Biden’s heads towards getting negative ratings from the majority of Americans – politicalbetting.com

UK hospitals

Richard_Tyndall said:

Theuniondivvie said:

felix said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

How dare you malign the great British Leyland - how can you forget the Allegro?

Ah, the Allegro, designed and first produced by the non-nationalised BL. We certainly showed those Trabant and Lada Johnies what private enterprise could do!

Given the Unions at the time were behaving like the UK was behind the Iron Curtain the comparison is probably apt.

Plus the creation of BL was created under the tender ministrations of that avid capitalist Tony Benn. Which tied the floaters to the sinkers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Leyland#1968–74:_Creation_of_BLMC,_and_the_Stokes_era

Farooq said:

MattW said:

Pulpstar said:

Farooq said:

Can someone explain something to me? The energy companies not about to go bust are in a good position because, as I understand it, they hedged against price spikes. Is that right?

If so, what form does that hedging take? Is it a future promise to buy energy at a certain rate? If so, do those sorts of contracts specify quantities?

What I'm getting at here is, if an doing-well provider suddenly acquires shitloads of new customers, is that going to drag them into the same mire, because now they need to buy more wholesale at unhedged prices? Is there a risk that some customers will just not be wanted, and are left in a limbo where they officially don't have a provider?

This is what the Government intervention is about, and I think it's warranted - the likes of Scottish Power, SSE, British Gas! will have hedged for existing customers but not new ones. And as the true cost of the new customer is over the cap...

The fact

i) The cap is gov't imposed
ii) The customer is gov't imposed

Means the Gov't needs to stump up for the loss on each customer basically.

I think the new customers are acquired on SVT.

what is SVT?

Standard Variable Tariff.

ie they should not be initially lossmaking (unless the Price Cap is seriously out of whack).

kle4 said:

williamglenn said:

CarlottaVance said:

And....who is in the top left hand corner?

Glad to announce a new partnership with the US to help vaccinate the world.

We aim for a 70% global vaccination rate by #UNGA 2022.

European Union United States Global Vaccination Partnership will help expand supply, improve coordination in delivery and remove bottlenecks to supply chains.



https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1440700570227011603?s=20

They've also managed to choose a photo of Biden where the angle sets him against an EU flag. It makes Ursula von der Leyen look like a megalomaniac.

I'm a big fan of over analysing staged images comedically, but I think you may be reading too much into it.

No we havent had a flag-gate variation for at least a month. This analysis is long overdue.

Age related data scaled to 100K

…..

RH1992 said:

Scott_xP said:

Even the hardest of hardcore Remainers never claimed that Brexit would kill Bonfire Night, but here we are. And it's only year one.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/22/bonfire-night-fireworks-70-down-due-to-brexit-and-supply-chain-crisis

Good, hopefully it'll encourage people to go to organised displays.

Honestly, I'm tired of the Guardian trying to be righteous on stuff that it either wouldn't have given a toss about prior to Brexit, or even worse, would have probably dismissed as an irrelevance or nuisance.

Just to add to this (sorry for the double post but I had to go and look this up), it's less than a year since The Guardian was complaining about the pollution from fireworks sold to the public. I can't take a publication seriously if it can't stick to it's values when a "let's tell everyone how stupid they were to vote for Brexit" moment comes up.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/12/guy-fawkes-night-caused-pollution-spike-across-england-and-south-wales

Speaking Franglais is such a Borisism.

The man speaks passable, if unconvincing, French. But his audience wasn't in France, so he didn't.

On real-world shitty implications of Theranos:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/theranos-results-predicted-miscarriage-in-woman-who-would-later-give-birth/

I'm slightly perplexed that US healthcare would do this at all - there's presumably no intervention that can be done and the value of frequent measuring is questionable, even psychologically.* Still, I guess it's billable.

*As half of a couple that has experienced three miscarriages, the not-knowing how it's going is hard. You hope and you wait for a sign of problems, then you get a scan to confirm or disprove (in five pregnancies there has actually been an early scan due to bleeding in all five - three with bad results and two with unexpected good ones). I don't think an indicative blood test result would be particularly helpful - maybe some reassurance, but it could go bad at any point, early on.

noneoftheabove said:

Scott_xP said:

Even the hardest of hardcore Remainers never claimed that Brexit would kill Bonfire Night, but here we are. And it's only year one.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/22/bonfire-night-fireworks-70-down-due-to-brexit-and-supply-chain-crisis

Millions of dogs cheering and woofing their new found support for Brexit.

....and owners of thatched houses.

Leon said:

HYUFD said:

glw said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

HYUFD said:

Leon said:

The Elysee denies the rumour of France giving up its UNSC seat to the EU

"Contrairement aux affirmations du tabloïd anglais Daily Telegraph relayées ce matin, non, la France n’a pas proposé de laisser son siège au Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies. Il est à la France et le restera"

.https://twitter.com/Elysee/status/1440580690865655816?s=20

Beneath the tweet is a long long screed of angry tweets from French people saying "This is France", "This seat belongs to the French" and arguing vehemently with non-French EU citizens who see this move - the EU taking up France's role in the UN - as logical

Oh dear

No doubt a further boost for Le Pen next year as she wraps herself in the Tricolour and pushes French nationalism against what she will call the EUphile globalist Macron

Interestingly, Olaf Scholz, who is likely to be the next German Chancellor, came out in favour of this same idea 3 years ago. His proposed deal is that the chief EU representative at the UN will always be French, in return for France relinquishing - or "sharing" - the seat

https://www.lepoint.fr/europe/onu-l-allemagne-veut-que-la-france-cede-son-siege-au-conseil-de-securite-30-11-2018-2275513_2626.php

Yes, that goes with the idea that Germany will effectively run EU economic policy and France will effectively run EU military and foreign policy. So it makes some sense for the Franco-German axis that runs the EU but French nationalists will still dislike it

Do any of the other 25 countries in the EU get a say in how they are governed by their French and German masters?

If they are in debt and need to borrow Germany tells them what to do and what spending to cut and taxes to raise, see Greece.

In terms of foreign policy France has effectively dictated the EU response to AUSUSUK already

Not really. Plenty of EU countries are hacked off with French posturing and tantrums. eg the Danes (eurosceptic, pro-Washington)

"Denmark sides against EU, with Biden in AUKUS submarine row https://thelocal.dk/20210922/denmark-sides-against-eu-with-biden-in-aukus-submarine-row/
#AUKUS
ps: The most EU sceptical Danish Prime Minister since Denmark became member of EU in 1973 - according to http://Altinget.dk

https://twitter.com/LarsLoecke/status/1440696866220371978?s=20

I imagine there are similar sentiments in several east European countries, desperate to keep the US umbrella overhead

Compare Denmark's military to France's, it is tiny by comparison.

Plus Denmark is not in the Eurozone ie the EU's inner core, anyway. The same applies to Poland and many of the Eastern European nations for whom NATO is more important

Pulpstar said:

geoffw said:

Pulpstar said:

On energy, I had an idea that we should vastly overbuild wind - but encourage large commercial (And some larger homes as we get more potential 'excess' electricity) to have an electric combi-boiler as well as a gas combi so when it's windy we switch over to use less overall gas in the mix (And when it's quiet use gas).

In the era of nationalised industries our energy networks (gas, electricity) were "over-engineered", so that gas storage for example would cater for a "one-in-a-hundred-year" event. That philosophy was deprecated when competition and "market forces" came in. Now we have so-called energy suppliers which are really marketing vehicles. There is no longer any room for redundancy and everything is on fine margins with these suppliers offering fixed price contracts while buying the energy in fluctuating markets. Four years ago Centrica decommissioned the Rough storage facility, which was a depleted gas field in the North Sea. Now there's talk of bringing it back to life. Too late now for the current crisis.
But I like your idea of building redundancy right into domestic heating with dual combi-boilers. It could be an opportunity for the very capable boiler manufacturers. I have just installed a new boiler which is ready to switch to a gas/hydrogen mixture.

My gas usage was 12.8 kwh and my electric 4.2 kwh last year. For a typical household the gas usage, in terms of KwH is still much higher - and still cheaper. If we could produce 100 GW of electricity via wind then not only would our current electricity consumption be entirely wind generated, but we could also substantially reduce our natural gas usage - as the "extra" could head into electric combis. And when it's not so windy, we still have a substantial wind production - but we just use natural gas as we do now.

Do you have any appliances or even ever switch a light on.

malcolmg said:

Pulpstar said:

geoffw said:

Pulpstar said:

On energy, I had an idea that we should vastly overbuild wind - but encourage large commercial (And some larger homes as we get more potential 'excess' electricity) to have an electric combi-boiler as well as a gas combi so when it's windy we switch over to use less overall gas in the mix (And when it's quiet use gas).

In the era of nationalised industries our energy networks (gas, electricity) were "over-engineered", so that gas storage for example would cater for a "one-in-a-hundred-year" event. That philosophy was deprecated when competition and "market forces" came in. Now we have so-called energy suppliers which are really marketing vehicles. There is no longer any room for redundancy and everything is on fine margins with these suppliers offering fixed price contracts while buying the energy in fluctuating markets. Four years ago Centrica decommissioned the Rough storage facility, which was a depleted gas field in the North Sea. Now there's talk of bringing it back to life. Too late now for the current crisis.
But I like your idea of building redundancy right into domestic heating with dual combi-boilers. It could be an opportunity for the very capable boiler manufacturers. I have just installed a new boiler which is ready to switch to a gas/hydrogen mixture.

My gas usage was 12.8 kwh and my electric 4.2 kwh last year. For a typical household the gas usage, in terms of KwH is still much higher - and still cheaper. If we could produce 100 GW of electricity via wind then not only would our current electricity consumption be entirely wind generated, but we could also substantially reduce our natural gas usage - as the "extra" could head into electric combis. And when it's not so windy, we still have a substantial wind production - but we just use natural gas as we do now.

Do you have any appliances or even ever switch a light on.

My electric use was slightly above average Malc

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/how-much-electricity-does-a-home-use

We have two fishtanks going 24-7, but also solar panels.

noneoftheabove said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rkrkrk said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

rkrkrk said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

Public ownership for things where you can't have proper competition. Like water, trains, energy.

Ah, "public ownership", that old one. Where the people actually in charge are actually the trade unions. Where sloppy practices, incompetence and shit service are part of every consumers expectation. Some of us lived through those times. Any of the crappiness of the privatised utilities does not come anywhere near.

Why would that be the case?
Public ownership just means govt owning most of the shares.
We can have the same people in charge as now if you think they do such a good job.

Public ownership in Britain has always meant politicians and civil servants interfering with the production and the services. It has meant underinvestment because politicians have no interest in long term decision making only what will get them to the next election. As has already pointed out BR, BT and the like were deeply crap when they were in the public sector and have massively improved since privatisation.

Only met one FTSE100 boss. He was very explicit his time horizon for getting results was 3-6 months, and anything beyond that wasnt getting his influence behind it.

Short termism is a problem for UK plc whether public or private sector.

Not in any of the businesses I have worked in.

Richard_Tyndall said:

On Topic, how does this chart compare with previous Presidents. I assume they pretty much all fall out of favour at some point. Is 8 months faster or slower than normal?

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/

Biden's numbers aren't great, but they're not awful either. I think the comparisons are hard, though, because of how much more partisan politics has become.

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

It's a mistake to freeze your thinking in aspic like that. Privatization could have been the right thing then, public ownership the right thing now. Times change. There's no greater fan of private sector free enterprise than me, it's what stops me going full on hard left, that I can't envisage a better system for wealth generation, but there are things that sit more logically in the public sector and imo this is one of them. A necessity of life, the same product at point of supply, costs a significant portion of a less well off person's budget so affordability AND stability is required, badly run in the private sector, a confected and fussy market that doesn't work, it ticks every box. As for your other suggestions for de-privatising, rail yes, cars no. We can also look at retail banking and mortgages, strong case there but a good case against too.

Where is the logic that the man in Whitehall knows best? The reality is that "public ownership" is a misnomer. The public have absolutely no ownership because they have no control. It is pointless ownership. In the past the real "owners" were the trades unions. The nationalised companies were run not for the benefit of the consumer, but for the benefit of the employees of the company -it could be argued that this is the case with "Our" NHS (God bless her and all who sail in her, they can do no wrong). If regulation is applied correctly there is no reason to hose taxpayers money at nationalised industries, that are almost inevitably, badly run and inefficient.

But we're not in the 70s now. Plenty of things were done badly in the 70s but are done well now. There's no reason publicly owned utilities and transport shouldn't be another of them. It's clear this energy "market" is a nonsense. The case for a rationalized, consolidated, simpler, safer, more efficient model is compelling. You can't go rejecting that out of hand due to childhood memories of Jack Jones and Hughie Scanlon.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Aston Villa defender Matty Cash wants to break into the Poland team ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar; the 24-year-old from Slough has a Polish mother and has lodged the paperwork to apply for citizenship

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11677/12413531/matty-cash-aston-villa-defender-aims-to-make-poland-debut-with-world-cup-approaching

I blame Brexit....something something about red and white boots being a subtle nod...etc etc etc...

About 10 of the top 20 right backs in the world are qualified for England at the moment, it is bizarre. No wonder we are exporting them, Wan-Bissaka likely to choose Congo is another one.

kinabalu said:

gealbhan said:

kinabalu said:

Leon said:

FPT for RCS

Replace your bogus "bad mother monkey" story with this (which I learned only yesterday)

"Fearful memories haunt mouse descendants"

"Mouse pups — and even the offspring's offspring — can inherit a fearful association of a certain smell with pain, even if they have not experienced the pain themselves, and without the need for genetic mutations. "

YOU CAN INHERIT, FROM YOUR PARENTS, EVEN GRANDPARENTS, A SHUDDERING FEAR OF SOMETHING STRANGE THAT HAPPENED TO THEM, NOT YOU

Extraordinary. The ramifications are endless, and creepy as hell. Good for someone trying to write spooky stories, tho

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.14272

Not a solid study. Unlikely to be true.

I understand they show pictures of snakes and spiders to new born humans, and they scream and yell and cry, fear of these things built into human DNA, part of our nature not nurture.

But isn't this saying something different. Eg your grandad was trampled by a bull when he was a child so now YOU get terrified when you smell a bull, or something that comes from one. Seems very unlikely to me.

Unlikely but possible. Genes can be changed while you're alive, we know that already.

If we've evolved an ability to record emotionally scarring genetic memories then that ability could be a good survival mechanism that would be selected via evolution. So those ancestors who developed the ability to warn their descendents via their own genetic memories would be more likely to pass on their genes.

Mr. Thompson, I recall, vaguely, a plant study that found plants could access the genetic codes going back two or three generations (thought to be useful in case they need to alter their strategy to survive due to changes in the environment).

Richard_Tyndall said:

Scott_xP said:

Even the hardest of hardcore Remainers never claimed that Brexit would kill Bonfire Night, but here we are. And it's only year one.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/22/bonfire-night-fireworks-70-down-due-to-brexit-and-supply-chain-crisis

Well apparently they are looking in the wrong place. I just went and ordered my fireworks from the same place as always - Epic Fireworks up in Manchester - and they had everything I had last year and cheaper as well. Being delivered on Monday.

May be surplus stock because Germany banned fireworks.

Now, where's my Panzerfaust?

MattW said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Scott_xP said:

Even the hardest of hardcore Remainers never claimed that Brexit would kill Bonfire Night, but here we are. And it's only year one.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/22/bonfire-night-fireworks-70-down-due-to-brexit-and-supply-chain-crisis

Well apparently they are looking in the wrong place. I just went and ordered my fireworks from the same place as always - Epic Fireworks up in Manchester - and they had everything I had last year and cheaper as well. Being delivered on Monday.

May be surplus stock because Germany banned fireworks.

Now, where's my Panzerfaust?

I think the previous Pope has it....

noneoftheabove said:

kle4 said:

williamglenn said:

CarlottaVance said:

And....who is in the top left hand corner?

Glad to announce a new partnership with the US to help vaccinate the world.

We aim for a 70% global vaccination rate by #UNGA 2022.

European Union United States Global Vaccination Partnership will help expand supply, improve coordination in delivery and remove bottlenecks to supply chains.



https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1440700570227011603?s=20

They've also managed to choose a photo of Biden where the angle sets him against an EU flag. It makes Ursula von der Leyen look like a megalomaniac.

I'm a big fan of over analysing staged images comedically, but I think you may be reading too much into it.

No we havent had a flag-gate variation for at least a month. This analysis is long overdue.

In that case...

Boris is in the top left position, occupying the 'Lawful Good' position of an alignment chart, but his uncomfortable expression and posture indicates this is not a position that sits well with him, he knows he does not belong.

The chap below him I do not know, and that he has been denied both an image with his own flag, or even a courtesy EU flag like Widodo below him, shows that this was the intention - he's there to make up the numbers, and his face shows clearly he is not happy about that.

Trudeau is rewarded for being an internationally recognised liberal with two of his own flags, with the hand of friendship offered by two EU flags as well, the hand of freidnship extended to the anglophone and francophone communities of Canada. He is shown closer to the flag on our left, indicating he may need to appeal to NDP support in the coming years. The bottles of water are included to remind people of the importance of water supply in the world, even as people focus on Covid.

Biden is shown with EU flag swarming up behind an EU flag, a veiled reference to how shabbily he has just treated an EU Member

Draghi (?) occupies pride of place directly in UvdL's eyeline, as a fellow EU member, but the flag occupies the first part of the image she will see - a subtle reminder that the EU comes before nations or individuals. His downcast expression is in judgement of Biden, below, showing the EU is the rising power.

The lady in the top centre with a head tie has a very satisfied expression, knowing she will get first viewing from someone going from top to bottom. Judging from her position between the UK and Italy, I assume she must in fact be Macron in disguise.

Ursula von der Leyen looms over it all like Galactus waiting to swallow them all, but the distance from the inset images shows that this is an aspiration only, that the EU must grow stronger and larger still to realise its ambitions - it has a way to go.

...And I've run out of material for the other two.

Pulpstar said:

malcolmg said:

Pulpstar said:

geoffw said:

Pulpstar said:

On energy, I had an idea that we should vastly overbuild wind - but encourage large commercial (And some larger homes as we get more potential 'excess' electricity) to have an electric combi-boiler as well as a gas combi so when it's windy we switch over to use less overall gas in the mix (And when it's quiet use gas).

In the era of nationalised industries our energy networks (gas, electricity) were "over-engineered", so that gas storage for example would cater for a "one-in-a-hundred-year" event. That philosophy was deprecated when competition and "market forces" came in. Now we have so-called energy suppliers which are really marketing vehicles. There is no longer any room for redundancy and everything is on fine margins with these suppliers offering fixed price contracts while buying the energy in fluctuating markets. Four years ago Centrica decommissioned the Rough storage facility, which was a depleted gas field in the North Sea. Now there's talk of bringing it back to life. Too late now for the current crisis.
But I like your idea of building redundancy right into domestic heating with dual combi-boilers. It could be an opportunity for the very capable boiler manufacturers. I have just installed a new boiler which is ready to switch to a gas/hydrogen mixture.

My gas usage was 12.8 kwh and my electric 4.2 kwh last year. For a typical household the gas usage, in terms of KwH is still much higher - and still cheaper. If we could produce 100 GW of electricity via wind then not only would our current electricity consumption be entirely wind generated, but we could also substantially reduce our natural gas usage - as the "extra" could head into electric combis. And when it's not so windy, we still have a substantial wind production - but we just use natural gas as we do now.

Do you have any appliances or even ever switch a light on.

My electric use was slightly above average Malc

https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/how-much-electricity-does-a-home-use

We have two fishtanks going 24-7, but also solar panels.

I must b emissing something , mine was 2374 Kwh electricity and 15313 Kwh gas. So assume yours in my numbers are 12800 and 4200
PS: I was going to ask what your secret was.

Theuniondivvie said:

Jeezo, more tartan than a shortbread factory. Certainly looking forward to Aberdeen's cultural renaissance, though would like more evidence of the original naissance.

TBF it's been doing pretty well in the university stakes since the times of James IV. Not sure it needs a renaissance.

Do we know what percentage of people are on variable utility tarrifs, as opposed to those fixed a year ahead?

In other words, how salient is the actual issue with the public, when the bills arrive at the end of the month?

Sandpit said:

Do we know what percentage of people are on variable utility tarrifs, as opposed to those fixed a year ahead?

In other words, how salient is the actual issue with the public, when the bills arrive at the end of the month?

Still going to be at least 8% affected (ie those whose fixed year tariff expires in month n, assuming everyone is on a 1 year tariff, edit: which is absurd). And I imagine quite a few of the poorer people won't be on fixed tariffs - lodgers, hose sharers, people who have to prepay.

Le strop is over. France's ambassador to the US will return next week.

https://twitter.com/kylieatwood/status/1440714044994777096

Richard_Tyndall said:

noneoftheabove said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rkrkrk said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

rkrkrk said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

Public ownership for things where you can't have proper competition. Like water, trains, energy.

Ah, "public ownership", that old one. Where the people actually in charge are actually the trade unions. Where sloppy practices, incompetence and shit service are part of every consumers expectation. Some of us lived through those times. Any of the crappiness of the privatised utilities does not come anywhere near.

Why would that be the case?
Public ownership just means govt owning most of the shares.
We can have the same people in charge as now if you think they do such a good job.

Public ownership in Britain has always meant politicians and civil servants interfering with the production and the services. It has meant underinvestment because politicians have no interest in long term decision making only what will get them to the next election. As has already pointed out BR, BT and the like were deeply crap when they were in the public sector and have massively improved since privatisation.

Only met one FTSE100 boss. He was very explicit his time horizon for getting results was 3-6 months, and anything beyond that wasnt getting his influence behind it.

Short termism is a problem for UK plc whether public or private sector.

Not in any of the businesses I have worked in.

In my first job - telecoms - the horizon was about 3-5 years
In my second job - oil industry - the horizon was 10-25 years. There were longer contracts - one was planned (but not implemented) that would have be 50 years.

kinabalu said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

It's a mistake to freeze your thinking in aspic like that. Privatization could have been the right thing then, public ownership the right thing now. Times change. There's no greater fan of private sector free enterprise than me, it's what stops me going full on hard left, that I can't envisage a better system for wealth generation, but there are things that sit more logically in the public sector and imo this is one of them. A necessity of life, the same product at point of supply, costs a significant portion of a less well off person's budget so affordability AND stability is required, badly run in the private sector, a confected and fussy market that doesn't work, it ticks every box. As for your other suggestions for de-privatising, rail yes, cars no. We can also look at retail banking and mortgages, strong case there but a good case against too.

Where is the logic that the man in Whitehall knows best? The reality is that "public ownership" is a misnomer. The public have absolutely no ownership because they have no control. It is pointless ownership. In the past the real "owners" were the trades unions. The nationalised companies were run not for the benefit of the consumer, but for the benefit of the employees of the company -it could be argued that this is the case with "Our" NHS (God bless her and all who sail in her, they can do no wrong). If regulation is applied correctly there is no reason to hose taxpayers money at nationalised industries, that are almost inevitably, badly run and inefficient.

But we're not in the 70s now. Plenty of things were done badly in the 70s but are done well now. There's no reason publicly owned utilities and transport shouldn't be another of them. It's clear this energy "market" is a nonsense. The case for a rationalized, consolidated, simpler, safer, more efficient model is compelling. You can't go rejecting that out of hand due to childhood memories of Jack Jones and Hughie Scanlon.

What (state run) things were we doing badly in the 70s that we're doing well now?

CarlottaVance said:

Theory: Keir Starmer has told close confidantes he is standing down (for some reason). They are worried the left would win a subsequent leadership contest, so have urged him to change the election rules.

Seems a plausible reason to have tried it this hastily and haphazardly ..?

https://twitter.com/FisherAndrew79/status/1440708088865050631?s=20

Yes, I think that the only reason to press for a return to the Electoral College is that he plans to step down. Otherwise changing the system makes no sense.

A simpler change that keeps OMOV would be to change the number of MP nominations to perhaps 34%. In effect that would give a system like the Conservative Party.

Sandpit said:

Do we know what percentage of people are on variable utility tarrifs, as opposed to those fixed a year ahead?

In other words, how salient is the actual issue with the public, when the bills arrive at the end of the month?

At present it is roughly half and half. Last number I saw was I think 13m (out of 27-28m households) on fixed.

Theuniondivvie said:

Jeezo, more tartan than a shortbread factory. Certainly looking forward to Aberdeen's cultural renaissance, though would like more evidence of the original naissance.

Aberdeen really was a shithole when I first went up there in the late 80s. It was suffering a huge hangover from the first oil boom and crash and simultaneously was metaphorically waking up next to some dodgy looking bird it had thought looked fantastic the night before but now looked a lot different in the cold light of day.

I was there for a couple of years and then left for warmer climes (North Africa and the Middle East) and then much colder climes (Norway). When I returned in around 2010 I mentioned to my wife (who had also worked offshore for a decade) that it had changed into a really nice city with loads of good venues, restaurants and bars and a really good feel to it. That view has only increased in the decade I have worked there off and on since. Even if I don't like travelling for work, I genuinely look forward to spending a week or two in Aberdeen and would recommend it to anyone looking for a quiet weekend away somewhere.

Foxy said:

CarlottaVance said:

Theory: Keir Starmer has told close confidantes he is standing down (for some reason). They are worried the left would win a subsequent leadership contest, so have urged him to change the election rules.

Seems a plausible reason to have tried it this hastily and haphazardly ..?

https://twitter.com/FisherAndrew79/status/1440708088865050631?s=20

Yes, I think that the only reason to press for a return to the Electoral College is that he plans to step down. Otherwise changing the system makes no sense.

A simpler change that keeps OMOV would be to change the number of MP nominations to perhaps 34%. In effect that would give a system like the Conservative Party.

Heh, well we provide a pretty good balanced sample of opinions!

So, should I urgently trade out my position on Starmer as next PM (currently would be a profit) which is based on my opinion that he and Johnson will fight the next election and his odds still have further to come in?

Malmesbury said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

noneoftheabove said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rkrkrk said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

rkrkrk said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

Public ownership for things where you can't have proper competition. Like water, trains, energy.

Ah, "public ownership", that old one. Where the people actually in charge are actually the trade unions. Where sloppy practices, incompetence and shit service are part of every consumers expectation. Some of us lived through those times. Any of the crappiness of the privatised utilities does not come anywhere near.

Why would that be the case?
Public ownership just means govt owning most of the shares.
We can have the same people in charge as now if you think they do such a good job.

Public ownership in Britain has always meant politicians and civil servants interfering with the production and the services. It has meant underinvestment because politicians have no interest in long term decision making only what will get them to the next election. As has already pointed out BR, BT and the like were deeply crap when they were in the public sector and have massively improved since privatisation.

Only met one FTSE100 boss. He was very explicit his time horizon for getting results was 3-6 months, and anything beyond that wasnt getting his influence behind it.

Short termism is a problem for UK plc whether public or private sector.

Not in any of the businesses I have worked in.

In my first job - telecoms - the horizon was about 3-5 years
In my second job - oil industry - the horizon was 10-25 years. There were longer contracts - one was planned (but not implemented) that would have be 50 years.

Yep as a basic standard in the oil industry the horizon is generally a minimum of 10 years because that's how long it takes to get from licence award, appraisal and development through to plateau and CoP on even the smallest of fields. More generally it is in the 20-25 year range. This is why Norway has always been a better place for oil companies to do business than the UK. They may have higher overall taxation regimes but they understand that what oil companies want is stability. When a field development takes 10-15 years you don't want the Government changing all the rules every 3 or 4 years - which is exactly what the UK Government does continuously.

Now back in Germany enjoying dinner in Freiburg DomPlatz. Election fever is, well, not obvious, although Merkel is in the news for her latest speech. The parties' slogans are as dull as their politics, "for you in parliament", "for stability", etc. Although the AfD has "your country, your rules", but unlike the others their candidates don't brave being photographed for the posters.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Some people think I’m lying when I tell them that Canada’s Prime Minister has been re-elected.

It’s Trudeau.

Just in case they hadn't realised.

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

Can someone explain why the government should be bailing out energy resellers? It's not as though they set fire to the pylons when they go under. They're nothing more than a call centre and dodgy branding. We're with Bulb, almost certain they'll go under too as they refused to hedge against rising prices.

Any company that sells long and buys short that fails to hedge absolutely deserves to go bust and there shouldn't be any bail out whatsoever.

There's procedures to protect customers being moved over to suppliers of last resort and its reasonable for that to be underwritten - but no bailout for failed business models.

I wouldn't say they necessarily deserve to go bust but if they mismatch maturities without the reserves to cover a move against them, that's reckless and they shouldn't get a state bailout.

Public ownership looks the way to go for retail energy supply. One entity, simple tariff, uniform stable pricing, strip out all the needless complexity.

How about telecom too? I mean, I can remember how great BT was before it was privatised! British rail was really good as well, and as for British Leyland, what quality! Oh, yes, the man in Whitehall. He definitely knows how to deliver great service!

It's a mistake to freeze your thinking in aspic like that. Privatization could have been the right thing then, public ownership the right thing now. Times change. There's no greater fan of private sector free enterprise than me, it's what stops me going full on hard left, that I can't envisage a better system for wealth generation, but there are things that sit more logically in the public sector and imo this is one of them. A necessity of life, the same product at point of supply, costs a significant portion of a less well off person's budget so affordability AND stability is required, badly run in the private sector, a confected and fussy market that doesn't work, it ticks every box. As for your other suggestions for de-privatising, rail yes, cars no. We can also look at retail banking and mortgages, strong case there but a good case against too.

Where is the logic that the man in Whitehall knows best? The reality is that "public ownership" is a misnomer. The public have absolutely no ownership because they have no control. It is pointless ownership. In the past the real "owners" were the trades unions. The nationalised companies were run not for the benefit of the consumer, but for the benefit of the employees of the company -it could be argued that this is the case with "Our" NHS (God bless her and all who sail in her, they can do no wrong). If regulation is applied correctly there is no reason to hose taxpayers money at nationalised industries, that are almost inevitably, badly run and inefficient.

But we're not in the 70s now. Plenty of things were done badly in the 70s but are done well now. There's no reason publicly owned utilities and transport shouldn't be another of them. It's clear this energy "market" is a nonsense. The case for a rationalized, consolidated, simpler, safer, more efficient model is compelling. You can't go rejecting that out of hand due to childhood memories of Jack Jones and Hughie Scanlon.

What (state run) things were we doing badly in the 70s that we're doing well now?

If you replace "well" with "better", essentially all of them.

If this is the reaction, @Mij_Europe, doesn’t it say more about Paris thinking too much with its gut than its head? Johnson is a wind-up merchant—that’s his schtick—partly because it distracts from his ruthlessness (in this case, costing France €€€)

https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1440706594602323988?s=20

Farooq said:

geoffw said:

What is 'strop' in French? Google Translate doesn't know.
(Nor any other language)

une colère

That's anger. Bad mood or grumpiness is mauvaise humeur. None quite hit the mark.

MattW said:

Sandpit said:

Do we know what percentage of people are on variable utility tarrifs, as opposed to those fixed a year ahead?

In other words, how salient is the actual issue with the public, when the bills arrive at the end of the month?

At present it is roughly half and half. Last number I saw was I think 13m (out of 27-28m households) on fixed.

I just finished a fixed deal at the end of August. For the brief time that other fixed were available they were not cheap. I chose a variable tariff at the time because it was cheaper!. 15 days later i was told by them that my tariff was increasing by £139 a year. Not sure what to expect in the year to come.

CarlottaVance said:

And....who is in the top left hand corner?



https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1440700570227011603?s=20

Dunno. It’s hard to see at this resolution.
Is it Bungle from 1970s TV show “Rainbow”?

williamglenn said:

geoffw said:

Farooq said:

geoffw said:

What is 'strop' in French? Google Translate doesn't know.
(Nor any other language)

une colère

That's anger. Bad mood or grumpiness is mauvaise humeur. None quite hit the mark.

Faire la gueule.

Too evanescent.

williamglenn said:

Taiwan applies to join the CPTPP.

https://twitter.com/samsonellis/status/1440632638440574989

Showdown!

MaxPB said:

williamglenn said:

Taiwan applies to join the CPTPP.

https://twitter.com/samsonellis/status/1440632638440574989

Showdown!

Yes, if they accept Taiwan but reject China. But vice-versa would be a kow-tow.
Their only safe path is to reject both, pussyfooting.

Taiwan’s application might be good for the U.K.
CPTPP might concentrate on U.K. first (who after all, applied first) to avoid annoying either China or Taiwan.

I also learned just now that Taiwan already has a FTA with NZ and Singapore.