do nothing".
Quite so. It is very telling when people respond to the points they wish someone made rather than the ones they actually made.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
That`s a superb post. Proper environmentalists - that is, deep ecologists - recognise the intrinsic value of nature and they despair over the annihilation of the planet, its flora,fauna and geology, by a strain of just one species: post agricultural revolution homo sapiens. Many such ecologists have given up.
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
The actual problem is back to good old PC - the developed world population is stable/shrinking. The developing world is still expanding, generally.
Which means that advocating population control is to advocate less of....
Well, it's to advocate improving women's rights, healthcare, education and economic independence, since those are the factors that are mostly responsible for reducing the birth rate in the developed world.
One of the things we can contribute towards with a generous International Development budget that isn't diverted to satisfy the whims of the Foreign Office, or to plug holes in the MoD budget... Darn.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
Shops and gyms will reopen on 9 November, when a short "firebreak" lockdown in Wales comes to an end, it has been confirmed. The Welsh government's counsel general Jeremy Miles made the announcement, saying ministers were working on a new set of national rules to replace the firebreak restrictions.
So not an extension to the firebreak, just a new harsher set of "national rules" than were previously in place prior to the firebreak....
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
That just doesn't make sense. There have only been just over 20 elections in that time. Florida is a swingish state so for every one of those that is a landslide of course they will go with the winner. That just leaves the tight races to look at. I don't know how many that is, but we are now not looking at so many.
If you look at the 5 contests from 2000 all bar 1 were with margins between 0% and 2% and that 1 was 5%
Out of 5, 1 went to the loser, 1 was actually a draw (even though it was given to the winner eventually) and 3 to the winner. You will obviously expect the winner to win more.
As can be seen it is pretty possible for a loser to win Florida in a tight contest if out of the last 5 they have done it once, tied once and been within 2% twice
Off topic I've had an interesting morning. Turns out my online business bank won't take international payments. Turns out almost none of them will! And high street banks not taking new applications cos CBILS workload - which is why I went to an online provider in the first place.
Will have to get the client to pay my personal account and transfer it to my business account. Accountants are "its not ideal but you aren't the only client in the same situation"
Odd! Possibly worth checking the specialist banks dealing with currency exchange like Starling. I've been considering opening an account with them because a quarter of my income comes in Euros and Swiss francs (mostly translation), but First Direct who I bank with just vaguely say they're using the current exchange rate, and I'm not clear whether Starling is really better (does anyone know?). They definitely do business banking, though.
The bank* in question is Tide. Starling was my first choice, refused to accept my application as despite accepting international payments my client paying me from international for my business which is entirely UK based means I am "based abroad". Same advice from Monzo.
Tide on the other hand were happy to open an account and to be fair they're easy to deal with, integrate into Quickbooks etc. Hadn't thought to check if they allow electronic transfers because why wouldn't they! There are very very few banks of any description opening business accounts at the moment - and the handful of ones that are have wait times stretching into months!
I do at least have a business account. Just forces a non-optimal route to get invoices paid into it.
*not a bank. A banking service provider...
The problem with tide is they are not yet participating within the online account checking that all the big banks now require before an online payment is transmitted to them. I tried to pay an electrician who had a tide account yesterday, and had to override a whole stack of “impossible to verify recipient account” warnings before I could get the payment to go through.
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
From Adam Smith onwards, various "right-wing" economic theories/systems have argued that dealing with externalities is one of the major functions of government intervention in the economy. Such as "the polluter pays"....
From this strand of thinking came the idea that the best way to deal with CO2 emissions was to tax them. It is notable that all the countries in which CO2 emissions have been reduced substantially have used CO2 taxes - direct or indirect.
Precisely. The market works, you just need to get the market to take into account the externality and then the market does its job.
Shame that in the real world the market is catastrophically failing. Having been assured by free-marketeers that "greed is good", it turns out that greed is leading us to potentially the worst disaster in human history.
But yes to carbon taxes!
The market is not catastrophically failing and the market hasn't led to "potentially the worst disaster in human history". Humanity is emitting emissions whether they have a market economy or any other type of economy, the market is not and never was the problem.
The market though is developing the solutions. The solutions, the technology is being developed across the free world and will be exported to the rest of the world.
Yet it is the so-called free market right who have been blocking all the attempts to take the essential measures to avoid recklessly endangering a reasonably inhabitable planet in the not too distant future. It is a massive failure of the "market", only an fanatic ideologue could fail to see this.
About half the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution we've added since the IPCC was set up in 1988, when it was even clear to the UN that we were recklessly endangering the environment on which we and all future generations depend. This is absolutely crazy, but it is the free market right who have every step of the way claimed that the right of billionaires to keep on making a fast buck is more important than the rights of everyone else, including future generations.
There should be an immediate worldwide ban on non-biodegradable plastics. But who would make this decision and ensure that it is complied with?
Can you get the argument much beyond the seemingly obvious conclusion that the right doesn’t want to think about climate change because the consequences are so negative for the interests of its client group?
Another question for pb'ers brains community - where do you go next if you've filled up your ISA allowance?
I can't gamble all the time and I don't want it earning <0.1% in a cash account. At the same time, I don't want to take absurd risks.
Any ideas? </p>
I use Ratesetter in that role of medium risk. But do be warned that due to COVID, it is taking many months to get your money out. Interest has effectively been halved temporarily to 1.75-2.25% - this will likely go back up but as I say, it is illiquid at the moment.
Another question for pb'ers brains community - where do you go next if you've filled up your ISA allowance?
I can't gamble all the time and I don't want it earning <0.1% in a cash account. At the same time, I don't want to take absurd risks.
Any ideas? </p>
Right now, given that world markets may be on the edge of a precipice, cash isn’t so bad.
Alternatives I would look at:
For real pessimists: Gold. For example Black Rock Gold & General For moderate pessimists: Troy Trojan For slight pessimists: The Ruffer or Rothschild (RIT) investment trusts For slight optimists: Temple Bar IT For moderate optimists or greater: do yourself a favour and stay out of the markets
Its so frustrating that those most sceptical of lockdowns persist in insisting upon bad science.
I'm sceptical too - libertarianism is always my go to - but I believe in good science. It should be possible to make libertarian arguments without bad science and if you can't there's a problem.
Science is easy to attack, the average person doesn't understand it and scientist generally are not very good at explaining it down to a level the general public can understand.
Its been a big bug bear for me for a long time with Climate Change, at some point it became a "left wing" issue and the "right wing" just surrendered the issue and proposing conservative based solutions. Of course differs from country to country, the UK is actually quite good with the Tories in general recognizing the problem an acting, the US however.....
Climate change becomes "left-wing" when the Left start attaching their favoured communitarian and socialist policies to it that attack free choice, individual freedom and independent private lifestyles.
For climate change mitigation to be truly effective it needs to be depoliticised. The logic of that is that people will move to environmentally friendly methods because doing so makes their lives more pleasant; not because they're volunteering for the hairiest of shirts.
It's not a surprise that left-wing people should think of left-wing solutions to a problem. The question is why the right don't put forward their own solutions.
On Education, for example, the right don't deny that Education is a good thing that should be improved by way of public policy as some sort of strop in response to left-wing people proposing left-wing policies to improve education. They put forward right-wing policies instead.
So it would be good if people on the right would come up with their own ideas instead of complaining that people on the left haven't done it for them.
Good post. I think it's a bit difficult for the right wing to come up with environmental solutions unlike, say, education policy, because of something inherent in the subject matter. When it comes to education, there are rational arguments to be made for the free market to contribute to it, especially around choice and accountability. But the environment is very, very different. And that is because humans have an industrial capacity for ruining nature but not a similar one for restoring it. One person with a chainsaw can pull down trees faster than one person with a can grow a forest. It's an inherent property of any complex systems that as soon as one actor gains a disproportionate capacity to intervene, the complexity of the system crashes. The only way to preserve complexity is to have a balance of power. And that means constraint on the freedom of the powerful actor. It's an old idea, usually referred to as the tragedy of the commons. The traditional right wing solution is through property rights, but our industrial capacity means humans can have global effects, and nobody owns the skies and seas. And if they did, enforcement of those property rights would require some sort of supranational legal system, which would tick off some on the right quite a lot.
That`s a superb post. Proper environmentalists - that is, deep ecologists - recognise the intrinsic value of nature and they despair over the annihilation of the planet, its flora,fauna and geology, by a strain of just one species: post agricultural revolution homo sapiens. Many such ecologists have given up.
I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist these days because the various environmental groups are largely comprised of water-melon environmentalists whose view when you get down to it is human-focused and will not face the yawning truth that there are way too many humans in the world. These environmentalists are not naturalists, they have a different agenda. Anyone advocating for reductions in human population is shouted down and abused, even denounced as evil. If we keep cutting down nature it will be gone, most of it already has gone. And the only way to stop this carnage is through a world government comprised of naturalists and scientists which operates on a non-democratic fashion, to produce a balance of power which advocates for nature rather than for humans. And that won`t happen.
The actual problem is back to good old PC - the developed world population is stable/shrinking. The developing world is still expanding, generally.
Which means that advocating population control is to advocate less of....
Well, it's to advocate improving women's rights, healthcare, education and economic independence, since those are the factors that are mostly responsible for reducing the birth rate in the developed world.
One of the things we can contribute towards with a generous International Development budget that isn't diverted to satisfy the whims of the Foreign Office, or to plug holes in the MoD budget... Darn.
Another question for pb'ers brains community - where do you go next if you've filled up your ISA allowance?
I can't gamble all the time and I don't want it earning <0.1% in a cash account. At the same time, I don't want to take absurd risks.
Any ideas? </p>
It is pretty impossible at present I think. As you know (we discussed it before) I use 0% credit cards and 0% balance transfer cards and then invest what I get, ensuring I pay them off before the offer runs out. It is pretty easy to get upto £100,000 to invest. However currently the money I get from this earns so little it makes it worthless.
Pension funds for tax relief is the best I can suggest, bearing in mind the now flexibility with pensions in terms of getting hold of your money. I don't know but I imagine you could probably borrow against it for a mortgage if you were looking to move house in the future.
Another question for pb'ers brains community - where do you go next if you've filled up your ISA allowance?
I can't gamble all the time and I don't want it earning <0.1% in a cash account. At the same time, I don't want to take absurd risks.
Any ideas? </p>
Use pension reliefs on top of the ISAs. Reset expectations about how much money should return for next few years. Negative interest rates may well be coming. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. If you have time you can get a decent cash rate (2-3%!) on about £15-20k of savings opening current accounts and using their regular savings accounts. Global low cost tracker. Premium bonds if wanting to be very cautious.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
Which has precisely no relevance to how important it is to Biden this year
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Florida has only voted for the loser twice since 1928.....so......
Which has precisely no relevance to how important it is to Biden this year
One state that's not going to have a "stuck in the mail" issue with ballots is Wisconsin. The return rate seeing as we've still got 6 days to get them in is extraordinarily high.
Ballots requested 1839407 Ballots sent 1832742 99.6% sent rate Ballots returned 1545576 84.3% Return rate
Comments
1st iteration = 1 of 100 seed infected
5th iteration = 12 of 100 newly infected, 14 previously infected (pure exponent = 16 new)
7th iteration (peak) = 20 newly infected, 44 previously infected (exponent = 64 new)
9th iteration = 6 newly infected, 78 previously infected
12th iteration (zero case) = 0 new cases, 87 previously infected, 13 escape
I'll do some real world with UK infection, immunity and R rates in fully mixed and simple segmented populations when I get the chance.
One of the things we can contribute towards with a generous International Development budget that isn't diverted to satisfy the whims of the Foreign Office, or to plug holes in the MoD budget... Darn.
The main one is that Florida may be pointing towards Biden early on the early announcements are for postal and early voting that supposedly favours Biden more than Trump.
As for the US patent troll narrative. It is one that Silicon Valley has pushed incredibly aggressively over the last decade as a means to discredit patents, which enable smaller, faster, more innovative businesses compete in a way that threatens the de facto monopolies BigTech has secured for itself. There are indications that both the courts and legislators are finally cottoning onto this. Here's a decent starter article if this is an area that interests you:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/opinion/the-patent-troll-smokescreen.html
About half the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution we've added since the IPCC was set up in 1988, when it was even clear to the UN that we were recklessly endangering the environment on which we and all future generations depend. This is absolutely crazy, but it is the free market right who have every step of the way claimed that the right of billionaires to keep on making a fast buck is more important than the rights of everyone else, including future generations.
The higher that gets past 100% the better for Biden.
3.95 on betfair looking v tempting
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-amount-plastic-dumped-mediterranean-sea.html
There should be an immediate worldwide ban on non-biodegradable plastics. But who would make this decision and ensure that it is complied with?
Biden 50% (-0.7%)
Trump 45.4% (-0.9%)
Changes from yesterday.
The USA and China have been dragging their heels and that has nothing to do with the "free market right" in either nation. Only a fanatic ideologue would think dictatorial Communist China's emissions are a "market failure".
The only prediction I’m willing to make is that I think Biden will win Georgia, but it’s not based on any real evidence - just a feeling.
There is more than a hint of Republican complacency in this Texas report;
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/27/texas-election-battleground-2020/
Tide on the other hand were happy to open an account and to be fair they're easy to deal with, integrate into Quickbooks etc. Hadn't thought to check if they allow electronic transfers because why wouldn't they! There are very very few banks of any description opening business accounts at the moment - and the handful of ones that are have wait times stretching into months!
I do at least have a business account. Just forces a non-optimal route to get invoices paid into it.
*not a bank. A banking service provider...
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1321423083106897922
However Biden can win without Florida. 🤓
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-8860311/Will-Brexit-close-bank-account-Britons-abroad-left-dark.html
So not an extension to the firebreak, just a new harsher set of "national rules" than were previously in place prior to the firebreak....
If you look at the 5 contests from 2000 all bar 1 were with margins between 0% and 2% and that 1 was 5%
Out of 5, 1 went to the loser, 1 was actually a draw (even though it was given to the winner eventually) and 3 to the winner. You will obviously expect the winner to win more.
As can be seen it is pretty possible for a loser to win Florida in a tight contest if out of the last 5 they have done it once, tied once and been within 2% twice
B 54 (±0)
T 43 (+1)
I can't gamble all the time and I don't want it earning <0.1% in a cash account. At the same time, I don't want to take absurd risks.
Any ideas?
Alternatives I would look at:
For real pessimists: Gold. For example Black Rock Gold & General
For moderate pessimists: Troy Trojan
For slight pessimists: The Ruffer or Rothschild (RIT) investment trusts
For slight optimists: Temple Bar IT
For moderate optimists or greater: do yourself a favour and stay out of the markets
I was surprised to see environmentalists called 'water-melons' up thread by someone (Stocky?) advocating a 'science run' world government though.
I thought that it had been recently demonstrated very clearly that scientists don't always agree or indeed behave rationally...
Pension funds for tax relief is the best I can suggest, bearing in mind the now flexibility with pensions in terms of getting hold of your money. I don't know but I imagine you could probably borrow against it for a mortgage if you were looking to move house in the future.
Front page of the BBC News site...Lily Allen talks about wanking.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-54712504
Reset expectations about how much money should return for next few years. Negative interest rates may well be coming.
If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
If you have time you can get a decent cash rate (2-3%!) on about £15-20k of savings opening current accounts and using their regular savings accounts.
Global low cost tracker.
Premium bonds if wanting to be very cautious.
1924 +36 years
1960 +32 years
1992 +28 years
2020
Ballots requested 1839407
Ballots sent 1832742 99.6% sent rate
Ballots returned 1545576 84.3% Return rate