Republicans have been telling Kari Lake she's a loser: "PHOENIX — Kari Lake, staring down a likely loss in the Arizona governor’s race, is being advised by GOP operatives and some of her closest aides to take a measured approach should she come up short in the vote tally and not “storm the castle,” as one person present for the discussions described the sentiments." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/14/kari-lake-arizona-governor-race-results/
AZ - according to NYT, all counties are reporting over 95% of expected EXCEPT for > Apache 71% reported (Hobbs 68% Lake 32% > Cochise 91% reported (Hobbs 42% Lake 56%) > Navaho 88% reported (Hobbs 46% Lake 54%) > Pinal 94% reported (Hobbs 42% Lake 58%)
Think these are counties that have yet to report all of their poll-day drops, in addition to final cures & miscellaneous.
AP not projected AZ Gov winner yet, but CNN has projected Hobbs the winner.
My Arizona/Pennsylvania friend tells me that Arizona's 3rd district has had some odd changes in its boundaries. When he described them, it made me suspect that the people doing the redistricting were attempting to make -- or strengthen -- a "majority-minority" district, something quite popular on the left these days. If so, they might have hurt Democratic chances in heighboring districts. (Do most leftists understand that such districts help the Republican Party, everything else being equal? I haven't seen any data on that question.)
(And the Democratic incumbent, Raúl Grijalva, wouldn't seem to be in danger of losing his seat, even without that help.)
SeaShantyIrish2 said: "Leon visits Colorado and Arizona weeks before Election Day. Election result: defeat for Kari Lake and very close shave for Lauren Boebart.
Coincidence? Karma? Conspiracy? Kismet?"
How does that song go? I think the chorus starts with: "Secret agent man, secret agent man" or something similar.
If I leave this site it will be reduced to @Nigelb, @BartholomewRoberts and @kinabalu, repeating their same tedious tedious Remoaner or Leaver opinions, for the rest of Eternity
Try and be funny, or say something original, anything. Literally fucking anything would do, right now
Says the tedious, repetitive bore who stopped being funny a decade ago.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
On topic, it is interesting that Luntz points to the failure of weighting (or indexing) to correct sampling errors. The same issue has plagued British pollsters for years, if not decades.
Whether it prospers or not is, however, up to us. That's the point of Brexit
It is not prospering
That is the fact of Brexit
If so, we need to fix that. And Brexit gives us the regulatory powers to do that
We probably have to be more adventurous. The EU market is gone for ever. That's a blow, but it can be a boon, in the end
We cut off our own leg.
That's a blow, but it can be a boon, in the end...
Brexit is like having a baby. You lose a lot of blood, and your tits droop. Forever
It was a courageous experiment; sadly, it hasn't paid-off and clearly never will.
It will pay off when we have a competent, purposeful, and patriotic government. We haven't had that combination since Brexit (or frankly before it). And if we abandon hope of getting that government, we're screwed in our out of the EU.
No it was a dumb idea that has made us poorer and more isolated. The government could be run by Socrates and Brexit would still be a shit sandwich.
If you take the emotion that you clearly feel out of this, that's not a tenable argument. Membership of the EU is the exception in Britain's history, not the rule, and most of that time we've done extremely well outside it. As a country, we have excellent resources, geography, and other advantages like language, and saying that we, of all countries, have some sort of quasi-mystical disability that would prevent us being a successful independent country, isn't a logical perspective.
Sadly sheep farming isn’t the money-spinner it once was.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
He doesn't 'manage'. He spews verbal diarrhoea over everything, then says he will fire someone who tries to correct him.
To recap: Musk makes some b/s claim in public about how the Twitter stack has poor performance. An employee corrects him, in detail. I don't know whether Frohnhoefer is correct, but his main comments sniff right: ten years of technical debt, a focus on new features over performance, and a bloated software stack that has lots of features few people use.
That's *exactly* what happens with a lot of consumer software. I know, I've been there.
Musk promptly says he has fired employee for daring to respectfully disagree with him. Or perhaps not; his current employment status is uncertain.
The question is simple: was Frohnhoefer correct to publicly reply to Musk, when Musk was saying stuff that was inaccurate? I'd personally try to use internal channels, but it must be hard when a man-child is sh*tting over the work of you and the team you work (or now used to work...) with.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
I believe I am going to be the first foundational PB-er to leave because of sheer tedium. This is a shame
I wish you would because you bore the shit out of me. Everything you say, words and tone, is almost freakishly predictable. The political stuff, the personal stuff, all of it. And so verbose. Just no edit or off button.
Would it bother you if I meant that?
No. You're a well-meaning idiot, tho innocently unaware of it. So, no
It would! You're lying now.
But do you think I do mean it?
Mate, I REALLLY don't care. That is the sadness
Someone compared you to @tim the other day. Unfortunately, you are not @tim. He was a bitterly funny opponent. Nasty, acidic, witty, and he could genuinely cut me down with a quip. You can't
I liked jousting with him. Too many like him have gone, and I sincerely fear I am about to join them
Perhaps this is a natural ageing process with online forums. An early and intriguing group develops a healthy dynamic of disagreement, but over time the more interesting and original members either fall foul of the (increasingly Woke) mods, or they have such terrible rows they cannot continue (Mr A. Meeks) or they get doxxed because they are so annoying to others (@tim) or they just get bored when all the other funny commenters quit, leaving us with @Nigelb and you
Meh
I have some empathy with that view (though Kin and Nige are good uns) - much of the posting is cliche ridden bilge, repeats of ancient jokes, or the obsessive ramblings of continuity Corbynistas.
But, I’m not sure any of this is a new development.
(Agree that @tim should return, but I fear that bird flew long ago)
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
"With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it."
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
"With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it."
Musk didn't start Tesla, but he realised its potential, and without his drive, I very much doubt it would have been anywhere near as successful as it has been.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
Whether it prospers or not is, however, up to us. That's the point of Brexit
It is not prospering
That is the fact of Brexit
If so, we need to fix that. And Brexit gives us the regulatory powers to do that
We probably have to be more adventurous. The EU market is gone for ever. That's a blow, but it can be a boon, in the end
We cut off our own leg.
That's a blow, but it can be a boon, in the end...
Brexit is like having a baby. You lose a lot of blood, and your tits droop. Forever
It was a courageous experiment; sadly, it hasn't paid-off and clearly never will.
It will pay off when we have a competent, purposeful, and patriotic government. We haven't had that combination since Brexit (or frankly before it). And if we abandon hope of getting that government, we're screwed in our out of the EU.
No it was a dumb idea that has made us poorer and more isolated. The government could be run by Socrates and Brexit would still be a shit sandwich.
If you take the emotion that you clearly feel out of this, that's not a tenable argument. Membership of the EU is the exception in Britain's history, not the rule, and most of that time we've done extremely well outside it. As a country, we have excellent resources, geography, and other advantages like language, and saying that we, of all countries, have some sort of quasi-mystical disability that would prevent us being a successful independent country, isn't a logical perspective.
Sadly sheep farming isn’t the money-spinner it once was.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
"With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it."
Musk didn't start Tesla, but he realised its potential, and without his drive, I very much doubt it would have been anywhere near as successful as it has been.
That's probably correct, but AIUI what you wrote was wrong: the initial vision/realisation was that of other people. Musk brought into that vision, but the realisation was by others. And others he treated fairly poorly.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
NHS Scotland not only ignoring the interim Cass review, waiting for the full review, or engaging with the new NHS England guidelines, but doubling down on the “affirmative care” (sic) model:
Scotland’s NHS is planning to fast-track irreversible surgeries for transgender patients, documents seen by The Telegraph reveal.
An NHS Scotland report, suggesting new transgender treatment rules, calls for “barriers” to gender reassignment surgery to be removed and proposes radical measures to make operations more widely available.
These include allowing GPs, rather than specialists, to send patients for procedures and that a “single opinion” is enough to refer for surgery in most cases.
Trans patients can “benefit” from operations including mastectomies, breast implants and genital reassignment, as well as hormone treatments, even if they do not experience “distress” about their gender identity, it is claimed.
The proposed treatment rules say that a patient’s background or mental health need not be examined in detail before they are referred for the procedures.
Not that I am advocating PBers to do this but if you wanted to commit a crime, then commit fraud.
The Home Office has made next to no progress in tackling criminal fraud during the past five years, despite it having become Britain’s most prevalent crime, government auditors warn today.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said that fewer than one in two hundred cases of fraud reported to the police resulted in a criminal charge last year and forces dedicated only 1 per cent of personnel to tackling the issue. Fraud costs victims £4.7 billion a year.
The NAO added that although the number of cases of reported fraud had risen from 631,000 in 2017 to 987,000 this year, the number of criminal charges fell from 6,400 to 4,816.
The NAO accused the Home Office of having failed to take the issue seriously enough. It said it had warned five years ago that fraud was being overlooked by the government and demanded an urgent response. Since then the threat had “increased and evolved” but the government’s response had not.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
The idea is surely that councils get the blame? Capping was never a good idea in the first place
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Depends on how you reformed it.
Knowing this iteration of the Tory party they'll exempt pensioners from council tax whilst increasing 30% for everybody else.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
"With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it."
Musk didn't start Tesla, but he realised its potential, and without his drive, I very much doubt it would have been anywhere near as successful as it has been.
That's probably correct, but AIUI what you wrote was wrong: the initial vision/realisation was that of other people. Musk brought into that vision, but the realisation was by others. And others he treated fairly poorly.
And this is at the heart of it. It's not that Musk doesn't bring something to the table, but that something is pretty toxic, and prone to generate existential crisis - as per PayPal, The Boring Company, Tesla (undergoing another such an event from 2 Musk-originated angles), SpaceX (rescued by USGov and now too bound up with US Gov prestige to fail) and now Twitter. They don't go to the wall *if* there are people on the board and in the business who can mitigate him.
But he does (hitherto) demonstrate the ability to bring in vital capital. Let's see if that's still the case after this latest debacle.
What a wonderfully maudlin thread. Brexiteers remorse. The dyed -in -the -wool Brexiteers have started to turn up to 'like' any post by one of their compatriots that tries to put a brave face on the national catastrophe they themselves wrought.
Every piece of nonsense flying in the face of logic by Bartholomew get's a 'like' from Tyndal. The site's No 1 Brexiteer He doesn't even try to defend it himself anymore. He just scours the site 'liking' posts that look like they haven't given up the Btexit ghost. He's sometimes joined by Driver a poster who had the sense to ditch his username. They're pitifully rare these days though
Even Leon can't be arsed to leap to their rescue. A few tired old metaphors but underneath the bombastic flint like exterior he knows the game's up....."Move on.....move on....hic ...the baby will be ...hic...a father himself one day....hic... and then we can look....mine's a G&T........large
Someone has fallen out of love with the UK despite having been one of the loudest cheerleaders for the Union. Worry not Yoons, he thinks Scotland is as shit as the rest of the Yookay.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
The idea is surely that councils get the blame? Capping was never a good idea in the first place
The Blair solution.
Although, if I am honest, I think I may be being slightly unfair in singling out council tax. Our whole tax system is a shambles in need of reform.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Depends on how you reformed it.
The stroke-of-a-pen reform that would work would be a hefty central government grant to cover the costs that are mandated by central government. Like social care.
As the level of council tax increases, the gentle gradation in bills becomes less and less sustainable. And the tax rises are capped anyway.
As it is, councils increasingly have responsibility without power. As Sir Humphrey put it, the prerogative of the eunuch.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Depends on how you reformed it.
The stroke-of-a-pen reform that would work would be a hefty central government grant to cover the costs that are mandated by central government. Like social care.
As the level of council tax increases, the gentle gradation in bills becomes less and less sustainable. And the tax rises are capped anyway.
As it is, councils increasingly have responsibility without power. As Sir Humphrey put it, the prerogative of the eunuch.
And until September the money to provide that grant existed until it was removed in Truss’s “budget”. I do wonder if it will appear in another form (and at a higher rate) on Thursday.
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
Times reporting Council tax will be allowed to rise up to 5% without a referendum (currently can rise 3% without a referendum).
Seems a reasonable and proportionate change given inflation currently 10%.
Not really for those whose wages are rising at a lower rate.
The govt are simply pushing unpopular tax rises onto local govt. it will backfire.
Also the council tax element is only a part of it. The care package, fire and police elements will also rise too. Police in my council area has gone up by well over 5% the last couple of years.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
With two big southern Tory councils on the verge of bankruptcy it truly is the perfect storm. Taxes increased from absurd to ludicrous. Services cut from crumbling to not there. Paying the most we've ever done in peacetime for the worst services.
Yes, the opposition will have to do some work to propose their planned route back to recovery. But this will smash completely the Tories economic reputation. After 12 years in office it really is their fault.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
"With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it."
Musk didn't start Tesla, but he realised its potential, and without his drive, I very much doubt it would have been anywhere near as successful as it has been.
That's probably correct, but AIUI what you wrote was wrong: the initial vision/realisation was that of other people. Musk brought into that vision, but the realisation was by others. And others he treated fairly poorly.
And this is at the heart of it. It's not that Musk doesn't bring something to the table, but that something is pretty toxic, and prone to generate existential crisis - as per PayPal, The Boring Company, Tesla (undergoing another such an event from 2 Musk-originated angles), SpaceX (rescued by USGov and now too bound up with US Gov prestige to fail) and now Twitter. They don't go to the wall *if* there are people on the board and in the business who can mitigate him.
But he does (hitherto) demonstrate the ability to bring in vital capital. Let's see if that's still the case after this latest debacle.
The Boring Company is an interesting one. It promised to massively reduce tunnelling costs, and at the time I stated that it seemed rather ambitious.
Nearly six years later, all we have seen are two shortish tunnels, and the wizard wheeze to reduce tunnelling costs appear to be... making the tunnels smaller. I'm *amazed* the people at Herrenknecht or Mitsubishi never thought of that.
Why was I so sceptical? Put simply, geology is a barsteward. Tunnelling machines vary massively in style and type, depending on the expected ground conditions - so much so, that machines making the same tunnel from different ends might use very different technologies. Customising the machines for each job costs a fortune, but is also rather unavoidable. The large tunnelling firms are, contrary to belief, very innovative.
I see nothing to suggest that the TBC are going to revolutionise the tunnelling industry.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
If he's happy to throw more billions at it, why did he then load it up with debt ? It could quite conceivably go bust; Musk has no obligation to put more cash in.
If he fails to turn it into some kind of super ap - quite likely, IMO - he's going to get rapidly bored of it.
I have no idea why people are forecasting the end of Twitter.
Twats though it may make those who use it too much it has now become an embedded communication channel much as the telegraph was in its day.
Musk might muck around at the edges but it will endure and grow ever bigger.
I don't think Twitter will 'end' or 'die', at least in the medium term.
I just think that Musk is going to find it very hard to service the debt he has taken on (allegedly requires $1 billion a year), given the way he is trashing its reputation amongst advertisers. See the Eli Lilly WP article I posted earlier.
Not sure who will answer this question. @MathesonMichael would be the obvious candidate. He should be very, very careful how he answers. Because if he says the figure was calculated accurately in 2010, he will be lying to the Scottish Parliament…
Someone has fallen out of love with the UK despite having been one of the loudest cheerleaders for the Union. Worry not Yoons, he thinks Scotland is as shit as the rest of the Yookay.
There is the definite sense of the country circling the u-bend right now. Two of my kids have US passports and I'd probably recommend that they use them.
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
We all make predictions that go wrong. Leon is just a bit more flamboyant about it.
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
Of course Lake might still become a VP or post-Trump presidential candidate, though it's looking less likely. It will be interesting to see how far she goes trying to claim that she really won and her election was stolen too. It certainly doesn't look like she's going to concede gracefully, or at all. Not sure which is better for her career prospects as a politician?
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Depends on how you reformed it.
The stroke-of-a-pen reform that would work would be a hefty central government grant to cover the costs that are mandated by central government. Like social care.
As the level of council tax increases, the gentle gradation in bills becomes less and less sustainable. And the tax rises are capped anyway.
As it is, councils increasingly have responsibility without power. As Sir Humphrey put it, the prerogative of the eunuch.
And sorting social care would be significantly cheaper than sorting the NHS in its current state - and might free up a huge number of NHS beds currently blocked. @Foxy ?
I have no idea why people are forecasting the end of Twitter.
Twats though it may make those who use it too much it has now become an embedded communication channel much as the telegraph was in its day.
Musk might muck around at the edges but it will endure and grow ever bigger.
I don't think Twitter will 'end' or 'die', at least in the medium term.
I just think that Musk is going to find it very hard to service the debt he has taken on (allegedly requires $1 billion a year), given the way he is trashing its reputation amongst advertisers. See the Eli Lilly WP article I posted earlier.
Either he or his successor will find a way. This is just working out whether the Bakelite phone could be any other colour than black.
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
No wonder Leondamus is leaving PB, what.three.words, Liz Truss will be an awesome PM, and now Kari Lake.
His departure will be a shame as PB loses its most important (anti-tipster) tool.
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
No wonder Leondamus is leaving PB, what.three.words, Liz Truss will be an awesome PM, and now Kari Lake.
His departure will be a shame as PB loses its most important (anti-tipster) tool.
Still aliens and Dall-E though.
You'll still have cricket commentary from @DavidL and me.
Why do people think Twitter is going to go bust? Its costs are only around $3-4bn and bloated for the current product offering, so room to cut (as Musk has identified). These are tiny numbers for him to cover even if there were zero revenue. Interest on the LBO debt are in the region of $1-2bn a year. And the term loan maturities are 2029 for the senior debt and 2030 for the junior (have amortisation profiles been released?).
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
Twitter isn't going to go bust. But it's entirely possible that it is a constant drain on Musk's attention.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
There’s the loss of attention aspect but more importantly he’s had to dump a lot of stock. And as per my analysis, if you think Twitter will be cashflow negative for a while yet then he may end up having to sell (or lever) more. That will weigh on it. Also coincided with market sell off in general, his timing wasn’t great!
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
Musk is an incredibly driven ideas guy.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
"With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it."
Musk didn't start Tesla, but he realised its potential, and without his drive, I very much doubt it would have been anywhere near as successful as it has been.
That's probably correct, but AIUI what you wrote was wrong: the initial vision/realisation was that of other people. Musk brought into that vision, but the realisation was by others. And others he treated fairly poorly.
And this is at the heart of it. It's not that Musk doesn't bring something to the table, but that something is pretty toxic, and prone to generate existential crisis - as per PayPal, The Boring Company, Tesla (undergoing another such an event from 2 Musk-originated angles), SpaceX (rescued by USGov and now too bound up with US Gov prestige to fail) and now Twitter. They don't go to the wall *if* there are people on the board and in the business who can mitigate him.
But he does (hitherto) demonstrate the ability to bring in vital capital. Let's see if that's still the case after this latest debacle.
I think the difference with Tesla and SpaceX is that he brought disruption and extreme risk taking to what were pretty staid, engineering led industries, and partly as a result of exceptional timing, got his pick of the best and most adventurous engineers, whom he enabled to do stuff they couldn't do elsewhere.
In absolutely no way at all is that the case with Twitter.
I have no idea why people are forecasting the end of Twitter.
Twats though it may make those who use it too much it has now become an embedded communication channel much as the telegraph was in its day.
Musk might muck around at the edges but it will endure and grow ever bigger.
I don't think Twitter will 'end' or 'die', at least in the medium term.
I just think that Musk is going to find it very hard to service the debt he has taken on (allegedly requires $1 billion a year), given the way he is trashing its reputation amongst advertisers. See the Eli Lilly WP article I posted earlier.
Either he or his successor will find a way. This is just working out whether the Bakelite phone could be any other colour than black.
Tell that to the people who bought Myspace or FriendsReunited.
There is a need for Twitter-like services, and Twitter has the current advantage of a massive userbase. But they will also have to compete against whatever the Next Big Thing (tm) is.
Not sure who will answer this question. @MathesonMichael would be the obvious candidate. He should be very, very careful how he answers. Because if he says the figure was calculated accurately in 2010, he will be lying to the Scottish Parliament…
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Depends on how you reformed it.
The stroke-of-a-pen reform that would work would be a hefty central government grant to cover the costs that are mandated by central government. Like social care.
As the level of council tax increases, the gentle gradation in bills becomes less and less sustainable. And the tax rises are capped anyway.
As it is, councils increasingly have responsibility without power. As Sir Humphrey put it, the prerogative of the eunuch.
And sorting social care would be significantly cheaper than sorting the NHS in its current state - and might free up a huge number of NHS beds currently blocked. @Foxy ?
But we don't like social care. We don't want to care for our own parents or disabled relatives. We don't want to pay for services to do so. We don't want the jobs caring for other people. And we don't want the foreign invaders coming here to look after them.
Honestly the starting point isn't NHS provision vs social care provision. Its holding a mirror up to the embittered uncaring misery that British society has been turned into.
Prime example - today's Daily Heil front page. We can't let people flee their mass execution in Iran, because they steal the hotel beds our nurses are living in. Even if that was true think about the message. We're in such a mess as a nation that nurses are stuck in hotels because there as huge staff shortages and nowhere else to put the foreigners we do like training for UK nursing.
If we didn't endlessly attack the NHS and make its staff work in horrible conditions for poverty wages, we wouldn't need to bring in staff from other countries stuck in hotels who are now being supposedly turfed out for a different group of foreigners. The starting point is don't just clap NHS staff, pay them properly...
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
We all make predictions that go wrong. Leon is just a bit more flamboyant about it.
'consistent' is, I believe, the word you were seeking...
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
No wonder Leondamus is leaving PB, what.three.words, Liz Truss will be an awesome PM, and now Kari Lake.
His departure will be a shame as PB loses its most important (anti-tipster) tool.
Still aliens and Dall-E though.
The whole nation awaits the next reincarnation with bated breath.
Someone has fallen out of love with the UK despite having been one of the loudest cheerleaders for the Union. Worry not Yoons, he thinks Scotland is as shit as the rest of the Yookay.
There is the definite sense of the country circling the u-bend right now. Two of my kids have US passports and I'd probably recommend that they use them.
Yep, driving away your aspiring youth may be an even greater threat to a country’s future than eg poor productivity or losing no.1 financial centre status. Perhaps the UK will reach the point where it needs ambitious, hungry young lads (& lasses) willing to risk life & limb on stormy seas to become British..
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
What he gives with one hand he takes away with another.
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
Council tax, unreformed, is possibly the most unpopular tax going. If Sunak and Hunt allow that to be put up substantially they will absolutely crater in the south of England.
How on earth would reforming it solve anything -it would reveal how much house prices have increased down south relative to the north.
Depends on how you reformed it.
The stroke-of-a-pen reform that would work would be a hefty central government grant to cover the costs that are mandated by central government. Like social care.
As the level of council tax increases, the gentle gradation in bills becomes less and less sustainable. And the tax rises are capped anyway.
As it is, councils increasingly have responsibility without power. As Sir Humphrey put it, the prerogative of the eunuch.
And sorting social care would be significantly cheaper than sorting the NHS in its current state - and might free up a huge number of NHS beds currently blocked. @Foxy ?
But we don't like social care. We don't want to care for our own parents or disabled relatives. We don't want to pay for services to do so. We don't want the jobs caring for other people. And we don't want the foreign invaders coming here to look after them.
Honestly the starting point isn't NHS provision vs social care provision. Its holding a mirror up to the embittered uncaring misery that British society has been turned into.
Prime example - today's Daily Heil front page. We can't let people flee their mass execution in Iran, because they steal the hotel beds our nurses are living in. Even if that was true think about the message. We're in such a mess as a nation that nurses are stuck in hotels because there as huge staff shortages and nowhere else to put the foreigners we do like training for UK nursing.
If we didn't endlessly attack the NHS and make its staff work in horrible conditions for poverty wages, we wouldn't need to bring in staff from other countries stuck in hotels who are now being supposedly turfed out for a different group of foreigners. The starting point is don't just clap NHS staff, pay them properly...
So what do we do about that? The embittered, uncaring bit.
Lolz at Rishi Sunak trying to make a positive headline out of confirming eight Type 26, City-class frigates will be built: 1) That's always been the case 2) Those eight are replacing, um, THIRTEEN, Type 23, Duke-class frigates ...Embarrassingly, Def Sec Ben Wallace had to admit last week the first vessel is already a year behind schedule and that delay will cost us £233m https://mobile.twitter.com/benglaze/status/1592400418763845632
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
“[Lake] has emerged as a Republican phenom by amplifying Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” read the subhead of its even longer profile. Last week, Axios went several steps further and reported that top Democratic strategists now believe Lake has the “potential to soar to a vice presidential spot or a post-Trump presidential candidacy.”
PB-ers will no doubt be grateful that I pointed out all of this: several weeks before the actual American media.
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
Of course Lake might still become a VP or post-Trump presidential candidate, though it's looking less likely. It will be interesting to see how far she goes trying to claim that she really won and her election was stolen too. It certainly doesn't look like she's going to concede gracefully, or at all. Not sure which is better for her career prospects as a politician?
As Mrs P. said to me this morning, Lake has run her flag up the wrong pole.
Comments
They can only be concerned that other counties still have more to come that they don't know about.
Yet Hobbs gained 5k from other counties earlier this evening (in total from 4 or 5 different counties).
Rep lead AZ1 by 3,008 and AZ6 by 3,502.
AZ House districts will split Rep 6, Dem 3.
Dems come out very badly from redistricting given they won Senate, Governor and Sec of State.
It's over.
https://results.arizona.vote/#/federal/33/0
Current numbers are as posted above - Hobbs lead 20k.
Maricopa 20k
Pima 20k
Others 20k
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/arizona-governor-results
"PHOENIX — Kari Lake, staring down a likely loss in the Arizona governor’s race, is being advised by GOP operatives and some of her closest aides to take a measured approach should she come up short in the vote tally and not “storm the castle,” as one person present for the discussions described the sentiments."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/14/kari-lake-arizona-governor-race-results/
> Apache 71% reported (Hobbs 68% Lake 32%
> Cochise 91% reported (Hobbs 42% Lake 56%)
> Navaho 88% reported (Hobbs 46% Lake 54%)
> Pinal 94% reported (Hobbs 42% Lake 58%)
Think these are counties that have yet to report all of their poll-day drops, in addition to final cures & miscellaneous.
AP not projected AZ Gov winner yet, but CNN has projected Hobbs the winner.
Yeah!
But note there are apparently 20k votes remaining in Pima and SOME of AZ6 is in Pima.
Pima is over 60% Dem so just an outside chance that IF most of the 20k are in Pima they COULD be Dem friendly enough to overturn the 3,502 lead.
PB hasn’t finished with you yet.
(And the Democratic incumbent, Raúl Grijalva, wouldn't seem to be in danger of losing his seat, even without that help.)
I don't know enough about Arizona's political geography to say more, but here's a map of the district:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Arizona_US_Congressional_District_3_(since_2013).tif/lossless-page1-2072px-Arizona_US_Congressional_District_3_(since_2013).tif.png
Coincidence? Karma? Conspiracy? Kismet?
Coincidence? Karma? Conspiracy? Kismet?"
How does that song go? I think the chorus starts with: "Secret agent man, secret agent man" or something similar.
AZ6 not called yet.
17 still to declare - Rep leading 7, Dem leading 10.
So on course for 221-214.
This is unchanged from last night - since then Rep has taken lead in AZ6 but Dem has taken lead in a CA district - I THINK CA13.
Don't know raw numbers but overall effect is Hobbs lead down 1k ish - now 19,382.
Districting really cost Dems in AZ.
AZ1 - Rep leads 50.4-49.6
AZ6 - Rep leads 50.5-49.5
AZ overall - Rep wins 6 districts, Dem wins 3 districts. Despite Dems winning Senate, Governor and Sec of State.
All 3 Dem districts won by big margins:
AZ3 - Dem wins 77-23
AZ4 - Dem wins 56-44
AZ7 - Dem wins 65-35
AZ6 has long boundary with AZ7 - so no doubt could have been drawn in numerous different ways which would have made both districts safe Dem.
Once the recession is done with, Tesla’s valuation will catch up with its growing cashflows and head back above a trillion again. And also Starlink will IPO in the next few years with a likely valuation of $50-100bn (Musk owns around half). In the meantime presumably he can raise the personal liquidity to buy out much of the jr debt at well below par, possibly 60 cents in the dollar, who knows.
The only reason it goes bust would be that Musk gets bored of it.
It's no coincidence that Tesla's share price has dramatically underperformed since the bid.
Feels to me like he’s taken a month long sabbatical to focus on Twitter and will get as much done in that time. I have no idea how this guy manages to focus on so many different things, he’s surely testing that to breaking point.
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1592256946001813504
To recap: Musk makes some b/s claim in public about how the Twitter stack has poor performance. An employee corrects him, in detail. I don't know whether Frohnhoefer is correct, but his main comments sniff right: ten years of technical debt, a focus on new features over performance, and a bloated software stack that has lots of features few people use.
That's *exactly* what happens with a lot of consumer software. I know, I've been there.
Musk promptly says he has fired employee for daring to respectfully disagree with him. Or perhaps not; his current employment status is uncertain.
The question is simple: was Frohnhoefer correct to publicly reply to Musk, when Musk was saying stuff that was inaccurate? I'd personally try to use internal channels, but it must be hard when a man-child is sh*tting over the work of you and the team you work (or now used to work...) with.
With Tesla, he saw that - thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and laptops - battery density had increased to the extent that you could build a car. And that if you did it as a premium product, you could get people like me to buy it.
With SpaceX, he saw that by combining modern technology with Jet-A (let computers manage the mixture in real time!), combined with landing and reusing rockets, you could cut the costs of space travel 95% or more, and open up massive new markets.
In both those cases, he found talented managers he trusted to run the show. Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX. Andrew Baglino fulfils a similar role at Tesla. (Tim Cook, of course, was Steve Jobs' execution guy.)
He doesn't have that at Twitter.
If he finds the right guy - someone who can filter his ideas, and make them happen - then there might be a bright future for Twitter. But I personally think it's more likely to be a massive distraction. His energies will be focused more on making Twitter not hemorrhage money than on making SpaceX and Tesla into two of the greatest companies in the world.
Rishi Sunak will announce a significant rise in the national living wage and give eight million households cost of living payments worth up to £1,100 as he prioritises support for the poorest over universal measures.
The Times has been told that the prime minister and Jeremy Hunt, his chancellor, will accept an official recommendation to increase the living wage from £9.50 an hour to about £10.40 an hour — a rise of nearly 10 per cent. The move will benefit 2.5 million people. One government source suggested that the increase could be even higher.
Sunak will also give those on means-tested benefits, such as universal credit, cost of living payments worth £650; disability benefit recipients £150; and pensioner households £300. The plans, which extend existing support, will result in some households benefiting from all three payments.
All households will, however, still face a significant rise in average energy bills as the government increases the energy price guarantee from an average of £2,500 to as much as £3,100 from April.
Even this approach will cost the government billions. The Times has been told that internal forecasts by Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggest that average bills would reach £4,006 in April without the energy price guarantee.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-to-raise-minimum-wage-in-boost-for-poorest-rbgm6990n
Wasn't that the vision of the people who actually founded Tesla? In particular, this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Eberhard
Let’s see what happens Thursday. Council Tax looks like it will be allowed to rise, in future, by more than it is now. Councils will take that gladly.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/15/jacob-rees-mogg-faces-questions-over-land-for-housing-development
Scotland’s NHS is planning to fast-track irreversible surgeries for transgender patients, documents seen by The Telegraph reveal.
An NHS Scotland report, suggesting new transgender treatment rules, calls for “barriers” to gender reassignment surgery to be removed and proposes radical measures to make operations more widely available.
These include allowing GPs, rather than specialists, to send patients for procedures and that a “single opinion” is enough to refer for surgery in most cases.
Trans patients can “benefit” from operations including mastectomies, breast implants and genital reassignment, as well as hormone treatments, even if they do not experience “distress” about their gender identity, it is claimed.
The proposed treatment rules say that a patient’s background or mental health need not be examined in detail before they are referred for the procedures.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/14/nhs-scotland-plans-fast-track-irreversible-surgery-trans-patients/
I bet Musk ends up blaming them...
The Home Office has made next to no progress in tackling criminal fraud during the past five years, despite it having become Britain’s most prevalent crime, government auditors warn today.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said that fewer than one in two hundred cases of fraud reported to the police resulted in a criminal charge last year and forces dedicated only 1 per cent of personnel to tackling the issue. Fraud costs victims £4.7 billion a year.
The NAO added that although the number of cases of reported fraud had risen from 631,000 in 2017 to 987,000 this year, the number of criminal charges fell from 6,400 to 4,816.
The NAO accused the Home Office of having failed to take the issue seriously enough. It said it had warned five years ago that fraud was being overlooked by the government and demanded an urgent response. Since then the threat had “increased and evolved” but the government’s response had not.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/only-1-in-200-fraud-cases-lead-to-police-charges-dk7879qph
But he does (hitherto) demonstrate the ability to bring in vital capital. Let's see if that's still the case after this latest debacle.
Seems a reasonable and proportionate change given inflation currently 10%.
Every piece of nonsense flying in the face of logic by Bartholomew get's a 'like' from Tyndal. The site's No 1 Brexiteer He doesn't even try to defend it himself anymore. He just scours the site 'liking' posts that look like they haven't given up the Btexit ghost. He's sometimes joined by Driver a poster who had the sense to ditch his username. They're pitifully rare these days though
Even Leon can't be arsed to leap to their rescue. A few tired old metaphors but underneath the bombastic flint like exterior he knows the game's up....."Move on.....move on....hic ...the baby will be ...hic...a father himself one day....hic... and then we can look....mine's a G&T........large
Although, if I am honest, I think I may be being slightly unfair in singling out council tax. Our whole tax system is a shambles in need of reform.
It was 2.0% above its pre #COVID19 pandemic levels.
➡️ http://ow.ly/3CCb50LEl6n
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1592415951256834048
As the level of council tax increases, the gentle gradation in bills becomes less and less sustainable. And the tax rises are capped anyway.
As it is, councils increasingly have responsibility without power. As Sir Humphrey put it, the prerogative of the eunuch.
https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1592402571515551745
I am sure PB-ers will show our gratitude for this priceless tip in the usual way….
The govt are simply pushing unpopular tax rises onto local govt. it will backfire.
Also the council tax element is only a part of it. The care package, fire and police elements will also rise too. Police in my council area has gone up by well over 5% the last couple of years.
Yes, the opposition will have to do some work to propose their planned route back to recovery. But this will smash completely the Tories economic reputation. After 12 years in office it really is their fault.
Twats though it may make those who use it too much it has now become an embedded communication channel much as the telegraph was in its day.
Musk might muck around at the edges but it will endure and grow ever bigger.
Nearly six years later, all we have seen are two shortish tunnels, and the wizard wheeze to reduce tunnelling costs appear to be... making the tunnels smaller. I'm *amazed* the people at Herrenknecht or Mitsubishi never thought of that.
Why was I so sceptical? Put simply, geology is a barsteward. Tunnelling machines vary massively in style and type, depending on the expected ground conditions - so much so, that machines making the same tunnel from different ends might use very different technologies. Customising the machines for each job costs a fortune, but is also rather unavoidable. The large tunnelling firms are, contrary to belief, very innovative.
I see nothing to suggest that the TBC are going to revolutionise the tunnelling industry.
It could quite conceivably go bust; Musk has no obligation to put more cash in.
If he fails to turn it into some kind of super ap - quite likely, IMO - he's going to get rapidly bored of it.
I just think that Musk is going to find it very hard to service the debt he has taken on (allegedly requires $1 billion a year), given the way he is trashing its reputation amongst advertisers. See the Eli Lilly WP article I posted earlier.
Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone has selected a topical question asking why the figure was repeatedly pushed despite there being "no basis" for it
https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1592418644239454208
Not sure who will answer this question.
@MathesonMichael would be the obvious candidate. He should be very, very careful how he answers. Because if he says the figure was calculated accurately in 2010, he will be lying to the Scottish Parliament…
https://twitter.com/staylorish/status/1592423750737465344
Leon is just a bit more flamboyant about it.
It will be interesting to see how far she goes trying to claim that she really won and her election was stolen too. It certainly doesn't look like she's going to concede gracefully, or at all. Not sure which is better for her career prospects as a politician?
@Foxy ?
Relative prosperity correlates with social stability, but it doesn't guarantee it.
His departure will be a shame as PB loses its most important (anti-tipster) tool.
Still aliens and Dall-E though.
In absolutely no way at all is that the case with Twitter.
There is a need for Twitter-like services, and Twitter has the current advantage of a massive userbase. But they will also have to compete against whatever the Next Big Thing (tm) is.
I don't recall that ever happening...
Honestly the starting point isn't NHS provision vs social care provision. Its holding a mirror up to the embittered uncaring misery that British society has been turned into.
Prime example - today's Daily Heil front page. We can't let people flee their mass execution in Iran, because they steal the hotel beds our nurses are living in. Even if that was true think about the message. We're in such a mess as a nation that nurses are stuck in hotels because there as huge staff shortages and nowhere else to put the foreigners we do like training for UK nursing.
If we didn't endlessly attack the NHS and make its staff work in horrible conditions for poverty wages, we wouldn't need to bring in staff from other countries stuck in hotels who are now being supposedly turfed out for a different group of foreigners. The starting point is don't just clap NHS staff, pay them properly...
Sunak announces a £4.2 billion contract to build five new Royal Navy warships on the Clyde and support 1,700 jobs in Govan and Scotstoun.
https://twitter.com/magnusllewellin/status/1592405040056225792
Anger as severe food shortages hit Scots islands after ferry breakdown
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/23121060.anger-severe-food-shortages-hit-scots-islands-ferry-breakdown/
It seems that he's determined to piss off what remains of the (non retired) Tory base, including putting up my taxes significantly.
I've basically given up. Labour will make it worse, of course, but I think that game needs to play out now.
Lolz at Rishi Sunak trying to make a positive headline out of confirming eight Type 26, City-class frigates will be built:
1) That's always been the case
2) Those eight are replacing, um, THIRTEEN, Type 23, Duke-class frigates
...Embarrassingly, Def Sec Ben Wallace had to admit last week the first vessel is already a year behind schedule and that delay will cost us £233m
https://mobile.twitter.com/benglaze/status/1592400418763845632
On top of that is the gut: this is all about him feeling guilty and self-conscious about his wealth.
But a quick reminder that you also need to keep an eye on what’s happening in the European regulatory space.
In short, Twitter’s in BIG, BIG trouble. 1/
https://twitter.com/rebekahktromble/status/1592290426148773889