I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
The simple truth is that the market sets the correct price. At the moment there is a labour shortage which the big firms tried to buy their way out of. This has set off a cascade reaction of more and more pay rises and yet the key issue - a shortage of drivers - has not been resolved. Companies have seen their wage bills increase by around 40% and yet have still got the same labour shortage!
The only fix is to increase the number of drivers. When this happens all these pay rises will collapse and collapse fast - they are unsustainable. The government wants to add drivers by sending out partly trained drivers who don't know how to back the truck up to the loading dock. So we're going to see a large rise in accidents as well.
Being allowed to tear up the HASAWA for some on here would be another Brexit bonus.
Indeed. 44 ton articulated truck? Yes, lets do away with red tape like working hours or being able to drive it safely. Though considering their zeal to be doing away with red tape like HASAWA you have to ask why they are also so enthusiastic to be adding so much red tape when it comes to import and export or safety standards or labelling.
4. Brexit costs. Despite the "just kick checks into the long grass" that is only physical checks. Importing anything into the UK is a painful, long and expensive process. Export more so where so many small exporters are now priced out of the EU market completely
The kicking into the long grass of any checks on imports is an interesting one. It seems to be a realisation that we have still not prepared the necessary infrastructure, staffing or processes to implement Brexit. It also is a recognition that it would deliver a hammer blow to fragile logistics network.
Perhaps it is dawning on those in power that Brexit is a crap idea.
The food industry is getting increasingly frustrated with the dogmatic bullshit they are being fed. UK standards are EU standards. What is more the UK is committed to increasing those standards, same as the EU. What is more more there is not going to be any fundamental divergence between those increases in standards to create a problem.
At our insistence we have imposed full paperwork and standards checks on identical products. On standards that are aligned and will remain sufficiently aligned. And unlike the French failed to build the customs points, hire the officers or build the computer system to actually do so. Creating huge costs to import but huger costs to export for literally no reason other than dogmatic theory that the evil EU may at some future point impose punative standards rises on the EU27 to punish the UKGB
The truly impressive thing in terms of Johnsonian incompetence is that we are still not prepared for his "Oven Ready Deal" two years after it was announced, let alone No Deal.
He said it was ready to put in the oven, he didn't say how long it would take to cook...
Energy prices going up will only sharpen attacks on the idea of the PM (or his wife) to make everyone have new, more expensive boilers.
Depends on how efficient the new boilers are vs the old boilers. If a switch to a new boiler cuts your energy consumption in half its probably a good thing. If not...
As an example in our new old house, an early investment was a new boiler. The old one drinking oil at a speldid speed if it were a supertanker engine not a boiler. We've then looked for energy efficiency investments we could make - new windows was high on the list. But as the bill for new windows is £60k, we would have to save spectacular amounts of oil to make it worth the money...
How many windows did you have to replace?
A phased approach, replacing the windows which are leaking the most heat might well catch some low hanging fruit....
My house is just under twenty years old. It was built under the regulations at the time which, whilst not quite as stringent energy-wise as the current ones, still favoured energy saving.
So what windows did they put in this house? Nice, draught-free ones, designed to keep heat in?
Did they ****. They put in sash windows which are as draughty as anything, and leak heat like p*ss from a drunkard.
Sash windows can be built to be air tight, and keep heat in or out.
Or they can be built to be a pieces of shit.
I'm unsure any sash window - even uPVC ones - can be made airtight in the long term, without very regular maintenance or adding or removing stuff whenever you want to open them. IMO they're just intrinsically a bad concept for that.
On topic, Starmer is still maybe a bit long or else the odds on next election are out of kilter. ~40% NOM for next election, but ~20% Starmer next PM - got to be >50% chance of Starmer PM in a NOM situation?
That, of course, assumes that Starmer survives to the next election (very likely, surely). Even in the obvious NOM/not Starmer scenario of Con technically short of a majority, but hanging on as technical minority (SF not sitting for example) Starmer might get another bite - he may not step down if he does that well, I guess, so could still be next PM after Johnson, although the risk of another Con PM in between increases.
I think the gap is because, if the Conservatives look like losing under BoJo, they will attempt to dump BoJo. And that person will be "Next PM".
That's certainly possible (although I don't think all that likely) but even if it does happen the aim and expectation would likely be to net a majority? If you're replacing Johnson, it has to be with a pretty good aim to get a majority?
To make sense of the odds, you need a scenario of Johnson replaced, still NOM at, what, ~20%? ~20% NOM and Starmer (or Starmer majority) ~20% NOM and new Con PM before (or after, if Cons hang on) election ~60% Con majority or other things such as Starmer replaced pre election
Is it 20% that Johnson is replaced and the Cons fail to get a majority? Maybe, but I don't really see it. That 20% does also include the NOM with Johnson, Con minority govt and Johnson stands down before next election, of course, but that's also quite slim.
Maybe I'm misjudging it - I'm not sure and so not adding any bets; I've got Starmer at 7.8 and Con maj at 2.4
There's also the tying money up discount I guess - you'd want longer than fair odds to account for that.
🚨🚨🚨OK I'm hearing from numerous sources now that there will be a reshuffle starting after PMQs. Sackings first and Cabinet appointed this PM. Then the rest of the appointments over the next two days.
Could be fun. We could start the UC debate with Theresa Coffey at the dispatch box, have her fired half way through and replaced by a considerate intellectual like Robert Jenrick before the end.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
On topic, Starmer is still maybe a bit long or else the odds on next election are out of kilter. ~40% NOM for next election, but ~20% Starmer next PM - got to be >50% chance of Starmer PM in a NOM situation?
That, of course, assumes that Starmer survives to the next election (very likely, surely). Even in the obvious NOM/not Starmer scenario of Con technically short of a majority, but hanging on as technical minority (SF not sitting for example) Starmer might get another bite - he may not step down if he does that well, I guess, so could still be next PM after Johnson, although the risk of another Con PM in between increases.
Yes I think thats true, one set of odds must be wrong.
If there’s a 40% chance of NOM & 13% chance of Lab Maj, Sir Keir should have a better than 21% of being next PM (assuming Boris fights the next GE), as he is more likely to be head of a coalition than winning an outright majority. The intangible is what % are the current leaders to still be leaders at the next GE
Personally I don’t think it should be 50/50 Con Maj/NOM, Con Maj should be big fav
I don't think you can make that assumption. Johnson only became PM, and only remains PM, because he's seen as an election winner, the anti-May.
If he loses that - if Labour and Starmer build the large poll leads that would suggest the Tories would lose their majority - then I'd expect Johnson to be heaved over the side as soon as you can say, "Sunak isn't really that short."
Inflation at 3.2% in August, largest rise on record
Its certainly not the largest rise on record.. it might be the largest rise in one month?
The largest 1 month change in the 12 month % change in the CPI, which I think is what we're talking about, was in April 1991, when it rose by 1.5 percentage points (pp). August 2021 saw a 1.2pp rise (making it the 2nd largest rise). The CPI series only goes back to 1989, but people may be referencing the period after the index was introduced in the late 90s, ignoring the limited historical time series that the ONS has created, and ignoring that 1991 number. Had the CPI existed in the 70s or early 80s you would have seen bigger rises I am sure. Most of the rise comes from base effects, with EOTHO and the hospitality VAT cut last summer dropping out of the year on year inflation rate. There was a bit of upside this month too, largely from core goods (eg cars) and food. I expect bottlenecks/Brexit/energy prices will keep inflation quite strong in coming months, but we are not yet seeing a pick up in services or widespread wage pressures. Temporary but persistent is how I would characterise it, if that's not too contradictory.
Energy prices going up will only sharpen attacks on the idea of the PM (or his wife) to make everyone have new, more expensive boilers.
Depends on how efficient the new boilers are vs the old boilers. If a switch to a new boiler cuts your energy consumption in half its probably a good thing. If not...
As an example in our new old house, an early investment was a new boiler. The old one drinking oil at a speldid speed if it were a supertanker engine not a boiler. We've then looked for energy efficiency investments we could make - new windows was high on the list. But as the bill for new windows is £60k, we would have to save spectacular amounts of oil to make it worth the money...
How many windows did you have to replace?
A phased approach, replacing the windows which are leaking the most heat might well catch some low hanging fruit....
My house is just under twenty years old. It was built under the regulations at the time which, whilst not quite as stringent energy-wise as the current ones, still favoured energy saving.
So what windows did they put in this house? Nice, draught-free ones, designed to keep heat in?
Did they ****. They put in sash windows which are as draughty as anything, and leak heat like p*ss from a drunkard.
Sash windows can be built to be air tight, and keep heat in or out.
Or they can be built to be a pieces of shit.
I'm unsure any sash window - even uPVC ones - can be made airtight in the long term, without very regular maintenance or adding or removing stuff whenever you want to open them. IMO they're just intrinsically a bad concept for that.
If made from a good, long lasting, stable wood, it is perfectly possible to make good sash windows. They also need to be installed correctly.
Cheap shit pine, jammed into the opening, so that the structure of the house fights the structure of the window (expansion/contraction).....
On topic, Starmer is still maybe a bit long or else the odds on next election are out of kilter. ~40% NOM for next election, but ~20% Starmer next PM - got to be >50% chance of Starmer PM in a NOM situation?
That, of course, assumes that Starmer survives to the next election (very likely, surely). Even in the obvious NOM/not Starmer scenario of Con technically short of a majority, but hanging on as technical minority (SF not sitting for example) Starmer might get another bite - he may not step down if he does that well, I guess, so could still be next PM after Johnson, although the risk of another Con PM in between increases.
I think the gap is because, if the Conservatives look like losing under BoJo, they will attempt to dump BoJo. And that person will be "Next PM".
That's certainly possible (although I don't think all that likely) but even if it does happen the aim and expectation would likely be to net a majority? If you're replacing Johnson, it has to be with a pretty good aim to get a majority?
To make sense of the odds, you need a scenario of Johnson replaced, still NOM at, what, ~20%? ~20% NOM and Starmer (or Starmer majority) ~20% NOM and new Con PM before (or after, if Cons hang on) election ~60% Con majority or other things such as Starmer replaced pre election
Is it 20% that Johnson is replaced and the Cons fail to get a majority? Maybe, but I don't really see it. That 20% does also include the NOM with Johnson, Con minority govt and Johnson stands down before next election, of course, but that's also quite slim.
Maybe I'm misjudging it - I'm not sure and so not adding any bets; I've got Starmer at 7.8 and Con maj at 2.4
There's also the tying money up discount I guess - you'd want longer than fair odds to account for that.
If Boris is replaced then Starmer cannot be next PM because Boris's replacement will already be.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
The more traditional RPI measure of inflation is up at 4.8% !
RPI is garbage, it's only still out there because the linker market was too lazy to switch to CPI.
That may be but it needs to be kept, there are statutory increases based off of it. Like my solar FIT for instance. It also has a longer history than CPI.
Careers like medicine do seem to have a hereditary nature, and I'm sure poshness plays a part in that, but I don't think it's the whole story. My neice starts at medical school in a few weeks. Her father, my brother in law, is a doctor. His father, my father in law, is a doctor too. My wife's other brother is a doctor as well (and so is his wife). My father in law came here from Sri Lanka in the early 1970s to complete his medical training. Both my brothers in law came here as small children. They went to a comprehensive school, as did my neice. They're all doing okay but I wouldn't say they were really posh. They're all attracted to jobs with a public service ethos and are good at Stem subjects, which I guess are the reasons they're all in this one industry.
When I was interviewed for medical school, the first few questions were about who else in my family were doctors. A friend is not a doctor but his father is, and his brother, and his wife, and her siblings, and one child. This goes far beyond any genetic aptitude for medicine.
Now, it might be that bright children from poorer backgrounds do not realise a career in medicine or law is within their grasp, whereas those from medical families think it is the natural order of things. (Pop quiz – what does a solicitor do all day?)
But there are additional obstacles. One is the personal statement. How easy is it to get relevant experience to pad your application if you just need to ask a favour of mum, dad, or aunt? Another is medical school interviews. Probably the biggest is there are just not enough medical school places, which is why the NHS needs to raid foreign, often poorer countries for their doctors.
I have been doing medical school entrance interviews for well over a decade and never heard anything like such a question asked. Neither was I asked anything similar at any of my interviews back in the early Eighties.
Incidentally we don't read or score the personal statement either. Our statistical analysis is that it doesn't add anything to the admission decision process....
Is it possible your trust is something of an ethical outlier ? (I remember wondering this at the time of the discharge to care homes mess.)
🚨🚨🚨OK I'm hearing from numerous sources now that there will be a reshuffle starting after PMQs. Sackings first and Cabinet appointed this PM. Then the rest of the appointments over the next two days.
Could be fun. We could start the UC debate with Theresa Coffey at the dispatch box, have her fired half way through and replaced by a considerate intellectual like Robert Jenrick before the end.
Please God no. Coffey has at least stabilised the DWP and managed the huge UC uptake well during the pandemic.
Cabinet is on reshuffle red alert, partly because the official drivers have been told to ready to ferry ministers at short notice. “I am hearing it could come later today and tomorrow” said one senior member of the government.
Smarkets: "Any Covid restrictions [legally enforceable] to be re-introduced in England during 2021"
Yes 1.48 No 2.80
I posted this yesterday. Odds unchanged.
Where is the value here?
No looks like value. The government is benchmarking against that terrible SAGE model and it's highly likely that we come in under even their best case scenario of sustained R1.1 which means the internal government pressure to reintroduce any NPIs will be very low.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
Smarkets: "Any Covid restrictions [legally enforceable] to be re-introduced in England during 2021"
Yes 1.48 No 2.80
I posted this yesterday. Odds unchanged.
Where is the value here?
I still think with no (anything above 50% for reintroduction is value, I think - probably beyond that, even, but I'm not sure where to draw that line).
I went in at ~4 and topped up again when it got to ~4 recently (I traded out enough of the initial position in the meantime at ~2.4, IIRC, to cover the initial bet).
The main risk I see is a reintroduction of mask mandates on, e.g., trains.
This is a market that is very predictably following case numbers and (to a lesser extent) government predicitons of woe. High cases -> high odds for No; falling cases -> low odds for no. There's value after any spike in cases. I'm not adding to my 'no' position for now, but if we do get a schools or university spike then I may do so again.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
The more traditional RPI measure of inflation is up at 4.8% !
RPI is garbage, it's only still out there because the linker market was too lazy to switch to CPI.
That may be but it needs to be kept, there are statutory increases based off of it. Like my solar FIT for instance. It also has a longer history than CPI.
It is being phased out in nine years time, but should have been taken out and shot years ago.
Not a single mention of the UK or Brexit in Ursula von der Leyen's big set piece speech, #SOTEU. UK did not even get a mention when she listed "strong and reliable partnerships", starting with US.
No big surprise. She wants to focus on EU's post-Covid future agenda.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
The more traditional RPI measure of inflation is up at 4.8% !
RPI is garbage, it's only still out there because the linker market was too lazy to switch to CPI.
That may be but it needs to be kept, there are statutory increases based off of it. Like my solar FIT for instance. It also has a longer history than CPI.
It is being phased out in nine years time, but should have been taken out and shot years ago.
Possible to have a soft spot for it if you are in the receiving end of the linkers...
Mr. Urquhart, under a Morris Dancer Government, those protestors would still be swimming back to shore after having been launched by trebuchet into the North Sea.
Vote Morris Dancer for Flowing Traffic and Soggy Protestors!
Is the BBC telling porkies? "Price rises see record jump...". Er more than in the 70s? Bollocks. It's a record increase in the current measure of inflation which has only been used since 1997.
The BBC seems to be quoting the ONS so if anyone is lying, it's the government, and I don't think that has ever happened before.
The ONS guy is quoted as saying "the largest rise since the series was introduced nearly a quarter of a century ago" so "the biggest increase in 25 years" would be more accurate. What is inaccurate is to say it is a record increase in *prices*. It isn't.
Mr. Urquhart, under a Morris Dancer Government, those protestors would still be swimming back to shore after having been launched by trebuchet into the North Sea.
Vote Morris Dancer for Flowing Traffic and Soggy Protestors!
Lords debating what constitues seriously disruptive protests. I'd argue well err... this does. I assume this is the sort of crap the protest bill seeks to prevent. I've been on the M25 a couple of times, I quickly saw why rail commuting into the smoke is so popular.
Is the BBC telling porkies? "Price rises see record jump...". Er more than in the 70s? Bollocks. It's a record increase in the current measure of inflation which has only been used since 1997.
The BBC seems to be quoting the ONS so if anyone is lying, it's the government, and I don't think that has ever happened before.
The ONS guy is quoted as saying "the largest rise since the series was introduced nearly a quarter of a century ago" so "the biggest increase in 25 years" would be more accurate. What is inaccurate is to say it is a record increase in *prices*. It isn't.
Indeed. People need to learn the difference between first and second order derivatives. 🤦♂️
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
In Peru, back when guano was a thing, they imported tons of Japanese labourers because "The native Peruvians were too lazy to dig shit all day".
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
Most mid-term governments look like they want to lose. Most of them somehow don't.
It's rarer to see an Opposition that just can't be bothered.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
Starmer championing a £10 minimum wage yesterday was curious as I am confident by Spring 24 it will already be at the rate, if not higher
I remember periods when an increase on pay of double digits was the norm. I am sure I had somethong akin to 15% in 1980 or 1981 directly as a result of inflation.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
Absolutely right. And we will all need to accept that we are going to have to pay a lot more for many of the goods and services we use, while having less choice. Those with salaries can negotiate the pay rises to keep up. Those who rely on a fixed income will be less fortunate.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
Starmer championing a £10 minimum wage yesterday was curious as I am confident by Spring 24 it will already be at the rate, if not higher
Unless he's championing the batcrap crazy policy of giving all people the same minimum wage again, regardless of age. Which would result in mass youth unemployment, the same as everywhere else its been tried.
The staggered age minimums which mean that 16 year olds (who tend to live with mum and dad anyway) currently get a £4.62 minimum is why we don't have mass youth unemployment.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
Absolutely right. And we will all need to accept that we are going to have to pay a lot more for many of the goods and services we use, while having less choice. Those with salaries can negotiate the pay rises to keep up. Those who rely on a fixed income will be less fortunate.
About time those working for a living caught a break. 👍
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
We will just import the goods instead of the people. That's bad news from the point of view of the economy but if your main goal is population reduction (which as I understand it seems to be the main goal of Brexiteers) then job done.
4. Brexit costs. Despite the "just kick checks into the long grass" that is only physical checks. Importing anything into the UK is a painful, long and expensive process. Export more so where so many small exporters are now priced out of the EU market completely
The kicking into the long grass of any checks on imports is an interesting one. It seems to be a realisation that we have still not prepared the necessary infrastructure, staffing or processes to implement Brexit. It also is a recognition that it would deliver a hammer blow to fragile logistics network.
Perhaps it is dawning on those in power that Brexit is a crap idea.
The food industry is getting increasingly frustrated with the dogmatic bullshit they are being fed. UK standards are EU standards. What is more the UK is committed to increasing those standards, same as the EU. What is more more there is not going to be any fundamental divergence between those increases in standards to create a problem.
At our insistence we have imposed full paperwork and standards checks on identical products. On standards that are aligned and will remain sufficiently aligned. And unlike the French failed to build the customs points, hire the officers or build the computer system to actually do so. Creating huge costs to import but huger costs to export for literally no reason other than dogmatic theory that the evil EU may at some future point impose punative standards rises on the EU27 to punish the UKGB
The truly impressive thing in terms of Johnsonian incompetence is that we are still not prepared for his "Oven Ready Deal" two years after it was announced, let alone No Deal.
Look, he never actually promised he had the oven to put the oven ready deal into. You are just twisting his words, making it sound like a promise of delivery.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
Labour wants to win. But it doesn't seem to know how to right now. There is no way on earth that either Burnham or Balls will be party leader at the next election.
On topic, Starmer is still maybe a bit long or else the odds on next election are out of kilter. ~40% NOM for next election, but ~20% Starmer next PM - got to be >50% chance of Starmer PM in a NOM situation?
That, of course, assumes that Starmer survives to the next election (very likely, surely). Even in the obvious NOM/not Starmer scenario of Con technically short of a majority, but hanging on as technical minority (SF not sitting for example) Starmer might get another bite - he may not step down if he does that well, I guess, so could still be next PM after Johnson, although the risk of another Con PM in between increases.
I think the gap is because, if the Conservatives look like losing under BoJo, they will attempt to dump BoJo. And that person will be "Next PM".
That's certainly possible (although I don't think all that likely) but even if it does happen the aim and expectation would likely be to net a majority? If you're replacing Johnson, it has to be with a pretty good aim to get a majority?
To make sense of the odds, you need a scenario of Johnson replaced, still NOM at, what, ~20%? ~20% NOM and Starmer (or Starmer majority) ~20% NOM and new Con PM before (or after, if Cons hang on) election ~60% Con majority or other things such as Starmer replaced pre election
Is it 20% that Johnson is replaced and the Cons fail to get a majority? Maybe, but I don't really see it. That 20% does also include the NOM with Johnson, Con minority govt and Johnson stands down before next election, of course, but that's also quite slim.
Maybe I'm misjudging it - I'm not sure and so not adding any bets; I've got Starmer at 7.8 and Con maj at 2.4
There's also the tying money up discount I guess - you'd want longer than fair odds to account for that.
If Boris is replaced then Starmer cannot be next PM because Boris's replacement will already be.
Yes, clearly, but I'm comparing the odds of NOM with Starmer next PM (or, really, for my betting position, of a Con majority versus Starmer next PM). The odds of the two only make sense if it's 20% Johnson replaced and* NOM. I find that too high. Or my maths has failed.
*there are some other corner cases in the 20%, as I've mentioned.
Mr. Urquhart, under a Morris Dancer Government, those protestors would still be swimming back to shore after having been launched by trebuchet into the North Sea.
Vote Morris Dancer for Flowing Traffic and Soggy Protestors!
"....be swimming back to shore"
Yes, mutated giant fish need feeding up.... Think of it as helping the ecosystem.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
We will just import the goods instead of the people. That's bad news from the point of view of the economy but if your main goal is population reduction (which as I understand it seems to be the main goal of Brexiteers) then job done.
If imported goods are at a competitive advantage then that's a good thing not a bad thing for the economy.
Though its not as if importing people to work in minimum wage sweatshops has led to us having a balance of trade surplus anyway is it?
Shakes head...and the problem is after all this crap, they will go to court and if unlucky get £50 fine.
One thing that strikes me about that is that the entire group appears to be white. Couldn't they find an Asian or black protestor for the sake of equality?
Shakes head...and the problem is after all this crap, they will go to court and if unlucky get £50 fine.
One thing that strikes me about that is that the entire group appears to be white. Couldn't they find an Asian or black protestor for the sake of equality?
On the whole the eco-marxists aren't a very diverse group...stuffed full of privileged upper middle class and rich white people....causing mayhem, while working class and ethnic minorities try and go about earning an honest living.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
What’s does “sources with knowledge of Haiti” actually mean?
I know Haiti exists*. Therefore I have knowledge of Haiti.
* although, on second thoughts, I have never been there so - more correctly - I believe Haiti exists
Be careful.
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
But I saw Lillian Thompson bowl at Trent bridge.
The resources put into the Fake Australia thing are incredible.
I even took a "flight" to "Australia" - complete with staying in Fake Melbourne, Fake Sydney and Fake Perth.
But you can't fool me. Not even by painting some swans black.....
I even lived there for a while, but if you pay close attention you can tell its all fake.
Afterall despite being "downunder" at the bottom of the world the ground and your feet are underneath you and the sky is still above. You don't walk around upside down like a bat so this whole downunder claim is clearly fake.
Ros Atkins video on Ivermectin: If you’ve not followed the story of how some Americans have turned to a drug called Ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID despite no public evidence it does this, a tweet can’t do it justice. Trust me, it’s worth 7 minutes. Produced @briony_sowdenhttps://bbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus
Shakes head...and the problem is after all this crap, they will go to court and if unlucky get £50 fine.
One thing that strikes me about that is that the entire group appears to be white. Couldn't they find an Asian or black protestor for the sake of equality?
{Policeman opens notebook, licks pencil}
"Now Sir, what happened?" "Well, I was taking my emotional support animal out for a walk...." "The adult Australia salt water crocodile?" "Yes, Bubbles... she is a sensitive thing, wouldn't harm a fly....: "But apparently eats protestors, 2 at a time?" "She's never done that before....."
Shakes head...and the problem is after all this crap, they will go to court and if unlucky get £50 fine.
One thing that strikes me about that is that the entire group appears to be white. Couldn't they find an Asian or black protestor for the sake of equality?
On the whole the eco-marxists aren't a very diverse group...stuffed full of privileged upper middle class and rich white people....causing mayhem, while working class and ethnic minorities try and go about earning an honest living.
Time to bring out the water cannons whenever they cause a disturbance and give them a good bathing until they move on.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
Starmer championing a £10 minimum wage yesterday was curious as I am confident by Spring 24 it will already be at the rate, if not higher
I remember periods when an increase on pay of double digits was the norm. I am sure I had somethong akin to 15% in 1980 or 1981 directly as a result of inflation.
It is weird watching documentaries of the 70s and hearing unions rejecting increases of 15% as inadequate because inflation is 20% or more. Of course they never seemed to reflect that their behaviour in the 50s and 60s was one of the reasons inflation was so high in the first place.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
Labour wants to win. But it doesn't seem to know how to right now. There is no way on earth that either Burnham or Balls will be party leader at the next election.
That's just the problem. With Lab and Cons. Lab wants to win but it doesn't know why.
Cons want to stay in power and again it has no idea why beyond being in power.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
In Peru, back when guano was a thing, they imported tons of Japanese labourers because "The native Peruvians were too lazy to dig shit all day".
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
I am unclear as to what the automation solution is to pick fruit and vegetables from the vine or similar. And how we coped in the past where labourers would accept a shitty standard of living isn't really relevant - this is 2021 and farm labourers expect to be able to live in a house with Sky TV and not be shoved in caravan accommodation with 5 fellow labourers.
So wages are only a part of the issue. We don't physically have the workforce in the places needed nor the ability for people to relocate. We're going to have to invest in housing in the cundryside so that people can get to work when needed. And then find winter work for them.
Add in the costs for all that, plus the money involved, then the impact on paying farm staff the wages they now want and its no wonder "bus in Romanians" was the solution as its just easier.
If we start applying actual production costs, decent wages and a viable margin to food production, consumers are going to have to both accept and find a way to pay for 30-40% higher food prices.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
In Peru, back when guano was a thing, they imported tons of Japanese labourers because "The native Peruvians were too lazy to dig shit all day".
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
I am unclear as to what the automation solution is to pick fruit and vegetables from the vine or similar. And how we coped in the past where labourers would accept a shitty standard of living isn't really relevant - this is 2021 and farm labourers expect to be able to live in a house with Sky TV and not be shoved in caravan accommodation with 5 fellow labourers.
So wages are only a part of the issue. We don't physically have the workforce in the places needed nor the ability for people to relocate. We're going to have to invest in housing in the cundryside so that people can get to work when needed. And then find winter work for them.
Add in the costs for all that, plus the money involved, then the impact on paying farm staff the wages they now want and its no wonder "bus in Romanians" was the solution as its just easier.
If we start applying actual production costs, decent wages and a viable margin to food production, consumers are going to have to both accept and find a way to pay for 30-40% higher food prices.
Or if we don't have a competitive advantage in the industry, we can just import more instead. 🤷♂️
Is the BBC telling porkies? "Price rises see record jump...". Er more than in the 70s? Bollocks. It's a record increase in the current measure of inflation which has only been used since 1997.
The BBC seems to be quoting the ONS so if anyone is lying, it's the government, and I don't think that has ever happened before.
The ONS guy is quoted as saying "the largest rise since the series was introduced nearly a quarter of a century ago" so "the biggest increase in 25 years" would be more accurate. What is inaccurate is to say it is a record increase in *prices*. It isn't.
Indeed. People need to learn the difference between first and second order derivatives. 🤦♂️
Actually Sky are saying it's a record increase in inflation. Which is actually possible, as it's from a low base. 2% to 3.2% is an increase of only 60% though and I am sure there may have been a month when it has gone from say 0.1% to 0.3%.
Not a single mention of the UK or Brexit in Ursula von der Leyen's big set piece speech, #SOTEU. UK did not even get a mention when she listed "strong and reliable partnerships", starting with US.
No big surprise. She wants to focus on EU's post-Covid future agenda.
Well with the present Govt here, there's little prospect of a 'strong and reliable partnership', is there. So referring to the prospect would be a waste of ink on the draft and breath in the delivery.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
Absolutely right. And we will all need to accept that we are going to have to pay a lot more for many of the goods and services we use, while having less choice. Those with salaries can negotiate the pay rises to keep up. Those who rely on a fixed income will be less fortunate.
About time those working for a living caught a break. 👍
I agree. The issue, politically, is that the people who will be most negatively affected are Tory voters.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
Absolutely right. And we will all need to accept that we are going to have to pay a lot more for many of the goods and services we use, while having less choice. Those with salaries can negotiate the pay rises to keep up. Those who rely on a fixed income will be less fortunate.
About time those working for a living caught a break. 👍
I agree. The issue, politically, is that the people who will be most negatively affected are Tory voters.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
We will just import the goods instead of the people. That's bad news from the point of view of the economy but if your main goal is population reduction (which as I understand it seems to be the main goal of Brexiteers) then job done.
If imported goods are at a competitive advantage then that's a good thing not a bad thing for the economy.
Though its not as if importing people to work in minimum wage sweatshops has led to us having a balance of trade surplus anyway is it?
They're only competitive because we have made ourselves uncompetitive. It means higher prices for consumers and a smaller economy. Like I say, if you put a high weight on limiting the resident population then maybe that's worth it, but you can't make out it's an economic gain because it isn't. We have a current account and trade deficit because we have a financial account surplus, the whole thing is in balance and we have a floating exchange rate which adjusts to keep inflows and outflows in balance. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with running a trade deficit. I would like us to have a stronger manufacturing and export sector but if that's your goal too then your support for Brexit is bizarre!
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
Most mid-term governments look like they want to lose. Most of them somehow don't.
It's rarer to see an Opposition that just can't be bothered.
I am unthrilled thus far with the Starmer project, love to see more fizz and radicalism, but he has decided to play it the way he's playing it and I have a sneaky feeling it's going to work, defining that as making the next election competitive. Dec 19 was a Con landslide and since then there's been Brexit done (yay!) followed by nothing of the remotest interest to the electorate apart from Covid. There's been no public appetite for hearing either grand visions or detailed alternatives from Labour. "Shut the fuck up, can't you see there's a pandemic on and Boris is doing his best" type thing. With this backdrop, that Labour are closing the gap in the polls bodes well for them. The notion they should be miles ahead "cos it's midterm" is old chestnut bollocks that doesn't pay sufficient regard to the highly unusual circumstances.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
What’s does “sources with knowledge of Haiti” actually mean?
I know Haiti exists*. Therefore I have knowledge of Haiti.
* although, on second thoughts, I have never been there so - more correctly - I believe Haiti exists
Be careful.
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
But I saw Lillian Thompson bowl at Trent bridge.
The resources put into the Fake Australia thing are incredible.
I even took a "flight" to "Australia" - complete with staying in Fake Melbourne, Fake Sydney and Fake Perth.
But you can't fool me. Not even by painting some swans black.....
I even lived there for a while, but if you pay close attention you can tell its all fake.
Afterall despite being "downunder" at the bottom of the world the ground and your feet are underneath you and the sky is still above. You don't walk around upside down like a bat so this whole downunder claim is clearly fake.
It was quite a shock, the first time we went to Oz, to walk in a direction which we knew was West and realise the sun was to our right. The stars at night were different, too.
Is the BBC telling porkies? "Price rises see record jump...". Er more than in the 70s? Bollocks. It's a record increase in the current measure of inflation which has only been used since 1997.
The BBC seems to be quoting the ONS so if anyone is lying, it's the government, and I don't think that has ever happened before.
The ONS guy is quoted as saying "the largest rise since the series was introduced nearly a quarter of a century ago" so "the biggest increase in 25 years" would be more accurate. What is inaccurate is to say it is a record increase in *prices*. It isn't.
Indeed. People need to learn the difference between first and second order derivatives. 🤦♂️
Actually Sky are saying it's a record increase in inflation. Which is actually possible, as it's from a low base. 2% to 3.2% is an increase of only 60% though and I am sure there may have been a month when it has gone from say 0.1% to 0.3%.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
In Peru, back when guano was a thing, they imported tons of Japanese labourers because "The native Peruvians were too lazy to dig shit all day".
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
I am unclear as to what the automation solution is to pick fruit and vegetables from the vine or similar. And how we coped in the past where labourers would accept a shitty standard of living isn't really relevant - this is 2021 and farm labourers expect to be able to live in a house with Sky TV and not be shoved in caravan accommodation with 5 fellow labourers.
So wages are only a part of the issue. We don't physically have the workforce in the places needed nor the ability for people to relocate. We're going to have to invest in housing in the cundryside so that people can get to work when needed. And then find winter work for them.
Add in the costs for all that, plus the money involved, then the impact on paying farm staff the wages they now want and its no wonder "bus in Romanians" was the solution as its just easier.
If we start applying actual production costs, decent wages and a viable margin to food production, consumers are going to have to both accept and find a way to pay for 30-40% higher food prices.
The logical suggestion is to look at how the Japanese manage - they have a much more aged population and a level of immigration that would make Nigel Farage campaign for more immigrants. What are their solutions?
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
What’s does “sources with knowledge of Haiti” actually mean?
I know Haiti exists*. Therefore I have knowledge of Haiti.
* although, on second thoughts, I have never been there so - more correctly - I believe Haiti exists
Be careful.
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
But I saw Lillian Thompson bowl at Trent bridge.
He had a sex change? News to me!
I recall Mike Brearley saying that either Lillee or Thompson was known by his colleagues as FOT, for f***ing old tart, as that is what he looked like during his runup
Not a single mention of the UK or Brexit in Ursula von der Leyen's big set piece speech, #SOTEU. UK did not even get a mention when she listed "strong and reliable partnerships", starting with US.
No big surprise. She wants to focus on EU's post-Covid future agenda.
Well with the present Govt here, there's little prospect of a 'strong and reliable partnership', is there. So referring to the prospect would be a waste of ink on the draft and breath in the delivery.
When she has her summit with Macron on "European Defence" I suspect the UK may crop up....
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
Absolutely the market will ultimately find an equilibrium but there is absolutely no reason for British people to be too thick/unskilled/unmotivated to do jobs if they're offered a decent salary to do them.
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
We will just import the goods instead of the people. That's bad news from the point of view of the economy but if your main goal is population reduction (which as I understand it seems to be the main goal of Brexiteers) then job done.
If imported goods are at a competitive advantage then that's a good thing not a bad thing for the economy.
Though its not as if importing people to work in minimum wage sweatshops has led to us having a balance of trade surplus anyway is it?
They're only competitive because we have made ourselves uncompetitive. It means higher prices for consumers and a smaller economy. Like I say, if you put a high weight on limiting the resident population then maybe that's worth it, but you can't make out it's an economic gain because it isn't. We have a current account and trade deficit because we have a financial account surplus, the whole thing is in balance and we have a floating exchange rate which adjusts to keep inflows and outflows in balance. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with running a trade deficit. I would like us to have a stronger manufacturing and export sector but if that's your goal too then your support for Brexit is bizarre!
It doesn't mean higher prices for consumers because we can simply import whatever we're uncompetitive in at market prices.
And as for the size of the economy, it depends upon whether you're measuring GNI or GNI per capita. Personally I'd rather a higher GNI per capita and deflating our income by importing people to do unnecessary below-average jobs that then get subsidised by claiming "in-work benefits" paid for by our taxes is something that makes us poorer not richer per capita.
I'm all for having more immigration, so long as the immigration comes at the top of the skill and income scale making us richer per capita, not at the bottom of it deflating our skills and incomes. Those at the top of the pyramid can still get a visa.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
What’s does “sources with knowledge of Haiti” actually mean?
I know Haiti exists*. Therefore I have knowledge of Haiti.
* although, on second thoughts, I have never been there so - more correctly - I believe Haiti exists
Be careful.
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
But I saw Lillian Thompson bowl at Trent bridge.
He had a sex change? News to me!
I recall Mike Brearley saying that either Lillee or Thompson was known by his colleagues as FOT, for f***ing old tart, as that is what he looked like during his runup
In the days before Jasprit Bumrah. Strangest run-up ever.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
What’s does “sources with knowledge of Haiti” actually mean?
I know Haiti exists*. Therefore I have knowledge of Haiti.
* although, on second thoughts, I have never been there so - more correctly - I believe Haiti exists
Be careful.
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
But I saw Lillian Thompson bowl at Trent bridge.
The resources put into the Fake Australia thing are incredible.
I even took a "flight" to "Australia" - complete with staying in Fake Melbourne, Fake Sydney and Fake Perth.
But you can't fool me. Not even by painting some swans black.....
I even lived there for a while, but if you pay close attention you can tell its all fake.
Afterall despite being "downunder" at the bottom of the world the ground and your feet are underneath you and the sky is still above. You don't walk around upside down like a bat so this whole downunder claim is clearly fake.
It was quite a shock, the first time we went to Oz, to walk in a direction which we knew was West and realise the sun was to our right. The stars at night were different, too.
I never quite got used to the sun's position when in NZ. Loved the different stars, especially when in remote country spots, away from Auckland.
Careers like medicine do seem to have a hereditary nature, and I'm sure poshness plays a part in that, but I don't think it's the whole story. My neice starts at medical school in a few weeks. Her father, my brother in law, is a doctor. His father, my father in law, is a doctor too. My wife's other brother is a doctor as well (and so is his wife). My father in law came here from Sri Lanka in the early 1970s to complete his medical training. Both my brothers in law came here as small children. They went to a comprehensive school, as did my neice. They're all doing okay but I wouldn't say they were really posh. They're all attracted to jobs with a public service ethos and are good at Stem subjects, which I guess are the reasons they're all in this one industry.
Is medicine not one of the few fields where a vocational / traditional apprenticeship system still effectively operates?
Smarkets: "Any Covid restrictions [legally enforceable] to be re-introduced in England during 2021"
Yes 1.48 No 2.80
I posted this yesterday. Odds unchanged.
Where is the value here?
Anything legally enforceable will require legislation, so it’s maybe a good hedge against the PM departing this year, or at least being challenged. There will be a considerable Tory rebellion over legal measures, as opposed to changes in advice - for example to work from home, or for schools to send home classes with infections.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
In Peru, back when guano was a thing, they imported tons of Japanese labourers because "The native Peruvians were too lazy to dig shit all day".
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
I am unclear as to what the automation solution is to pick fruit and vegetables from the vine or similar. And how we coped in the past where labourers would accept a shitty standard of living isn't really relevant - this is 2021 and farm labourers expect to be able to live in a house with Sky TV and not be shoved in caravan accommodation with 5 fellow labourers.
So wages are only a part of the issue. We don't physically have the workforce in the places needed nor the ability for people to relocate. We're going to have to invest in housing in the cundryside so that people can get to work when needed. And then find winter work for them.
Add in the costs for all that, plus the money involved, then the impact on paying farm staff the wages they now want and its no wonder "bus in Romanians" was the solution as its just easier.
If we start applying actual production costs, decent wages and a viable margin to food production, consumers are going to have to both accept and find a way to pay for 30-40% higher food prices.
The logical suggestion is to look at how the Japanese manage - they have a much more aged population and a level of immigration that would make Nigel Farage campaign for more immigrants. What are their solutions?
Smarkets: "Any Covid restrictions [legally enforceable] to be re-introduced in England during 2021"
Yes 1.48 No 2.80
I posted this yesterday. Odds unchanged.
Where is the value here?
No looks like value. The government is benchmarking against that terrible SAGE model and it's highly likely that we come in under even their best case scenario of sustained R1.1 which means the internal government pressure to reintroduce any NPIs will be very low.
This is a very good point. Not only do things have to get worse, they have to get worse beyond what the government has supposedly factored in.
That's why I backed 'no' in July - not only would there be huge political embarassment in reintroduction, but the cases spike was not worse than what was predicted from the models and - on that input - the government had dropped restrictions. Those betting were apparently still mostly in the mindset that rising cases inevitably led to restrictions down the line.
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
Most mid-term governments look like they want to lose. Most of them somehow don't.
It's rarer to see an Opposition that just can't be bothered.
I am unthrilled thus far with the Starmer project, love to see more fizz and radicalism, but he has decided to play it the way he's playing it and I have a sneaky feeling it's going to work, defining that as making the next election competitive. Dec 19 was a Con landslide and since then there's been Brexit done (yay!) followed by nothing of the remotest interest to the electorate apart from Covid. There's been no public appetite for hearing either grand visions or detailed alternatives from Labour. "Shut the fuck up, can't you see there's a pandemic on and Boris is doing his best" type thing. With this backdrop, that Labour are closing the gap in the polls bodes well for them. The notion they should be miles ahead "cos it's midterm" is old chestnut bollocks that doesn't pay sufficient regard to the highly unusual circumstances.
That being said, in every mid term I can remember, where the opposition wasn't ahead, people were saying "this time it is different"
The simple truth is that the kind of winners you can spot at this stage are obvious. Thatcher, Smith and Blair had it. Cameron as well.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
The simple truth is that the market sets the correct price. At the moment there is a labour shortage which the big firms tried to buy their way out of. This has set off a cascade reaction of more and more pay rises and yet the key issue - a shortage of drivers - has not been resolved. Companies have seen their wage bills increase by around 40% and yet have still got the same labour shortage!
The only fix is to increase the number of drivers. When this happens all these pay rises will collapse and collapse fast - they are unsustainable. The government wants to add drivers by sending out partly trained drivers who don't know how to back the truck up to the loading dock. So we're going to see a large rise in accidents as well.
Being allowed to tear up the HASAWA for some on here would be another Brexit bonus.
I suspect that this 'road safety' stuff will turn out to be complete baloney, along with most of the other eurogubbing.
There's a reason why we are seeing industrial amounts of faked-up "food shortage" pictures all over twitter.
Careers like medicine do seem to have a hereditary nature, and I'm sure poshness plays a part in that, but I don't think it's the whole story. My neice starts at medical school in a few weeks. Her father, my brother in law, is a doctor. His father, my father in law, is a doctor too. My wife's other brother is a doctor as well (and so is his wife). My father in law came here from Sri Lanka in the early 1970s to complete his medical training. Both my brothers in law came here as small children. They went to a comprehensive school, as did my neice. They're all doing okay but I wouldn't say they were really posh. They're all attracted to jobs with a public service ethos and are good at Stem subjects, which I guess are the reasons they're all in this one industry.
Is medicine not one of the few fields where a vocational / traditional apprenticeship system still effectively operates?
Another is the priesthood
My paternal grandfather used to lament, in his later years, that he didn't know why he'd had to go down the mines, as his grandfather had been a doctor. Since all the family were miners we just laughed, must have been the first aid man or something.
Many years later, thanks to Ancestry, I solved the puzzle.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
The simple truth is that the market sets the correct price. At the moment there is a labour shortage which the big firms tried to buy their way out of. This has set off a cascade reaction of more and more pay rises and yet the key issue - a shortage of drivers - has not been resolved. Companies have seen their wage bills increase by around 40% and yet have still got the same labour shortage!
The only fix is to increase the number of drivers. When this happens all these pay rises will collapse and collapse fast - they are unsustainable. The government wants to add drivers by sending out partly trained drivers who don't know how to back the truck up to the loading dock. So we're going to see a large rise in accidents as well.
I don't see anything suspicious about this at all. Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A prosecutor is seeking charges against Mr Henry, who has been asked to explain his links with a key suspect in the killing, Joseph Felix Badio.
Records show the two men had multiple phone calls just hours after the assassination, prosecutors say...
On Monday, Mr Henry sent a letter purportedly sacking Chief Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude and accusing him of a "serious administrative offence". He later nominated a replacement.
However, on Tuesday Mr Claude appeared to remain in his post as he asked a judge investigating the murder of Mr Moïse to charge the prime minister over his "suspected" involvement in the case.
Sources with knowledge of Haiti say it is not in the prime minister's remit to dismiss the prosecutor.
What’s does “sources with knowledge of Haiti” actually mean?
I know Haiti exists*. Therefore I have knowledge of Haiti.
* although, on second thoughts, I have never been there so - more correctly - I believe Haiti exists
Be careful.
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
But I saw Lillian Thompson bowl at Trent bridge.
The resources put into the Fake Australia thing are incredible.
I even took a "flight" to "Australia" - complete with staying in Fake Melbourne, Fake Sydney and Fake Perth.
But you can't fool me. Not even by painting some swans black.....
I even lived there for a while, but if you pay close attention you can tell its all fake.
Afterall despite being "downunder" at the bottom of the world the ground and your feet are underneath you and the sky is still above. You don't walk around upside down like a bat so this whole downunder claim is clearly fake.
It was quite a shock, the first time we went to Oz, to walk in a direction which we knew was West and realise the sun was to our right. The stars at night were different, too.
Yep, really odd to look at the night sky and find it unfamiliar (my first time in southern hemisphere was in Patagonia, with very clear skies and no light pollution; quite spectacular)
Tories down but Labour making no progress. It's time to get rid of Starmer and get Andy Burnham or Ed Balls a safe seat.
It's not going to happen. Starmer is safer than Johnson because getting rid of him is just about impossible. There is no conceivable route to it happening. He will only go if he wants to.
Then we get 5 more years of Boris. The government looks like it wants to lose but Labour doesn't look like it wants to win.
Most mid-term governments look like they want to lose. Most of them somehow don't.
It's rarer to see an Opposition that just can't be bothered.
I am unthrilled thus far with the Starmer project, love to see more fizz and radicalism, but he has decided to play it the way he's playing it and I have a sneaky feeling it's going to work, defining that as making the next election competitive. Dec 19 was a Con landslide and since then there's been Brexit done (yay!) followed by nothing of the remotest interest to the electorate apart from Covid. There's been no public appetite for hearing either grand visions or detailed alternatives from Labour. "Shut the fuck up, can't you see there's a pandemic on and Boris is doing his best" type thing. With this backdrop, that Labour are closing the gap in the polls bodes well for them. The notion they should be miles ahead "cos it's midterm" is old chestnut bollocks that doesn't pay sufficient regard to the highly unusual circumstances.
That being said, in every mid term I can remember, where the opposition wasn't ahead, people were saying "this time it is different"
The simple truth is that the kind of winners you can spot at this stage are obvious. Thatcher, Smith and Blair had it. Cameron as well.
Starmer isn't that kind of leader.
I think the similarities between Starmer and Cameron are strong. Everyone underestimated Cameron. There was even a TV drama that had him losing to Gordon Brown! It didn't happen of course and the rest is history. I don't particularly want a Labour government for purely selfish family reasons, but I think Starmer is underestimated even more than Cameron was, though for different reasons.
Under the Tories they are getting a pay rise though, as wages are going up. Labour flooded the market with cheap EU workers, their traditional voters left over it whilst Sir Keir fought tooth and nail for the system that caused it to remain
All workers are not lorry drivers and of course what is the point of pay rises if they don't keep up with inflation created by £1000k p a lorry drivers.
Meat packers, restaurant staff, HGV drivers are all in high demand, and wages are going up as a consequence. There are jobs available and opportunities to be grabbed.
Both parties are taking with one hand and giving with the other, it comes down to what you prefer - higher wages and more job opportunities with the Tories, but 1.25% more NI, or lower wages and less job security with Labour, but they do something else they haven’t specified yet to raise money - tax the boss, so he pays you less/doesn’t employ as many people
But the other side of that coin is how do the £100k p a truck drivers get the raise? Higher prices. Your analysis is simplistic and thus spurious.
So what if the price of trucking rises to pay a decent salary?
What percentage of a goods on-the-shelf price is the pay of the trucker that moved it?
The myopic Brexit salary bonus merchants like yourself do not see the other side of the coin. I grant you Brexit along with Covid has created shortages of people in certain employment sectors and current supply and demand issues are driving salaries up. I hand it to you, at the moment that is a Brexit bonanza.
However the other side of the picture is that the reason we had well educated Eastern Europeans working in the industry I work in, Waste Management, was because they could do the jobs that domestic employees didn't have the motivation, skills or aptitude to do, i.e. sorting recyclables on a picking line. Johnny Foreigner didn't steal our jobs, they were welcome to them. Likewise fruit picking and vegetable harvesting, hard work that we can't be arsed to do. So what happens if we can't fill these vacancies? The job doesn't get done and fruit and veg rot in the fields, which then reduces supply and increases inflation. Also, wage hikes in retail and hospitality sectors are causing panic as employers say we can't afford them and shut up shop. Something I daresay a market economist like you agrees with. Meanwhile how long do you think the £100k trucker will last? When supply increases in a couple of years the salaries equalise again. I saw this a few years ago with tanker drivers.
By all means pay people their worth, but you have always advocated the market sets its labour costs, and over time the £100k trucker will become the stuff of legend.
Off to work!
I wonder what would happen if the whole world had a first world standard of living.
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
In Peru, back when guano was a thing, they imported tons of Japanese labourers because "The native Peruvians were too lazy to dig shit all day".
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
I am unclear as to what the automation solution is to pick fruit and vegetables from the vine or similar. And how we coped in the past where labourers would accept a shitty standard of living isn't really relevant - this is 2021 and farm labourers expect to be able to live in a house with Sky TV and not be shoved in caravan accommodation with 5 fellow labourers.
So wages are only a part of the issue. We don't physically have the workforce in the places needed nor the ability for people to relocate. We're going to have to invest in housing in the cundryside so that people can get to work when needed. And then find winter work for them.
Add in the costs for all that, plus the money involved, then the impact on paying farm staff the wages they now want and its no wonder "bus in Romanians" was the solution as its just easier.
If we start applying actual production costs, decent wages and a viable margin to food production, consumers are going to have to both accept and find a way to pay for 30-40% higher food prices.
Or if we don't have a competitive advantage in the industry, we can just import more instead. 🤷♂️
From a purely economic standpoint? Sure. From a strategic risk standpoint? Ask the crews of the Atlantic Convoys the problem with being largely reliant on imports for your food.
Comments
In all seriousness, has any country had such a bedevilled history as Haiti?
To make sense of the odds, you need a scenario of Johnson replaced, still NOM at, what, ~20%?
~20% NOM and Starmer (or Starmer majority)
~20% NOM and new Con PM before (or after, if Cons hang on) election
~60% Con majority or other things such as Starmer replaced pre election
Is it 20% that Johnson is replaced and the Cons fail to get a majority? Maybe, but I don't really see it. That 20% does also include the NOM with Johnson, Con minority govt and Johnson stands down before next election, of course, but that's also quite slim.
Maybe I'm misjudging it - I'm not sure and so not adding any bets; I've got Starmer at 7.8 and Con maj at 2.4
There's also the tying money up discount I guess - you'd want longer than fair odds to account for that.
Yes 1.48
No 2.80
I posted this yesterday. Odds unchanged.
Where is the value here?
That way lies thinking that Australia exists.
A liberal democracy created by fly tipping convicts? Black swans? A national animal that consists of a duck bill sewn to an otter? Which lays eggs?
Madness I tell you. Madness.
If he loses that - if Labour and Starmer build the large poll leads that would suggest the Tories would lose their majority - then I'd expect Johnson to be heaved over the side as soon as you can say, "Sunak isn't really that short."
Most of the rise comes from base effects, with EOTHO and the hospitality VAT cut last summer dropping out of the year on year inflation rate. There was a bit of upside this month too, largely from core goods (eg cars) and food. I expect bottlenecks/Brexit/energy prices will keep inflation quite strong in coming months, but we are not yet seeing a pick up in services or widespread wage pressures. Temporary but persistent is how I would characterise it, if that's not too contradictory.
Cheap shit pine, jammed into the opening, so that the structure of the house fights the structure of the window (expansion/contraction).....
Presumably no fruit and veg would ever get picked outside of back gardens and allotments.
Or perhaps farmers would then invest in technology so that it could be done quicker and cheaper.
Likewise I wonder what the reaction was when combine harvesters started to be developed - "nah you don't want any of that mate, get a dozen cheap immigrants with scythes - they'll harvest the field in a couple of weeks".
(I remember wondering this at the time of the discharge to care homes mess.)
Cabinet is on reshuffle red alert, partly because the official drivers have been told to ready to ferry ministers at short notice. “I am hearing it could come later today and tomorrow” said one senior member of the government.
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1438035709160476683?s=20
And if you want to import labour to do it, then you're still able to do so. The basic requirement now though is that the job must come with a job offer of at least £30,000 salary.
If you're paying that salary then you can still sponsor visas to get people in. If you're not, maybe you should try doing that first before complaining about a lack of motivation.
I went in at ~4 and topped up again when it got to ~4 recently (I traded out enough of the initial position in the meantime at ~2.4, IIRC, to cover the initial bet).
The main risk I see is a reintroduction of mask mandates on, e.g., trains.
This is a market that is very predictably following case numbers and (to a lesser extent) government predicitons of woe. High cases -> high odds for No; falling cases -> low odds for no. There's value after any spike in cases. I'm not adding to my 'no' position for now, but if we do get a schools or university spike then I may do so again.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58569794
Just f##k off.
No big surprise. She wants to focus on EU's post-Covid future agenda.
https://twitter.com/JenniferMerode/status/1438054411557822465?s=20
Vote Morris Dancer for Flowing Traffic and Soggy Protestors!
I assume this is the sort of crap the protest bill seeks to prevent. I've been on the M25 a couple of times, I quickly saw why rail commuting into the smoke is so popular.
This was actually because the native Peruvians wanted more money for the job. Money that enabled them to have luxuries like a house. And food. Fascists, eh?
Plus the big cheeses thought they could kick Japanese workers around more without upsetting the Peruvian people..
Some people objected to this - and were told they were anti-business and nasty.
Sound familiar?
Apparently investing in steam shovels etc was bad - you could always get more Japanese immigrants, cheap.
It's rarer to see an Opposition that just can't be bothered.
When you're hurtling through the air and plunging into freezing waters, no-one can hear your pathetic bleating about the environment.
The staggered age minimums which mean that 16 year olds (who tend to live with mum and dad anyway) currently get a £4.62 minimum is why we don't have mass youth unemployment.
I even took a "flight" to "Australia" - complete with staying in Fake Melbourne, Fake Sydney and Fake Perth.
But you can't fool me. Not even by painting some swans black.....
https://twitter.com/LBCNews/status/1438044883378393088?s=20
Shakes head...and the problem is after all this crap, they will go to court and if they are really unlucky get £50 fine...
*there are some other corner cases in the 20%, as I've mentioned.
Yes, mutated giant fish need feeding up.... Think of it as helping the ecosystem.
Though its not as if importing people to work in minimum wage sweatshops has led to us having a balance of trade surplus anyway is it?
Afterall despite being "downunder" at the bottom of the world the ground and your feet are underneath you and the sky is still above. You don't walk around upside down like a bat so this whole downunder claim is clearly fake.
If you’ve not followed the story of how some Americans have turned to a drug called Ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID despite no public evidence it does this, a tweet can’t do it justice. Trust me, it’s worth 7 minutes. Produced @briony_sowden https://bbc.co.uk/news/coronavirus
https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1437868102126026752?s=20
"Now Sir, what happened?"
"Well, I was taking my emotional support animal out for a walk...."
"The adult Australia salt water crocodile?"
"Yes, Bubbles... she is a sensitive thing, wouldn't harm a fly....:
"But apparently eats protestors, 2 at a time?"
"She's never done that before....."
Cons want to stay in power and again it has no idea why beyond being in power.
So wages are only a part of the issue. We don't physically have the workforce in the places needed nor the ability for people to relocate. We're going to have to invest in housing in the cundryside so that people can get to work when needed. And then find winter work for them.
Add in the costs for all that, plus the money involved, then the impact on paying farm staff the wages they now want and its no wonder "bus in Romanians" was the solution as its just easier.
If we start applying actual production costs, decent wages and a viable margin to food production, consumers are going to have to both accept and find a way to pay for 30-40% higher food prices.
I couldn't care less.
We have a current account and trade deficit because we have a financial account surplus, the whole thing is in balance and we have a floating exchange rate which adjusts to keep inflows and outflows in balance. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with running a trade deficit. I would like us to have a stronger manufacturing and export sector but if that's your goal too then your support for Brexit is bizarre!
The stars at night were different, too.
Look everyone arguing with me, no lead, 4 behind, and going backwards.
They have a glass ceiling because Lexit are with Boris and the Tories now.
And as for the size of the economy, it depends upon whether you're measuring GNI or GNI per capita. Personally I'd rather a higher GNI per capita and deflating our income by importing people to do unnecessary below-average jobs that then get subsidised by claiming "in-work benefits" paid for by our taxes is something that makes us poorer not richer per capita.
I'm all for having more immigration, so long as the immigration comes at the top of the skill and income scale making us richer per capita, not at the bottom of it deflating our skills and incomes. Those at the top of the pyramid can still get a visa.
Another is the priesthood
That's why I backed 'no' in July - not only would there be huge political embarassment in reintroduction, but the cases spike was not worse than what was predicted from the models and - on that input - the government had dropped restrictions. Those betting were apparently still mostly in the mindset that rising cases inevitably led to restrictions down the line.
The simple truth is that the kind of winners you can spot at this stage are obvious. Thatcher, Smith and Blair had it. Cameron as well.
Starmer isn't that kind of leader.
There's a reason why we are seeing industrial amounts of faked-up "food shortage" pictures all over twitter.
Bullshit has a half-life.
Since all the family were miners we just laughed, must have been the first aid man or something.
Many years later, thanks to Ancestry, I solved the puzzle.
Twas ever thus.
* Not that funny