Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed for a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
And I think you're not really reading what people are saying, and are just thinking what you want people to be saying.
@Nigelb: "set against our panic about armageddon last night."
I just said I missed it are you calling our Nige a fabricator?
I was referring to your Musk/Twitter comment.
As it happens, I don't think any of your 'analysis' of the Ukrainian situation has been very accurate.
As it happens I haven't really made any analysis of the Ukrainian situation beyond telling dolts like you not to bring your immensely knowledgeable military analytics into play based upon a 30-second twitter clip.
You have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances. And speaking for myself; I have never claimed "immensely knowledgeable military analytics"; in fact, I frequently put things like IANAE in my posts. I also link to sources.
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/15/trump-presidency-2024-candidate-00067130 ...Before a room full of hundreds of supporters — including Trump world figures like Roger Stone, Kash Patel, Sebastian Gorka, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and the outgoing Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Trump portrayed his four years in office in rose colored hews..
Despite Trump doubt beginning to creep into the Republican Party, Fox News still covered it sycophantically. And I note Lindsey Graham is almost back onboard.
Still a lot of marks for the grift out there.
Did they mean 'rose coloured hues?'
Or was it a Freudian slip and they referred to all the violent actions that led to bloodshed?
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed for a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
And I think you're not really reading what people are saying, and are just thinking what you want people to be saying.
@Nigelb: "set against our panic about armageddon last night."
I just said I missed it are you calling our Nige a fabricator?
I was referring to your Musk/Twitter comment.
As it happens, I don't think any of your 'analysis' of the Ukrainian situation has been very accurate.
As it happens I haven't really made any analysis of the Ukrainian situation beyond telling dolts like you not to bring your immensely knowledgeable military analytics into play based upon a 30-second twitter clip.
You have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances. And speaking for myself; I have never claimed "immensely knowledgeable military analytics"; in fact, I frequently put things like IANAE in my posts. I also link to sources.
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
You would have to point me towards the bit when I have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances beyond saying that we don't know much about anything on the ground and that all reports from either side should be treated with extreme caution. There is a large PB contingent, including you I'm pretty sure, which treats even this caution as proof if proof be needed of Putin apologistism.
And I understand it. You are nervous; we all are and hence you wish for and articulate a particular outcome as it gives you comfort. Same with Barty.
We are spectators in the war, you and I (and Bart) and of course you can speculate and wishcast but I don't see what value it has. When you bet on a UK political issue (as per the site's original purpose) it is based upon a scintilla of understanding of the situation. The Ukraine war, not so much.
Today was a good day for Biden to be POTUS, rather than Trump.
The same could, of course, be said of pretty much any day in human existence.
I am trying to think of a time when it wouldn't be true, and I can't. Maybe if somebody nukes the Capitol it would help if Trump were among the dead and Biden were somewhere safely a long way away. But not otherwise.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/15/trump-presidency-2024-candidate-00067130 ...Before a room full of hundreds of supporters — including Trump world figures like Roger Stone, Kash Patel, Sebastian Gorka, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and the outgoing Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Trump portrayed his four years in office in rose colored hews..
Despite Trump doubt beginning to creep into the Republican Party, Fox News still covered it sycophantically. And I note Lindsey Graham is almost back onboard.
Still a lot of marks for the grift out there.
Did they mean 'rose coloured hues?'
Or was it a Freudian slip and they referred to all the violent actions that led to bloodshed?
The question for me is whether or not the tories are going to have the guts to tax rich pensioners more. This goes down to the essential question of whether they are governing for all the people or just one interest group. The state pension plus a defined benefit pension means many people get the same income in retirement as they did whilst working, but they don't pay national insurance, so they are even richer; yet this group use a lot of public services. Pensioners should be able to get an income up to something like the living wage without being heavily taxed, but after that, they need to start paying the same tax as everyone else.
It's the last enclave of Conservative voter support so I doubt they will dare to touch it. Not with the Daily Express and Daily Mail on the warpath.
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
10.40/ hour for 37.5 hours per week = £1476.37 per month (per person), £1484 from November.
I think your calculations exclude the weekly allowance on employees national insurance contributions (about £240) where you don't pay employee NI
And the number of examples of people with two full-time living wage incomes is likely to be rare. Many jobs at this pay level are zero hours so the 40 hours/week isn’t guaranteed. And of course many will have x hold ten/other independents which both increases costs but also makes two full time incomes impractical
Yes, Qatari labour laws are well behind even the rest of the Middle East.
Also note the huge problem with local ‘agents’ from India, Banglasdesh and Nepal, where the authorities either don’t care or are paid off. There needs to be a large publicity campaign in those countries, to stop people paying gangsters for job opportunities abroad, and a clampdown on the activity.
This isnt just restricted to Qatar or even the Middle East - Singapore, Brunei etc are also complicit in this model of modern slavery oiled by middlemen and organisations across the world... its useful that its brought to light during World Cup but simply blaming Qatar and ignoring the wider piece is wrong. Those politicians who want to emulate Singapore's `success' dont talk about the million plus guys living in shipping containers and slums
It’s the same thing we see with the Channel migrants, many of whom have paid ‘agents’ a lot of money for their travel, and the ‘agents’ know their families ‘back home’.
I’ve lived in the UAE for 15 years now, and pretty much every year there’s a new labour law aimed at stopping abuse of employees. Workers have to be paid by the locally licenced company that sponsors their visa, directly into a local bank account. It’s illegal to take payments from workers for visas and transport. Domestic staff are only allowed to be employed by licenced agencies and not by individuals. Workers with certain qualifications are allowed to sponsor themselves for residence visas. There’s meaningful fines for industrial accidents that result in serious injury or death.
What they can’t do anything about, is the foreign gangsters terrorising families in other countries.
I have a somewhat pragmatic view on things like accommodation arrangements for workers, even the very worst of which are quite normal in the countries where these workers originate.
the accommodation is certainly an interesting debate, but when politicians extol the virtues of `Singapore on Thames' they tend to gloss over the actual blood, sweat and tears of the modern slaves, I don't recall seeing BJ strolling around the shacks and pools of sewage that surround building sites in Singapore when promoting the Island state's model.
I'm not holding my breath, but I really hope it does.
Do they even care? As far as most of those involved are concerned, the $20bn spent in all of the 48 states was the whole purpose of the project, if the rocket actually takes off then that’s a nice bonus.
If you are interested in a permanent manned presence in space, you should care. Why?
If you want a permanent manned presence in space, then we need commerce and industry up there. To do that, we need to get mass into orbit, and that requires heavy-lift orbiters. And to avoid Shuttle-style pauses in programs, we need at least two or three heavy-lift launchers.
At the moment, America has zero. The world essentially has zero (Falcon Heavy is not a real heavy-lift rocket; it has less than half the lift mass of Apollo V).
SpaceX might get a true heavy-lift vehicle with SH/SS. BO might get there with New Glenn and it successor. Until they do, I am very happy with the US developing a third system.
Once SS/SH and NG+ get going, I am more than happy for the SLS to be put to bed.
Sandpits pov on this is surely borne by world weary waiting on eternal delays, scrubs and the never quite there seeming approach of NASA. I'm always pleasantly surprised when a launch like today's does actually happen.
IMV the SLS's project is simple: it did not have a mission. The US government decided it wanted a heavy-lift rocket, but did not want to fund a mission for it. First there was the nebulous asteroid-redirect mission; then a midway point to the Moon. If they had been given a firm, funded mission (like Artemis), and a date, then the project would have been very different.
Instead, there was no urgency and no real idea of *what* they were building the rocket for. This caused a multitude of problems for the project.
And BTW, there're some cool shots from the ICPS second stage in space.
The first problem was that it was designed by playing Lego with Space Shuttle parts. The story was that it was about protecting the jobs of those people working on the Shuttle.
But this led to a second problem - just doing that wouldn’t have provided enough *development* money for the big companies involved. So every piece is actually new, or completely redesigned.
Thirdly, it was done on cost plus - whatever the cost and we’ll stack some profit on top. 20% aerospace inflation baked in.
An actual mission would have interrupted all of the above.
This is how we ended up with a rocket where the engines are reworked RS-25 (Space Shuttle) engines. Reworked at a cost of 100 million per engine. Reworked to be thrown away on every flight. The boosters are even funnier - ATK (as they were at the time) said that they would quit the booster building business and increase the cost of all their military solid rockets, if they weren’t given a development contract for a new booster design. Straight up blackmail.
This is how you get a rocket that cost North of 2 billion a launch, launches a max of once a year. And has some interesting features regarding vibration. The max flight rate means that it is pretty much useless for any sustained project. Which is why the Artemis program (Moon landings) needs to use another rocket, as well, to fill the gap. Built by….
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed for a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
And I think you're not really reading what people are saying, and are just thinking what you want people to be saying.
@Nigelb: "set against our panic about armageddon last night."
I just said I missed it are you calling our Nige a fabricator?
I was referring to your Musk/Twitter comment.
As it happens, I don't think any of your 'analysis' of the Ukrainian situation has been very accurate.
As it happens I haven't really made any analysis of the Ukrainian situation beyond telling dolts like you not to bring your immensely knowledgeable military analytics into play based upon a 30-second twitter clip.
You have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances. And speaking for myself; I have never claimed "immensely knowledgeable military analytics"; in fact, I frequently put things like IANAE in my posts. I also link to sources.
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
You would have to point me towards the bit when I have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances beyond saying that we don't know much about anything on the ground and that all reports from either side should be treated with extreme caution. There is a large PB contingent, including you I'm pretty sure, which treats even this caution as proof if proof be needed of Putin apologistism.
And I understand it. You are nervous; we all are and hence you wish for and articulate a particular outcome as it gives you comfort. Same with Barty.
We are spectators in the war, you and I (and Bart) and of course you can speculate and wishcast but I don't see what value it has. When you bet on a UK political issue (as per the site's original purpose) it is based upon a scintilla of understanding of the situation. The Ukraine war, not so much.
I'm not going to go back and trawl through your posts, but I might suggest back in March and April you were rather less than positive about Ukraine's chances, and bashed people giving evidence towards that. I'm not the only person to have said this.
I am not particularly nervous - I think Leon's disaster-mongering is fairly pathetic. The world will muddle through this crisis. But I do want Ukraine to 'win', as the risks of a 'loss' are far greater IMO. It's not about 'comfort'; it's about realising that the edge of the precipice lies beyond a Russian victory.
And the Ukraine war *is* about politics; in fact, it is possibly the most political war since 1991, with a vast array of countries (bigger than GW1?) trying to help Ukraine without making matters worse. Just in terms of American politics, it is likely that an ongoing war will be a major issue in a Trump vs Biden election. So yes, it is worthy of discussion on here. And UK politics is involved as well.
Epitomised by the screaming of stupid questions at politicians in Downing Street, then turning back to the camera and appearing to be serious. Pillocks.
It is aping the politicians, they all think they are comedians.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed for a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
And I think you're not really reading what people are saying, and are just thinking what you want people to be saying.
@Nigelb: "set against our panic about armageddon last night."
I just said I missed it are you calling our Nige a fabricator?
I was referring to your Musk/Twitter comment.
As it happens, I don't think any of your 'analysis' of the Ukrainian situation has been very accurate.
As it happens I haven't really made any analysis of the Ukrainian situation beyond telling dolts like you not to bring your immensely knowledgeable military analytics into play based upon a 30-second twitter clip.
You have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances. And speaking for myself; I have never claimed "immensely knowledgeable military analytics"; in fact, I frequently put things like IANAE in my posts. I also link to sources.
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
You would have to point me towards the bit when I have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances beyond saying that we don't know much about anything on the ground and that all reports from either side should be treated with extreme caution. There is a large PB contingent, including you I'm pretty sure, which treats even this caution as proof if proof be needed of Putin apologistism.
And I understand it. You are nervous; we all are and hence you wish for and articulate a particular outcome as it gives you comfort. Same with Barty.
We are spectators in the war, you and I (and Bart) and of course you can speculate and wishcast but I don't see what value it has. When you bet on a UK political issue (as per the site's original purpose) it is based upon a scintilla of understanding of the situation. The Ukraine war, not so much.
I'm not going to go back and trawl through your posts, but I might suggest back in March and April you were rather less than positive about Ukraine's chances, and bashed people giving evidence towards that. I'm not the only person to have said this.
I am not particularly nervous - I think Leon's disaster-mongering is fairly pathetic. The world will muddle through this crisis. But I do want Ukraine to 'win', as the risks of a 'loss' are far greater IMO. It's not about 'comfort'; it's about realising that the edge of the precipice lies beyond a Russian victory.
And the Ukraine war *is* about politics; in fact, it is possibly the most political war since 1991, with a vast array of countries (bigger than GW1?) trying to help Ukraine without making matters worse. Just in terms of American politics, it is likely that an ongoing war will be a major issue in a Trump vs Biden election. So yes, it is worthy of discussion on here. And UK politics is involved as well.
UK politics is involved and affects UK politics. That's the bit we have some insight into.
As for the geopolitical implication of the Ukraine war well of course. We have a former superpower invading a country it thinks for whatever reason is a part of that superpower. Every country and alliance will be involved and if you think you have a handle on the dynamics of it all then please do carry on giving us betting tips. I'm all ears.
And as for the March/April posts again, I'm pretty sure I simply counselled against conflict analysis via Twitter and noted that whatever the state of Russia's military, or Ukraine's, war was slow, messy, uncertain, and unpredictable.
You and the others meanwhile saw one video clip of a platoon attack and called the outcome of the war on February 27th.
F1: for those wondering, apparently Verstappen refused to let Perez past due to 'revenge' over the Mexican allegedly crasing deliberately in Monaco qualifying.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Have you seen "4 Hours at the Capitol" on Netflix? Amazing. Doesn't really go into the whys and wherefores save to interview plenty of Proud Boys talking about DJT as though he is the Messiah. I listened to that clip of Jon Voight the other day and it was a similar thing.
Yes, Qatari labour laws are well behind even the rest of the Middle East.
Also note the huge problem with local ‘agents’ from India, Banglasdesh and Nepal, where the authorities either don’t care or are paid off. There needs to be a large publicity campaign in those countries, to stop people paying gangsters for job opportunities abroad, and a clampdown on the activity.
This isnt just restricted to Qatar or even the Middle East - Singapore, Brunei etc are also complicit in this model of modern slavery oiled by middlemen and organisations across the world... its useful that its brought to light during World Cup but simply blaming Qatar and ignoring the wider piece is wrong. Those politicians who want to emulate Singapore's `success' dont talk about the million plus guys living in shipping containers and slums
It’s the same thing we see with the Channel migrants, many of whom have paid ‘agents’ a lot of money for their travel, and the ‘agents’ know their families ‘back home’.
I’ve lived in the UAE for 15 years now, and pretty much every year there’s a new labour law aimed at stopping abuse of employees. Workers have to be paid by the locally licenced company that sponsors their visa, directly into a local bank account. It’s illegal to take payments from workers for visas and transport. Domestic staff are only allowed to be employed by licenced agencies and not by individuals. Workers with certain qualifications are allowed to sponsor themselves for residence visas. There’s meaningful fines for industrial accidents that result in serious injury or death.
What they can’t do anything about, is the foreign gangsters terrorising families in other countries.
I have a somewhat pragmatic view on things like accommodation arrangements for workers, even the very worst of which are quite normal in the countries where these workers originate.
the accommodation is certainly an interesting debate, but when politicians extol the virtues of `Singapore on Thames' they tend to gloss over the actual blood, sweat and tears of the modern slaves, I don't recall seeing BJ strolling around the shacks and pools of sewage that surround building sites in Singapore when promoting the Island state's model.
Who has been extolling the virtues of “Singapore on Thames”? If I recall correctly, it’s a phrase that’s only even been used perjoratively by opponents of the UK’s exit from the EU.
There’s also been a lot of stories from the UK and EU, about both legal and illegal immigrants found living several to a room, dozens to a house. It’s not just a story in the quickly-developing parts of the world. No-one ever thinks about where the millions of minimum-wage immigrant workers in central London actually live.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Amusing to see he's blaming the voters for not supporting him. Very much a 'dissolve the people and elect another' moment.
I think his problem is that while there is a large minority of Alex Jones style nutcases in America, most Americans love one thing above all others - their constitution. Which he (and his handpicked Supreme Court) unceremoniously trampled all over.
If he runs, I'm becoming more confident he will lose, although with my track record that's probably a bad sign.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Have you seen "4 Hours at the Capitol" on Netflix? Amazing. Doesn't really go into the whys and wherefores save to interview plenty of Proud Boys talking about DJT as though he is the Messiah. I listened to that clip of Jon Voight the other day and it was a similar thing.
No, I don't have Netflix. Which is annoying at times, but not >£7 per month annoying. I'm tight.
Morning all! Of course The Donald was going to run (despite my dream overnight of him announcing he wasn't). He wants to both avoid the various legal actions against him and reinforce the narrative that he was robbed.
Others will pile on for the Republicans other than just him and DeSantis. And Trump will skewer them all because there is much to skewer. As I said the other day, DeSantis "I am God's warrior" may play well for shitkicker states. But outside of those we have just seen a midterms where people have decided to vote against the rise of Gilead.
Does the GOP have anyone as sane as GWB who could run and actually win an election?
Am I right in thinking that since you need a majority of votes cast, and there's no process to knock out the lower-ranked candidates, it's technically possible that they'd never actually be able to agree on a speaker and they spend the new two years casting inconclusive votes on it?
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed for a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
And I think you're not really reading what people are saying, and are just thinking what you want people to be saying.
@Nigelb: "set against our panic about armageddon last night."
I just said I missed it are you calling our Nige a fabricator?
I was referring to your Musk/Twitter comment.
As it happens, I don't think any of your 'analysis' of the Ukrainian situation has been very accurate.
As it happens I haven't really made any analysis of the Ukrainian situation beyond telling dolts like you not to bring your immensely knowledgeable military analytics into play based upon a 30-second twitter clip.
You have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances. And speaking for myself; I have never claimed "immensely knowledgeable military analytics"; in fact, I frequently put things like IANAE in my posts. I also link to sources.
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
You would have to point me towards the bit when I have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances beyond saying that we don't know much about anything on the ground and that all reports from either side should be treated with extreme caution. There is a large PB contingent, including you I'm pretty sure, which treats even this caution as proof if proof be needed of Putin apologistism.
And I understand it. You are nervous; we all are and hence you wish for and articulate a particular outcome as it gives you comfort. Same with Barty.
We are spectators in the war, you and I (and Bart) and of course you can speculate and wishcast but I don't see what value it has. When you bet on a UK political issue (as per the site's original purpose) it is based upon a scintilla of understanding of the situation. The Ukraine war, not so much.
I'm not going to go back and trawl through your posts, but I might suggest back in March and April you were rather less than positive about Ukraine's chances, and bashed people giving evidence towards that. I'm not the only person to have said this.
I am not particularly nervous - I think Leon's disaster-mongering is fairly pathetic. The world will muddle through this crisis. But I do want Ukraine to 'win', as the risks of a 'loss' are far greater IMO. It's not about 'comfort'; it's about realising that the edge of the precipice lies beyond a Russian victory.
And the Ukraine war *is* about politics; in fact, it is possibly the most political war since 1991, with a vast array of countries (bigger than GW1?) trying to help Ukraine without making matters worse. Just in terms of American politics, it is likely that an ongoing war will be a major issue in a Trump vs Biden election. So yes, it is worthy of discussion on here. And UK politics is involved as well.
UK politics is involved and affects UK politics. That's the bit we have some insight into.
As for the geopolitical implication of the Ukraine war well of course. We have a former superpower invading a country it thinks for whatever reason is a part of that superpower. Every country and alliance will be involved and if you think you have a handle on the dynamics of it all then please do carry on giving us betting tips. I'm all ears.
And as for the March/April posts again, I'm pretty sure I simply counselled against conflict analysis via Twitter and noted that whatever the state of Russia's military, or Ukraine's, war was slow, messy, uncertain, and unpredictable.
You and the others meanwhile saw one video clip of a platoon attack and called the outcome of the war on February 27th.
The international dynamics are massively important *and interesting*. For instance, I am pleasantly surprised that Germany has not folded over the gas issue. If I had bet on that back in late February, I would have got it wrong.
"You and the others meanwhile saw one video clip of a platoon attack and called the outcome of the war on February 27th."
That's wrong in my case. Early on, my stated position was that even if Russia win, Ukraine would be a free state within a few decades, as happened when the USSR dissolved. From memory, that changed with the morbid hilarity of the Kyiv convoy of indeterminate length. At that point it was clear that there were deep structural issues within the Russian military - issues that I'd read had been 'solved' since their involvement in Syria, but had not.
I don't think I've ever said that the war was anything other than slow, messy, uncertain and unpredictable. Even recently I've said that Russia could still 'win' (though I'd always counsel that you need to define 'win').
I look forward to you telling us what other topics we can discuss on here.
Am I right in thinking that since you need a majority of votes cast, and there's no process to knock out the lower-ranked candidates, it's technically possible that they'd never actually be able to agree on a speaker and they spend the new two years casting inconclusive votes on it?
And given that the Republicans have vowed to vote for Biden’a candidates for any office. And the horrendous loons that the Republicans will probably nominate… it’s ripe for deadlock.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
Give it a day or so; most folk won't even have woken up to the news yet. It was by no means viewed as a certainty by punters - Betfair had a market on it.
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Amusing to see he's blaming the voters for not supporting him. Very much a 'dissolve the people and elect another' moment.
I think his problem is that while there is a large minority of Alex Jones style nutcases in America, most Americans love one thing above all others - their constitution. Which he (and his handpicked Supreme Court) unceremoniously trampled all over.
If he runs, I'm becoming more confident he will lose, although with my track record that's probably a bad sign.
It's a case where what you hope will happen can seriously colour your predictions. But I find it hard to see how the January 6th mess would not put off some otherwise-Republican voters - and therefore a non-involved Republican candidate would do better. Especially if endorsed by Trump.
One thing is certain: if he runs, then the footage from January 6th will be played very, very frequently by the Dems.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Amusing to see he's blaming the voters for not supporting him. Very much a 'dissolve the people and elect another' moment.
I think his problem is that while there is a large minority of Alex Jones style nutcases in America, most Americans love one thing above all others - their constitution. Which he (and his handpicked Supreme Court) unceremoniously trampled all over.
If he runs, I'm becoming more confident he will lose, although with my track record that's probably a bad sign.
It's a case where what you hope will happen can seriously colour your predictions. But I find it hard to see how the January 6th mess would not put off some otherwise-Republican voters - and therefore a non-involved Republican candidate would do better. Especially if endorsed by Trump.
One thing is certain: if he runs, then the footage from January 6th will be played very, very frequently by the Dems.
There's no if about his running now. And he'll keep running until he's locked up - since it's probably his best hope of avoiding being charged with various crimes.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Amusing to see he's blaming the voters for not supporting him. Very much a 'dissolve the people and elect another' moment.
I think his problem is that while there is a large minority of Alex Jones style nutcases in America, most Americans love one thing above all others - their constitution. Which he (and his handpicked Supreme Court) unceremoniously trampled all over.
If he runs, I'm becoming more confident he will lose, although with my track record that's probably a bad sign.
It's a case where what you hope will happen can seriously colour your predictions. But I find it hard to see how the January 6th mess would not put off some otherwise-Republican voters - and therefore a non-involved Republican candidate would do better. Especially if endorsed by Trump.
One thing is certain: if he runs, then the footage from January 6th will be played very, very frequently by the Dems.
Hard to see how Trump wins over independents. We think of America as incredibly polarised between Dems and Republicans. Which holds true as long as the third force, the independents, don't break strongly one way.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think it works from both ends. Firstly his announcement was pretty widely trailed, and secondly just because he announced that he's going to run doesn't mean that he is; People will send him money for as long as he says he's running, and he'd rather have more money than less.
Morning all! Of course The Donald was going to run (despite my dream overnight of him announcing he wasn't). He wants to both avoid the various legal actions against him and reinforce the narrative that he was robbed.
Others will pile on for the Republicans other than just him and DeSantis. And Trump will skewer them all because there is much to skewer. As I said the other day, DeSantis "I am God's warrior" may play well for shitkicker states. But outside of those we have just seen a midterms where people have decided to vote against the rise of Gilead.
Does the GOP have anyone as sane as GWB who could run and actually win an election?
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think it works from both ends. Firstly his announcement was pretty widely trailed, and secondly just because he announced that he's going to run doesn't mean that he is; People will send him money for as long as he says he's running, and he'd rather have more money than less.
Isn’t it usually that candidates wait as long as possible before they announce they’re running, because various rules about campaign donations kick in after the formal announcement?
IIRC, someone who hasn’t said they’re running, can do whatever they like with donations received, whereas official campaigns are restricted to some extent on what they can and can’t do with the money - such as buy the candidate a house or invest in his business.
Yes, Qatari labour laws are well behind even the rest of the Middle East.
Also note the huge problem with local ‘agents’ from India, Banglasdesh and Nepal, where the authorities either don’t care or are paid off. There needs to be a large publicity campaign in those countries, to stop people paying gangsters for job opportunities abroad, and a clampdown on the activity.
This isnt just restricted to Qatar or even the Middle East - Singapore, Brunei etc are also complicit in this model of modern slavery oiled by middlemen and organisations across the world... its useful that its brought to light during World Cup but simply blaming Qatar and ignoring the wider piece is wrong. Those politicians who want to emulate Singapore's `success' dont talk about the million plus guys living in shipping containers and slums
It’s the same thing we see with the Channel migrants, many of whom have paid ‘agents’ a lot of money for their travel, and the ‘agents’ know their families ‘back home’.
I’ve lived in the UAE for 15 years now, and pretty much every year there’s a new labour law aimed at stopping abuse of employees. Workers have to be paid by the locally licenced company that sponsors their visa, directly into a local bank account. It’s illegal to take payments from workers for visas and transport. Domestic staff are only allowed to be employed by licenced agencies and not by individuals. Workers with certain qualifications are allowed to sponsor themselves for residence visas. There’s meaningful fines for industrial accidents that result in serious injury or death.
What they can’t do anything about, is the foreign gangsters terrorising families in other countries.
I have a somewhat pragmatic view on things like accommodation arrangements for workers, even the very worst of which are quite normal in the countries where these workers originate.
the accommodation is certainly an interesting debate, but when politicians extol the virtues of `Singapore on Thames' they tend to gloss over the actual blood, sweat and tears of the modern slaves, I don't recall seeing BJ strolling around the shacks and pools of sewage that surround building sites in Singapore when promoting the Island state's model.
Who has been extolling the virtues of “Singapore on Thames”? If I recall correctly, it’s a phrase that’s only even been used perjoratively by opponents of the UK’s exit from the EU.
There’s also been a lot of stories from the UK and EU, about both legal and illegal immigrants found living several to a room, dozens to a house. It’s not just a story in the quickly-developing parts of the world. No-one ever thinks about where the millions of minimum-wage immigrant workers in central London actually live.
PLenty of extolling of Singapore for decades by elements of the Right and Eurosceptics/Brexiters in terms of urging its replication here in the UK. The precise phrase "... on THames" may or may not be a different matter, but Swing Voter didn't use it.
OGH is absolutely right. Sunak should not defend Truss
Her career is over, he should put as much distance as he can from her disastrous time in office and just emphasis how he forecast what actually happened would happen.
Am I right in thinking that since you need a majority of votes cast, and there's no process to knock out the lower-ranked candidates, it's technically possible that they'd never actually be able to agree on a speaker and they spend the new two years casting inconclusive votes on it?
And given that the Republicans have vowed to vote for Biden’a candidates for any office. And the horrendous loons that the Republicans will probably nominate… it’s ripe for deadlock.
Yes. Now to find a market for that outcome.
Republicans are split, they may not like Kevin McCarthy or be able to agree on anyone else. The Speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House. The Dems could nominate a conservative right wing judge (non-loony version) and see what Republicans do.
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
Less Council Tax.
Council tax is seriously over rated.
Any polls on that ?
The time has come for the Liberal Democrat policy of yesteryear, the local income tax, to be seriously considered to replace this tax.
With Trump running the importance of those results in swing states were even more important .
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin , Arizona , Nevada all have Dems overseeing elections and certifying the results . As for the new GOP house members from NY they should enjoy the next two years because if Trumps on the ticket they’re toast next time.
Yes, Qatari labour laws are well behind even the rest of the Middle East.
Also note the huge problem with local ‘agents’ from India, Banglasdesh and Nepal, where the authorities either don’t care or are paid off. There needs to be a large publicity campaign in those countries, to stop people paying gangsters for job opportunities abroad, and a clampdown on the activity.
This isnt just restricted to Qatar or even the Middle East - Singapore, Brunei etc are also complicit in this model of modern slavery oiled by middlemen and organisations across the world... its useful that its brought to light during World Cup but simply blaming Qatar and ignoring the wider piece is wrong. Those politicians who want to emulate Singapore's `success' dont talk about the million plus guys living in shipping containers and slums
It’s the same thing we see with the Channel migrants, many of whom have paid ‘agents’ a lot of money for their travel, and the ‘agents’ know their families ‘back home’.
I’ve lived in the UAE for 15 years now, and pretty much every year there’s a new labour law aimed at stopping abuse of employees. Workers have to be paid by the locally licenced company that sponsors their visa, directly into a local bank account. It’s illegal to take payments from workers for visas and transport. Domestic staff are only allowed to be employed by licenced agencies and not by individuals. Workers with certain qualifications are allowed to sponsor themselves for residence visas. There’s meaningful fines for industrial accidents that result in serious injury or death.
What they can’t do anything about, is the foreign gangsters terrorising families in other countries.
I have a somewhat pragmatic view on things like accommodation arrangements for workers, even the very worst of which are quite normal in the countries where these workers originate.
the accommodation is certainly an interesting debate, but when politicians extol the virtues of `Singapore on Thames' they tend to gloss over the actual blood, sweat and tears of the modern slaves, I don't recall seeing BJ strolling around the shacks and pools of sewage that surround building sites in Singapore when promoting the Island state's model.
Who has been extolling the virtues of “Singapore on Thames”? If I recall correctly, it’s a phrase that’s only even been used perjoratively by opponents of the UK’s exit from the EU.
There’s also been a lot of stories from the UK and EU, about both legal and illegal immigrants found living several to a room, dozens to a house. It’s not just a story in the quickly-developing parts of the world. No-one ever thinks about where the millions of minimum-wage immigrant workers in central London actually live.
Singapore on Thames is an odd description anyway. A highly regulated, authoritarian state where most people live in public housing and are directed in their daily lives by a pretty intrusive government. Not exactly a libertarian Tory paradise.
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
Less Council Tax.
Council tax is seriously over rated.
Any polls on that ?
The time has come for the Liberal Democrat policy of yesteryear, the local income tax, to be seriously considered to replace this tax.
I don't remember the policy, but how did it cope with the fact that areas that need public spending most (i.e. poorer ones) have by definition the lowest levels of income, so local income tax will raise less?
Personally I think a simple fix would be to add several higher bands. It's ridiculous that a billionaire pays the same as a fairly average London flat-owner, when saif billionaire won't even notice if the council tax rises. Also, triple the tax on properties that have been empty for money than a year, so the foreign investors who are holding property as a safe place to keep their money without actually trying to let it out or use it are suitably discouraged.
Yes, Qatari labour laws are well behind even the rest of the Middle East.
Also note the huge problem with local ‘agents’ from India, Banglasdesh and Nepal, where the authorities either don’t care or are paid off. There needs to be a large publicity campaign in those countries, to stop people paying gangsters for job opportunities abroad, and a clampdown on the activity.
This isnt just restricted to Qatar or even the Middle East - Singapore, Brunei etc are also complicit in this model of modern slavery oiled by middlemen and organisations across the world... its useful that its brought to light during World Cup but simply blaming Qatar and ignoring the wider piece is wrong. Those politicians who want to emulate Singapore's `success' dont talk about the million plus guys living in shipping containers and slums
It’s the same thing we see with the Channel migrants, many of whom have paid ‘agents’ a lot of money for their travel, and the ‘agents’ know their families ‘back home’.
I’ve lived in the UAE for 15 years now, and pretty much every year there’s a new labour law aimed at stopping abuse of employees. Workers have to be paid by the locally licenced company that sponsors their visa, directly into a local bank account. It’s illegal to take payments from workers for visas and transport. Domestic staff are only allowed to be employed by licenced agencies and not by individuals. Workers with certain qualifications are allowed to sponsor themselves for residence visas. There’s meaningful fines for industrial accidents that result in serious injury or death.
What they can’t do anything about, is the foreign gangsters terrorising families in other countries.
I have a somewhat pragmatic view on things like accommodation arrangements for workers, even the very worst of which are quite normal in the countries where these workers originate.
the accommodation is certainly an interesting debate, but when politicians extol the virtues of `Singapore on Thames' they tend to gloss over the actual blood, sweat and tears of the modern slaves, I don't recall seeing BJ strolling around the shacks and pools of sewage that surround building sites in Singapore when promoting the Island state's model.
Who has been extolling the virtues of “Singapore on Thames”? If I recall correctly, it’s a phrase that’s only even been used perjoratively by opponents of the UK’s exit from the EU.
There’s also been a lot of stories from the UK and EU, about both legal and illegal immigrants found living several to a room, dozens to a house. It’s not just a story in the quickly-developing parts of the world. No-one ever thinks about where the millions of minimum-wage immigrant workers in central London actually live.
Singapore on Thames is an odd description anyway. A highly regulated, authoritarian state where most people live in public housing and are directed in their daily lives by a pretty intrusive government. Not exactly a libertarian Tory paradise.
Advocates of it are primarily interested in the deregulated nature of it. An opportunity to fleece the lower orders and make a packet for themselves.
Doesn't matter much any more. They finally achieved office and it lasted 50 days. They won't achieve office again.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Have you seen "4 Hours at the Capitol" on Netflix? Amazing. Doesn't really go into the whys and wherefores save to interview plenty of Proud Boys talking about DJT as though he is the Messiah. I listened to that clip of Jon Voight the other day and it was a similar thing.
He has certainly transcended the status of mere 'politician' among people who look like Hulk Hogan and Bridget Everett.
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
I think Dura, and hence many others, said he would run just about as soon as the votes had been counted last time round.
I thought he would run due to his legal troubles, not despite of them. It's much easier to make any prosecutions for Jan 6th or his alleged financial shenanigans appear a political endeavour if he's still actively running.
Amusing to see he's blaming the voters for not supporting him. Very much a 'dissolve the people and elect another' moment.
I think his problem is that while there is a large minority of Alex Jones style nutcases in America, most Americans love one thing above all others - their constitution. Which he (and his handpicked Supreme Court) unceremoniously trampled all over.
If he runs, I'm becoming more confident he will lose, although with my track record that's probably a bad sign.
It's a case where what you hope will happen can seriously colour your predictions. But I find it hard to see how the January 6th mess would not put off some otherwise-Republican voters - and therefore a non-involved Republican candidate would do better. Especially if endorsed by Trump.
One thing is certain: if he runs, then the footage from January 6th will be played very, very frequently by the Dems.
The trouble is that this stuff gradually ages. "Are you still going on about that, why don't you suggest policies to help ordinary Americans?" will be quite an effective counter in 2024. Also a warning to Labour - ranting on about Liz Truss will not really work in 2024 unless Sunak fails to fix things - though it's harder for a governing party to escape the consequences of blunders.
I borrowed 7 grand at 4.7% the other day. Should probably have gone for more
I owe the bank £26k for my kitchen borrowed at 3.8% and my mortgage is currently on a 2 year fix (expires Dec 23) at 0.92% so.. painful for them now, and for me when my mortgage rolls over.
FYI, here's a chart of the latest CPI #inflation rates across Europe... 👇
The UK's 11.1% is roughly in the middle of the pack, slightly higher than the euro area average of 10.7%, but this difference is small compared to the wide spread within the EU itself.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed to a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
Biden is having a good week. Coming over authoritative, calm and in command of the situation.
He is going to run in 2024, no doubt in my mind.
He will be 86 at the end of his second term. I can see that being an even bigger issue in 2024 than it is now.
I borrowed 7 grand at 4.7% the other day. Should probably have gone for more
I owe the bank £26k for my kitchen borrowed at 3.8% and my mortgage is currently on a 2 year fix (expires Dec 23) at 0.92% so.. painful for them now, and for me when my mortgage rolls over.
Not so painful for them tbh - they'll have borrowed at less to match the fix.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed to a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
Biden is having a good week. Coming over authoritative, calm and in command of the situation.
He is going to run in 2024, no doubt in my mind.
He will be 86 at the end of his second term. I can see that being an even bigger issue in 2024 than it is now.
If he's up against Trump the age issue won't work.
Qataris don't give much of a shit about H&S or human rights.
As far as they're concerned its expensive and time-consuming and could set a precedent of entitlement that might lead to workers getting above their station.
Their attitude is that if one worker dies or is injured they'll just get another.
It was pathetic "when did you stop beating your wife" style "journalism", all to try and get clicks for a headline of "PM won't apologise". Not serious a interview line of inquiry. Everybody knows that Sunak explicitly and repeatedly laid out why Truss plan was a bad idea during the leadership election (and he was proved correct).
The real question(s) should be ok, you got the steering wheel now, what you going to do and why.
I don't think Rigby articulated it particularly well, but the underlying question is an important one, which Sunak didn't answer satisfactorily.
So he can say the Trussterfuck had nothing to do with him, he's in charge now, he will do things differently. So let's move on.
It implies he doesn't really think it a problem, but as Rigby pointed out people will lose their houses, no longer have access to essential services as a result. And it is his government that caused these bad outcomes that he has no intention of fixing.
Today's inflation rise is entirely on the BoE dragging their feet on raising interest rates earlier this year and dithering with 0.25% and 0.5% rises rather than using the big bazooka earlier.
At the time I said that the 25bp rises would be inflationary and so it has come to pass. We're all going to suffer an extra 6-9 months of higher inflation and interest rates than was necessary because Bailey and the MPC fucked it up. The markets called it right, the BoE fucked up.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed for a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
And I think you're not really reading what people are saying, and are just thinking what you want people to be saying.
@Nigelb: "set against our panic about armageddon last night."
I just said I missed it are you calling our Nige a fabricator?
I was referring to your Musk/Twitter comment.
As it happens, I don't think any of your 'analysis' of the Ukrainian situation has been very accurate.
As it happens I haven't really made any analysis of the Ukrainian situation beyond telling dolts like you not to bring your immensely knowledgeable military analytics into play based upon a 30-second twitter clip.
You have been highly negative about Ukraine's chances. And speaking for myself; I have never claimed "immensely knowledgeable military analytics"; in fact, I frequently put things like IANAE in my posts. I also link to sources.
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
Sober discussion of events plus humour and gentle teasing are all parts of PB that we should value. Where it becomes tiresome is when posters start to stick labels on each other - X is a Putinist, Y is a warmonger, Z is a troll. They always make me want to side with the target (unless they obviously ARE trolls). There's room for more than one view, and since we're all just spectators and mostly anonymous it just muddies the debate when we slag each other off.
Qataris don't give much of a shit about H&S or human rights.
As far as they're concerned its expensive and time-consuming and could set a precedent of entitlement that might lead to workers getting above their station.
Their attitude is that if one worker dies or is injured they'll just get another.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed to a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
Biden is having a good week. Coming over authoritative, calm and in command of the situation.
He is going to run in 2024, no doubt in my mind.
He will be 86 at the end of his second term. I can see that being an even bigger issue in 2024 than it is now.
It will be an issue, but it won’t stop him running. Particularly now that Trump has announced.
Biden’s whole campaign message in 2020 was he was stepping into the breach because he thought he was the best candidate to beat Trump. I think he sincerely believes that, and he will still believe it in 2024.
If he was proving to be an electoral disaster, there may be some more doubts. But he has just delivered a decent midterm performance. That will reinforce his world view.
He is also now having his presidency re-evaluated in a more positive light. On Ukraine, he has been pretty spot on. If things continue to go well, he will get significant kudos from handling that situation with maturity and experience.
No matter his age, he is favoured to beat Trump IMHO. The Democrats have a message and a strategy that gets them through in enough places that matter. The big question is what happens if Trump fails to be the nominee - and in that scenario Biden will start on the back foot.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Economic growth isn't within the BoE remit. It's that kind of muddled thinking which has resulted in this high inflation environment. The Bank's job is to keep inflation at 2%, nothing more. It's the government's job to keep the economy going and figuring out how to do that with interest rates at ~4% rather than ~1%. If the BoE had pushed rates up faster our inflation rate would be much lower today and we'd be talking about a timetable to cut rates at the end of next year. As it is I don't see rate cuts arriving until mid 2024 at least.
It was pathetic "when did you stop beating your wife" style "journalism", all to try and get clicks for a headline of "PM won't apologise". Not serious a interview line of inquiry. Everybody knows that Sunak explicitly and repeatedly laid out why Truss plan was a bad idea during the leadership election (and he was proved correct).
The real question(s) should be ok, you got the steering wheel now, what you going to do and why.
I don't think Rigby articulated it particularly well, but the underlying question is an important one, which Sunak didn't answer satisfactorily.
So he can say the Trussterfuck had nothing to do with him, he's in charge now, he will do things differently. So let's move on.
It implies he doesn't really think it a problem, but as Rigby pointed out people will lose their houses, no longer have access to essential services as a result. And it is his government that caused these bad outcomes that he has no intention of fixing.
Sunak's obviously not going to apologise but he could acknowledge the problem and show some empathy for those affected. An organisation's responsibility for things going wrong doesn't end because the CEO has been changed. Leadership is about taking that responsibility onto yourself.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
R4 Today this morning including lots from NI. On NHS, in NI their funding is the best in the UK, their outcomes the worst. While everyone blamed someone else as usual, the trope continues that the NHS as such is never responsible for anything bad, only for good stuff.
It would be great if the BBC could just untangle the strands a bit given its reputation for reliable reporting. Apart from anything else the predictability of the reporting is amazingly dull and turgid.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Economic growth isn't within the BoE remit. It's that kind of muddled thinking which has resulted in this high inflation environment. The Bank's job is to keep inflation at 2%, nothing more. It's the government's job to keep the economy going and figuring out how to do that with interest rates at ~4% rather than ~1%. If the BoE had pushed rates up faster our inflation rate would be much lower today and we'd be talking about a timetable to cut rates at the end of next year. As it is I don't see rate cuts arriving until mid 2024 at least.
Indeed. Look at the stark contrast with the Fed in the US, who have raised rates sharply to counter inflation, and even they are accused of acting too slowly. Inflation there is working itself out (although they don’t have the same shortages of energy seen in Europe), and rates could possibly be falling by the end of next year. They also don’t have the same issues of short-term mortgage fixes, most American mortgages being on 10-year or even lifetime fixed rates.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
No they don't. The BoE remit is to keep CPI inflation at 2%. Their stability remit is in respect of market stability, not economic stability. The latter is wholly up to the government. One thing Kwasi got right was reminding the BoE that it's remit was to keep inflation at target, not make economic pronouncements every 5 minutes.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
I am very sceptical about the 'living wage'. Two incomes at the living wage (At £10.40 per hour) is a household take home pay of £3000 per month. In most cases this is going to far exceed likely household expenditure. It seems to me that the problems in the UK relate mainly to housing costs which is a problem that is concentrated very heavily in the South. By creating a 'one size fits all' solution you end up driving inflation without tackling the underlying problem.
I don't think that's take home pay, I think that's pre-tax, pre-National Insurance.
40 hours x £10.40 x 4 = £1,650 x 2 = £3,300.
Less 13.25% employees NIC contributions. Less 20% on the £7,230/year above the tax free rate (each). So that's about £241 of income tax per month, and £437 of National Insurance, which brings you down to £2,621/month.
Less Council Tax.
Council tax is seriously over rated.
Any polls on that ?
The time has come for the Liberal Democrat policy of yesteryear, the local income tax, to be seriously considered to replace this tax.
I don't remember the policy, but how did it cope with the fact that areas that need public spending most (i.e. poorer ones) have by definition the lowest levels of income, so local income tax will raise less?
Personally I think a simple fix would be to add several higher bands. It's ridiculous that a billionaire pays the same as a fairly average London flat-owner, when saif billionaire won't even notice if the council tax rises. Also, triple the tax on properties that have been empty for money than a year, so the foreign investors who are holding property as a safe place to keep their money without actually trying to let it out or use it are suitably discouraged.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
No they don't. The BoE remit is to keep CPI inflation at 2%. Their stability remit is in respect of market stability, not economic stability. The latter is wholly up to the government. One thing Kwasi got right was reminding the BoE that it's remit was to keep inflation at target, not make economic pronouncements every 5 minutes.
It says "In accordance with the Act, I also confirm that the government’s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to help keep the cost of living low for families."
The duty of the Bank is to facilitate that objective and it is doing the reverse.
Qataris don't give much of a shit about H&S or human rights.
As far as they're concerned its expensive and time-consuming and could set a precedent of entitlement that might lead to workers getting above their station.
Their attitude is that if one worker dies or is injured they'll just get another.
Wonder when Hinkley C will resume.
There'll be a stand down for a few days/weeks whilst the investigation is conducted and procedures changed.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Do you really think it's the BoE that has caused this high inflation through low interest rates?
It seems to me that the war in Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the pandemic disrupting supply chains are the main cause.
The question is not whether trans-people are more likely to offend. There is no evidence at all that this is so. The question is whether there is a risk that offenders *who are not trans* will abuse the system in order to further their predation. There clearly is.
Although to be clear, trans people show similar offending rates to their biological sex, rather than that of their acquired gender. And the problem with the SG approach is that as more and more male sex offenders claim to be trans (it’s happening already) the stats will go to hell in a handcart. It will probably show a jump in “female” offending.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Do you really think it's the BoE that has caused this high inflation through low interest rates?
It seems to me that the war in Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the pandemic disrupting supply chains are the main cause.
I agree that is the main cause, which is why we are only slightly above the EU average as @CarlottaVance helpfully pointed out. But yes, I think incompetence in monetary policy has added to the inflationary pressures rather than diminishing them. I agree with @MaxPB that interest rates were too low. I do not agree that an overreaction now in the opposite direction is the duty of the Bank.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed to a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
Biden is having a good week. Coming over authoritative, calm and in command of the situation.
He is going to run in 2024, no doubt in my mind.
He will be 86 at the end of his second term. I can see that being an even bigger issue in 2024 than it is now.
If he's up against Trump the age issue won't work.
Reps slight favs for the 2024 presidency. I'd have it the other way round but even at odds against I'm not tempted two years out.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
No they don't. The BoE remit is to keep CPI inflation at 2%. Their stability remit is in respect of market stability, not economic stability. The latter is wholly up to the government. One thing Kwasi got right was reminding the BoE that it's remit was to keep inflation at target, not make economic pronouncements every 5 minutes.
It says "In accordance with the Act, I also confirm that the government’s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to help keep the cost of living low for families."
The duty of the Bank is to facilitate that objective and it is doing the reverse.
The government's remit is strong economic growth. The bank's remit is the 2% inflation target (price stability) and market stability (financial stability). That's what the letter says. It has no remit to care about anything beyond that and recognition that both of those factors feed into economic growth. The BoE has, for some reason, decided to give a shit about economic growth and that's meant it decided not to raise interest rates for fear of a recession/housing market crash and now it's completely lost sight if the 2% CPI target.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Do you really think it's the BoE that has caused this high inflation through low interest rates?
It seems to me that the war in Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the pandemic disrupting supply chains are the main cause.
I think they have made them higher by not acting harder and faster. (A bit like covid lockdowns). The main causes are external, hence this is happening everywhere, but what little control they have they failed to use to the max.
Incidentally, does anything Biden said discount it having been a missile fired from Belarussian territory?
No, I don’t think so. But note the methodical, patient response, set against our panic about armegeddon last night.
Shame that I missed that last night. Were a lot of people quoting things from Twitter.
Many on PB can't make their minds up whether Twitter is doomed to a Friends Reunited extinction event, now that Musk has bought it, or remains the fount of all knowledge wherein every tweet is a hotline to the minds of presidents and prime ministers.
And speaking of hotlines, Biden's categoric response to the Polish issue suggests strongly that the back channels between the US and Russia (which we learned of officially recently) are in fully functioning mode.
Biden is having a good week. Coming over authoritative, calm and in command of the situation.
He is going to run in 2024, no doubt in my mind.
He will be 86 at the end of his second term. I can see that being an even bigger issue in 2024 than it is now.
If he's up against Trump the age issue won't work.
Reps slight favs for the 2024 presidency. I'd have it the other way round but even at odds against I'm not tempted two years out.
It depends an awful lot on the candidates. Any Republican bar Trump should be favourite against Biden, but the incumbent likely beats the previous holder of the office. Of course, Biden could stand aside and there be a Dem primary season, which would likely be chaos as everyone tries to stop the very unpopular Harris.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Why is a prolonged period of low to no growth preferable to a sharp recession that allows problems to be rectified and a period of growth to begin afterwards?
The troubled country that handed the GFC best was Iceland which allowed the recession to burnout and bust companies to fail rather than kept indefinitely on life support with taxpayers money. Following that a prolonged period of decent growth followed, rather than stagnation. Stagnation is not a positive thing.
Too many people think the Government and now the Bank is responsible for preventing the economic cycle, or disease, or any negatives whatsoever. If a recession is called for, then its unpleasant and the Government should offer safety nets, but breaking the economy by preventing it and ensuring a prolonged period of no growth is not a better alternative.
“The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 9.6% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 8.8% in September 2022.
The largest upward contributions to the annual CPIH inflation rate in October 2022 came from housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), food and non-alcoholic beverages, and transport (principally motor fuels).
On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 1.6% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 0.9% in October 2021. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in the 12 months to October 2022, up from 10.1% in September 2022.
On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 2.0% in October 2022, compared with a rise of 1.1% in October 2021.
Despite the introduction of the government's Energy Price Guarantee, gas and electricity prices made the largest upward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between September and October 2022.
Rising food prices also made a large upward contribution to change with transport (principally motor fuels and second-hand car prices) making the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution to the change in the rates.”
It appears that once again the BoE has underestimated the inflation they let rip with excessively low interest rates and QE. They are now seeking to cancel what was effectively additional QE when they helped out pension funds with liquidity issues along with their reversals of QE. There is a serious risk of the Bank overshooting here and causing a sharp recession, as opposed to a prolonged period of low to no growth.
Do you really think it's the BoE that has caused this high inflation through low interest rates?
It seems to me that the war in Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the pandemic disrupting supply chains are the main cause.
I agree that is the main cause, which is why we are only slightly above the EU average as @CarlottaVance helpfully pointed out. But yes, I think incompetence in monetary policy has added to the inflationary pressures rather than diminishing them. I agree with @MaxPB that interest rates were too low. I do not agree that an overreaction now in the opposite direction is the duty of the Bank.
Fair enough.
I'm sceptical that there's much the Bank of England could do given the current circumstances and the massive swings in policy we have seen from the government. I mean over the past month or so the govt has announced enormous spending increases, tax cuts, and now large spending cuts and big tax rises.
Other things being equal, I expect gradual rate rises/declines are more conducive to stability than significant jumps.
The question is not whether trans-people are more likely to offend. There is no evidence at all that this is so. The question is whether there is a risk that offenders *who are not trans* will abuse the system in order to further their predation. There clearly is.
Although to be clear, trans people show similar offending rates to their biological sex, rather than that of their acquired gender. And the problem with the SG approach is that as more and more male sex offenders claim to be trans (it’s happening already) the stats will go to hell in a handcart. It will probably show a jump in “female” offending.
Yes, quite. This is what is so sinister about the whole "deadnaming" thing. There is no way of establishing that the bloke playing NZ women's rugby is a bloke because her biography starts with her first rugby appearance at age 21.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
No they don't. The BoE remit is to keep CPI inflation at 2%. Their stability remit is in respect of market stability, not economic stability. The latter is wholly up to the government. One thing Kwasi got right was reminding the BoE that it's remit was to keep inflation at target, not make economic pronouncements every 5 minutes.
It says "In accordance with the Act, I also confirm that the government’s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to help keep the cost of living low for families."
The duty of the Bank is to facilitate that objective and it is doing the reverse.
The government's remit is strong economic growth. The bank's remit is the 2% inflation target (price stability) and market stability (financial stability). That's what the letter says. It has no remit to care about anything beyond that and recognition that both of those factors feed into economic growth. The BoE has, for some reason, decided to give a shit about economic growth and that's meant it decided not to raise interest rates for fear of a recession/housing market crash and now it's completely lost sight if the 2% CPI target.
It's supposed to be a team effort. To quote the next paragraph of the letter: "Monetary policy has played a critical role in supporting the economy in its strong recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the monetary policy framework remains a central pillar of the government’s macroeconomic strategy. As life continues to return to normal, monetary policy will remain vital in supporting businesses and households by ensuring inflation returns sustainably to target in the medium term."
Monetary policy is of course the responsibility of the Bank. The idea that the Bank is to have a laser focus on inflation and be totally indifferent to the effect of its policies in the real world would be absolutely bonkers if it had been put in place. But, of course, it wasn't.
The trouble is that this stuff gradually ages. "Are you still going on about that, why don't you suggest policies to help ordinary Americans?" will be quite an effective counter in 2024. Also a warning to Labour - ranting on about Liz Truss will not really work in 2024 unless Sunak fails to fix things - though it's harder for a governing party to escape the consequences of blunders.
Yes, I would hope that 2024 Labour are not talking about Truss specifically, but they will probably have enough ingredients to spin a coherent narrative of economic woe and failure from here to there...
The £30 billion guesstimate is as spurious as such numbers generally are.
A far bigger scandal, and one much easier to cost, is the £60 billion wasted on paying mostly perfectly healthy people to sunbathe in 2020. And the billions wasted on exortionately priced PPE equipment and the unnecessary damage to children's education by closing schools and so on.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
No they don't. The BoE remit is to keep CPI inflation at 2%. Their stability remit is in respect of market stability, not economic stability. The latter is wholly up to the government. One thing Kwasi got right was reminding the BoE that it's remit was to keep inflation at target, not make economic pronouncements every 5 minutes.
It says "In accordance with the Act, I also confirm that the government’s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to help keep the cost of living low for families."
The duty of the Bank is to facilitate that objective and it is doing the reverse.
The government's remit is strong economic growth. The bank's remit is the 2% inflation target (price stability) and market stability (financial stability). That's what the letter says. It has no remit to care about anything beyond that and recognition that both of those factors feed into economic growth. The BoE has, for some reason, decided to give a shit about economic growth and that's meant it decided not to raise interest rates for fear of a recession/housing market crash and now it's completely lost sight if the 2% CPI target.
It's supposed to be a team effort. To quote the next paragraph of the letter: "Monetary policy has played a critical role in supporting the economy in its strong recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the monetary policy framework remains a central pillar of the government’s macroeconomic strategy. As life continues to return to normal, monetary policy will remain vital in supporting businesses and households by ensuring inflation returns sustainably to target in the medium term."
Monetary policy is of course the responsibility of the Bank. The idea that the Bank is to have a laser focus on inflation and be totally indifferent to the effect of its policies in the real world would be absolutely bonkers if it had been put in place. But, of course, it wasn't.
No, it's a recognition that the two bits of their remit (price and financial stability) feed into the economic picture but it's the government's job to fix the economy, not the Bank's. These are just words to make it sound nice that the BoE doesn't have economic growth in the remit (which is why Truss and Kwasi had the idea to give them a nominal GDP remit rather than inflation).
Trump's odds don't seem to have moved much following his announcement to run. Must have been pretty much fully priced in that he would.
They haven't, no. Because his run was priced in, yes, but also because of the pisspoor event. Just an hour waffling on at Del Al Mango instead of what people were expecting - something in big primary colours at Madison Sq Garden or something with music and fireworks and an all star guest list, maybe a warm up speech by Farage and a song from Kanye. Or the other way around even. So my plan to lay him more for the WH has been foiled. In from 5.8 to 5.5 - not enough to trigger an addition to the Big Short.
I don't think I was more disappointed by anyone as I was by his fall. He started off genuinely attempting to inform and educate (as his doctorate is in education (not science or medicine), he was very good at that), but when things slowed down in 2021 and we were obviously coming out of the emergency situation and his views started to fall off, he leaned into the nuttier conspiracy theories (Ivermectin! Hydroxochloroquine! They're concealing the truth!) when he fell for the ivermectin scam and saw how his views leapt up.
And Campbell Teaching Ltd (Company number 12694554) got more money when he leant into that. And the ivermectin suckers were almost all antivaxxers, so he went directly back on his principles (he even covered many of the scams and misinformation tactics of the antivaxxers in his earlier videos) and went full antivaxxer.
(There was one guy who put together Campbell's earlier "this is the misinformation they try" with specific examples of him doing exactly those misinformation tricks word-for-word).
He now appears at the antivaxxer conferences and is a reliable source of whichever disinformation is to be pushed by them. For some people, I guess there's a point of test in their life when their integrity and principles face a big deal of money, and some fail that test.
When I was fresh in the workplace I had a boss who told me “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions”. Employees whining to Musk in public forums obviously never learnt this lesson. There’s extensive info about his management style. He has a thin skin for criticism he sees as baseless or obstructive. Come to him in the right way with a solution to a problem and he’ll promote you on the spot and give you a team to execute the plan.
This in large part explains why gross margins at Tesla are industry leading, ditto SpaceX with launch costs.
@MaxPB I am having trouble with the reply function this morning. The Bank also have a duty to ensure stability in the economy and they run the risk of causing unnecessary zig zags as they firstly kept interest rates too low and now risk tightening monetary policy too much, too quickly. It is pretty clumsy work and makes Hunt's job on the fiscal side even more difficult.
No they don't. The BoE remit is to keep CPI inflation at 2%. Their stability remit is in respect of market stability, not economic stability. The latter is wholly up to the government. One thing Kwasi got right was reminding the BoE that it's remit was to keep inflation at target, not make economic pronouncements every 5 minutes.
It says "In accordance with the Act, I also confirm that the government’s economic policy objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to help keep the cost of living low for families."
The duty of the Bank is to facilitate that objective and it is doing the reverse.
The government's remit is strong economic growth. The bank's remit is the 2% inflation target (price stability) and market stability (financial stability). That's what the letter says. It has no remit to care about anything beyond that and recognition that both of those factors feed into economic growth. The BoE has, for some reason, decided to give a shit about economic growth and that's meant it decided not to raise interest rates for fear of a recession/housing market crash and now it's completely lost sight if the 2% CPI target.
It's supposed to be a team effort. To quote the next paragraph of the letter: "Monetary policy has played a critical role in supporting the economy in its strong recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the monetary policy framework remains a central pillar of the government’s macroeconomic strategy. As life continues to return to normal, monetary policy will remain vital in supporting businesses and households by ensuring inflation returns sustainably to target in the medium term."
Monetary policy is of course the responsibility of the Bank. The idea that the Bank is to have a laser focus on inflation and be totally indifferent to the effect of its policies in the real world would be absolutely bonkers if it had been put in place. But, of course, it wasn't.
No, it's a recognition that the two bits of their remit (price and financial stability) feed into the economic picture but it's the government's job to fix the economy, not the Bank's. These are just words to make it sound nice that the BoE doesn't have economic growth in the remit (which is why Truss and Kwasi had the idea to give them a nominal GDP remit rather than inflation).
"The Bank of England Act 1998 (“the Act”) came into effect on 1 June 1998. The Act states that in relation to monetary policy, the objectives of the Bank of England shall be: a. to maintain price stability; and b. subject to that, to support the economic policy of Her Majesty’s Government, including its objectives for growth and employment. "
It is the objective of the Bank of England to support the economic policy of the government, subject to maintaining price stability. So economic growth is definitely in their remit.
Comments
I know you're an ex-military man; but perhaps, just perhaps, you've not really immensely knowledgeable on what's going on? In the same way that I, as an ex-software engineer, would not really be able to design a good computer chip.
PB is a place where we discuss news, and it is also a place where people try to predict the future (the 'betting' bit). If you have problems with that, the issues are with you.
Or was it a Freudian slip and they referred to all the violent actions that led to bloodshed?
And I understand it. You are nervous; we all are and hence you wish for and articulate a particular outcome as it gives you comfort. Same with Barty.
We are spectators in the war, you and I (and Bart) and of course you can speculate and wishcast but I don't see what value it has. When you bet on a UK political issue (as per the site's original purpose) it is based upon a scintilla of understanding of the situation. The Ukraine war, not so much.
A calm, steady, head.
I'm glad that he has been talking with President Xi too. We need more level-headed pragmatism.
I am trying to think of a time when it wouldn't be true, and I can't. Maybe if somebody nukes the Capitol it would help if Trump were among the dead and Biden were somewhere safely a long way away. But not otherwise.
https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1592701068995084290?t=UN6Zpk3SbwyJLOgNy4JxoA&s=19
You're right though.
But this led to a second problem - just doing that wouldn’t have provided enough *development* money for the big companies involved. So every piece is actually new, or completely redesigned.
Thirdly, it was done on cost plus - whatever the cost and we’ll stack some profit on top. 20% aerospace inflation baked in.
An actual mission would have interrupted all of the above.
This is how we ended up with a rocket where the engines are reworked RS-25 (Space Shuttle) engines. Reworked at a cost of 100 million per engine. Reworked to be thrown away on every flight. The boosters are even funnier - ATK (as they were at the time) said that they would quit the booster building business and increase the cost of all their military solid rockets, if they weren’t given a development contract for a new booster design. Straight up blackmail.
This is how you get a rocket that cost North of 2 billion a launch, launches a max of once a year. And has some interesting features regarding vibration. The max flight rate means that it is pretty much useless for any sustained project. Which is why the Artemis program (Moon landings) needs to use another rocket, as well, to fill the gap. Built by….
I am not particularly nervous - I think Leon's disaster-mongering is fairly pathetic. The world will muddle through this crisis. But I do want Ukraine to 'win', as the risks of a 'loss' are far greater IMO. It's not about 'comfort'; it's about realising that the edge of the precipice lies beyond a Russian victory.
And the Ukraine war *is* about politics; in fact, it is possibly the most political war since 1991, with a vast array of countries (bigger than GW1?) trying to help Ukraine without making matters worse. Just in terms of American politics, it is likely that an ongoing war will be a major issue in a Trump vs Biden election. So yes, it is worthy of discussion on here. And UK politics is involved as well.
As for the geopolitical implication of the Ukraine war well of course. We have a former superpower invading a country it thinks for whatever reason is a part of that superpower. Every country and alliance will be involved and if you think you have a handle on the dynamics of it all then please do carry on giving us betting tips. I'm all ears.
And as for the March/April posts again, I'm pretty sure I simply counselled against conflict analysis via Twitter and noted that whatever the state of Russia's military, or Ukraine's, war was slow, messy, uncertain, and unpredictable.
You and the others meanwhile saw one video clip of a platoon attack and called the outcome of the war on February 27th.
F1: for those wondering, apparently Verstappen refused to let Perez past due to 'revenge' over the Mexican allegedly crasing deliberately in Monaco qualifying.
Hmm.
There’s also been a lot of stories from the UK and EU, about both legal and illegal immigrants found living several to a room, dozens to a house. It’s not just a story in the quickly-developing parts of the world. No-one ever thinks about where the millions of minimum-wage immigrant workers in central London actually live.
I think his problem is that while there is a large minority of Alex Jones style nutcases in America, most Americans love one thing above all others - their constitution. Which he (and his handpicked Supreme Court) unceremoniously trampled all over.
If he runs, I'm becoming more confident he will lose, although with my track record that's probably a bad sign.
Others will pile on for the Republicans other than just him and DeSantis. And Trump will skewer them all because there is much to skewer. As I said the other day, DeSantis "I am God's warrior" may play well for shitkicker states. But outside of those we have just seen a midterms where people have decided to vote against the rise of Gilead.
Does the GOP have anyone as sane as GWB who could run and actually win an election?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives_election#Process_and_conventions
Am I right in thinking that since you need a majority of votes cast, and there's no process to knock out the lower-ranked candidates, it's technically possible that they'd never actually be able to agree on a speaker and they spend the new two years casting inconclusive votes on it?
"You and the others meanwhile saw one video clip of a platoon attack and called the outcome of the war on February 27th."
That's wrong in my case. Early on, my stated position was that even if Russia win, Ukraine would be a free state within a few decades, as happened when the USSR dissolved. From memory, that changed with the morbid hilarity of the Kyiv convoy of indeterminate length. At that point it was clear that there were deep structural issues within the Russian military - issues that I'd read had been 'solved' since their involvement in Syria, but had not.
I don't think I've ever said that the war was anything other than slow, messy, uncertain and unpredictable. Even recently I've said that Russia could still 'win' (though I'd always counsel that you need to define 'win').
I look forward to you telling us what other topics we can discuss on here.
Yes. Now to find a market for that outcome.
It was by no means viewed as a certainty by punters - Betfair had a market on it.
One thing is certain: if he runs, then the footage from January 6th will be played very, very frequently by the Dems.
And he'll keep running until he's locked up - since it's probably his best hope of avoiding being charged with various crimes.
IIRC, someone who hasn’t said they’re running, can do whatever they like with donations received, whereas official campaigns are restricted to some extent on what they can and can’t do with the money - such as buy the candidate a house or invest in his business.
PLenty of extolling of Singapore for decades by elements of the Right and Eurosceptics/Brexiters in terms of urging its replication here in the UK. The precise phrase "... on THames" may or may not be a different matter, but Swing Voter didn't use it.
Her career is over, he should put as much distance as he can from her disastrous time in office and just emphasis how he forecast what actually happened would happen.
The Speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House. The Dems could nominate a conservative right wing judge (non-loony version) and see what Republicans do.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin , Arizona , Nevada all have Dems overseeing elections and certifying the results . As for the new GOP house members from NY they should enjoy the next two years because if Trumps on the ticket they’re toast next time.
https://www.flightradar24.com/KRH646P/2e3a51c5
Personally I think a simple fix would be to add several higher bands. It's ridiculous that a billionaire pays the same as a fairly average London flat-owner, when saif billionaire won't even notice if the council tax rises. Also, triple the tax on properties that have been empty for money than a year, so the foreign investors who are holding property as a safe place to keep their money without actually trying to let it out or use it are suitably discouraged.
Doesn't matter much any more. They finally achieved office and it lasted 50 days. They won't achieve office again.
The UK's 11.1% is roughly in the middle of the pack, slightly higher than the euro area average of 10.7%, but this difference is small compared to the wide spread within the EU itself.
https://twitter.com/julianHjessop/status/1592791180663607296
As far as they're concerned its expensive and time-consuming and could set a precedent of entitlement that might lead to workers getting above their station.
Their attitude is that if one worker dies or is injured they'll just get another.
So he can say the Trussterfuck had nothing to do with him, he's in charge now, he will do things differently. So let's move on.
It implies he doesn't really think it a problem, but as Rigby pointed out people will lose their houses, no longer have access to essential services as a result. And it is his government that caused these bad outcomes that he has no intention of fixing.
At the time I said that the 25bp rises would be inflationary and so it has come to pass. We're all going to suffer an extra 6-9 months of higher inflation and interest rates than was necessary because Bailey and the MPC fucked it up. The markets called it right, the BoE fucked up.
Biden’s whole campaign message in 2020 was he was stepping into the breach because he thought he was the best candidate to beat Trump. I think he sincerely believes that, and he will still believe it in 2024.
If he was proving to be an electoral disaster, there may be some more doubts. But he has just delivered a decent midterm performance. That will reinforce his world view.
He is also now having his presidency re-evaluated in a more positive light. On Ukraine, he has been pretty spot on. If things continue to go well, he will get significant kudos from handling that situation with maturity and experience.
No matter his age, he is favoured to beat Trump IMHO. The Democrats have a message and a strategy that gets them through in enough places that matter. The big question is what happens if Trump fails to be the nominee - and in that scenario Biden will start on the back foot.
The good news is, pb.com is still around in the after life....
It would be great if the BBC could just untangle the strands a bit given its reputation for reliable reporting. Apart from anything else the predictability of the reporting is amazingly dull and turgid.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jan/12/liberaldemocrats.uk
It says "In accordance with the Act, I also confirm that the government’s economic policy
objective is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Price and financial
stability are essential pre-requisites to achieve this objective in all parts of the UK and
sectors of the economy, providing the stability required for businesses to thrive and to
help keep the cost of living low for families."
The duty of the Bank is to facilitate that objective and it is doing the reverse.
Always happens when there's a fatality.
It seems to me that the war in Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the pandemic disrupting supply chains are the main cause.
The question is not whether trans-people are more likely to offend. There is no evidence at all that this is so. The question is whether there is a risk that offenders *who are not trans* will abuse the system in order to further their predation. There clearly is.
https://twitter.com/RoddyQC/status/1592800400306208769
Although to be clear, trans people show similar offending rates to their biological sex, rather than that of their acquired gender. And the problem with the SG approach is that as more and more male sex offenders claim to be trans (it’s happening already) the stats will go to hell in a handcart. It will probably show a jump in “female” offending.
The troubled country that handed the GFC best was Iceland which allowed the recession to burnout and bust companies to fail rather than kept indefinitely on life support with taxpayers money. Following that a prolonged period of decent growth followed, rather than stagnation. Stagnation is not a positive thing.
Too many people think the Government and now the Bank is responsible for preventing the economic cycle, or disease, or any negatives whatsoever. If a recession is called for, then its unpleasant and the Government should offer safety nets, but breaking the economy by preventing it and ensuring a prolonged period of no growth is not a better alternative.
Elon Musk Demands Twitter Servers Explain What All These Wires For
" At press time, sources confirmed Musk had publicly fired a prominent CPU for loudly humming in a way that he said constituted insubordination."
https://www.theonion.com/elon-musk-demands-twitter-servers-explain-what-all-thes-1849786227
I'm sceptical that there's much the Bank of England could do given the current circumstances and the massive swings in policy we have seen from the government. I mean over the past month or so the govt has announced enormous spending increases, tax cuts, and now large spending cuts and big tax rises.
Other things being equal, I expect gradual rate rises/declines are more conducive to stability than significant jumps.
"Monetary policy has played a critical role in supporting the economy in its strong recovery
from the Covid-19 pandemic and the monetary policy framework remains a central pillar
of the government’s macroeconomic strategy. As life continues to return to normal,
monetary policy will remain vital in supporting businesses and households by ensuring
inflation returns sustainably to target in the medium term."
Monetary policy is of course the responsibility of the Bank. The idea that the Bank is to have a laser focus on inflation and be totally indifferent to the effect of its policies in the real world would be absolutely bonkers if it had been put in place. But, of course, it wasn't.
A far bigger scandal, and one much easier to cost, is the £60 billion wasted on paying mostly perfectly healthy people to sunbathe in 2020. And the billions wasted on exortionately priced PPE equipment and the unnecessary damage to children's education by closing schools and so on.
He started off genuinely attempting to inform and educate (as his doctorate is in education (not science or medicine), he was very good at that), but when things slowed down in 2021 and we were obviously coming out of the emergency situation and his views started to fall off, he leaned into the nuttier conspiracy theories (Ivermectin! Hydroxochloroquine! They're concealing the truth!) when he fell for the ivermectin scam and saw how his views leapt up.
And Campbell Teaching Ltd (Company number 12694554) got more money when he leant into that. And the ivermectin suckers were almost all antivaxxers, so he went directly back on his principles (he even covered many of the scams and misinformation tactics of the antivaxxers in his earlier videos) and went full antivaxxer.
(There was one guy who put together Campbell's earlier "this is the misinformation they try" with specific examples of him doing exactly those misinformation tricks word-for-word).
He now appears at the antivaxxer conferences and is a reliable source of whichever disinformation is to be pushed by them. For some people, I guess there's a point of test in their life when their integrity and principles face a big deal of money, and some fail that test.
This in large part explains why gross margins at Tesla are industry leading, ditto SpaceX with launch costs.
Act states that in relation to monetary policy, the objectives of the Bank of
England shall be:
a. to maintain price stability; and
b. subject to that, to support the economic policy of Her Majesty’s
Government, including its objectives for growth and employment. "
It is the objective of the Bank of England to support the economic policy of the government, subject to maintaining price stability. So economic growth is definitely in their remit.