If this was American PB.com, everywhere here would live in Omaha, Nebraska or Raleigh, North Carolina, in 4000 sq ft houses with neighbours who say “Howdy!” and bake cookies for the school lacrosse team.
It’s really three or four different countries.
London, UK, population 8.9 million; homicides in 2022: 109
Omaha, Nebraska, population 487,000; homicides in 2022: 31
Hmm
That said I do take your point. Lots of Americans in the nicer small towns and richer suburbs have enviably lovely lives, entirely untroubled by violence and decay
Trouble is an awful lot of Americans live in the great cities, and nearly all of them have these increasingly menacing issues
Rome in the 4th century was like this. The cities decayed but the rich retreated to small towns and villas and, for them, life remained great
I was getting a train back from a rather enjoyable beer festival with a historian a few years ago. As the rampant weeds brushed against the windows he remarked "You know, it was the roads. It was the roads the Romans all spoke about during the decline."
Weeds = wild flowers = good for the environment.
Who wants the world to look as manicured as a cemetery ?
I hope you're trolling. But a fun place to visit is what used to be the hoverport at Pegwell Bay near Ramsgate, which is well on its way back to nature:
But how does the world economy generate prosperity, absent trade with other planets?
Wealth is created by trade and creating things - the movement of things from low-value uses to high-value uses. A tree and a seam of iron becomes an axe, which is traded to somebody who needs an axe. The faster and more often people trade, the faster and more often people create things, the more wealthier we are.
Plus doing the same things more effectively or cheaper or quicker.
The axes B&Q sell will have been made a lot easier than those a neolithic trader sold.
But how does the world economy generate prosperity, absent trade with other planets?
Wealth is created by trade and creating things - the movement of things from low-value uses to high-value uses. A tree and a seam of iron becomes an axe, which is traded to somebody who needs an axe. The faster and more often people trade, the faster and more often people create things, the more wealthier we are.
Plus doing the same things more effectively or cheaper or quicker.
The axes B&Q sell will have been made a lot easier than those a neolithic trader sold.
It’s Official. Starmer’s Labour are complete idiots.
They accepted money from Dale Vince.
Weren’t the donations made before he started supporting Just Stop Oil.
In which case what’s the problem. The DM needs to STFU over the outage given the Tories were awash with Russian money .
You trying to spin it that Dale Vince money is somehow more acceptable as money from Putin’s regime? Good luck with that spin. Dale Vince is underwriting all the over the top eco activism out there. He’s at war with all of us sensible balanced people.
It’s transparent what you are doing, going on attack as you don’t have a defence on this one.
They who pay the Piper, play the tune Nico. No energy security for UK under Labour as they are dancing to Vince Dales funding.
What’s worse trying to save the planet or taking Russian money ? The DM is a hate filled piece of trash. Vince has also donated to Greenpeace. I’m not defending all the actions of Just Stop Oil but making the point that the DM needs to STFU with the outrage given its wholehearted support for the Tories when they were rolling in Russian money . I look forward to the DM asking the Tories to return their Russian blood money !
I bought the Sunday Telegraph yesterday. Every other page is an angle on Trans, like nothing else going on in the world. Bit boring and a tad unhinged to go over the top on one issue like that.
I also thought the Telegraphs coverage of the current economic situation rather clueless. Anyone who wants to argue or use the headline it’s the bank of of Englands fault, and I’m up for a proper tear up and knocking some sense into these heads so we can hear their two brain cells, neither in use, rattle about. The BoE have remit on inflation, they have a 2% target, in my view utterly arbitrary and meaningless as it was set when in an untypical era of historically lower inflation. The bank have some levers to pull in the fight against inflation, but the governments generous hand out schemes, spraying money around like confetti, quite thoroughly undermined the inflation busting monetary tightening efforts at the banks disposal. RCS pointed us to a Truss era leaflet where the Tories were boasting about spending on the way up to 10% of GDP, bucking the UKs energy market.
A couple of sentences around BoE and Government failing to read the tea leaves, and have not acted in a joined up way - bank building a sandcastle, government washing it away - would have been far superior to the pages of drivel the Telegraph published on this.
It’s Official. Starmer’s Labour are complete idiots.
They accepted money from Dale Vince.
Weren’t the donations made before he started supporting Just Stop Oil.
In which case what’s the problem. The DM needs to STFU over the outage given the Tories were awash with Russian money .
You trying to spin it that Dale Vince money is somehow more acceptable as money from Putin’s regime? Good luck with that spin. Dale Vince is underwriting all the over the top eco activism out there. He’s at war with all of us sensible balanced people.
It’s transparent what you are doing, going on attack as you don’t have a defence on this one.
They who pay the Piper, play the tune Nico. No energy security for UK under Labour as they are dancing to Vince Dales funding.
What’s worse trying to save the planet or taking Russian money ? The DM is a hate filled piece of trash. Vince has also donated to Greenpeace. I’m not defending all the actions of Just Stop Oil but making the point that the DM needs to STFU with the outrage given its wholehearted support for the Tories when they were rolling in Russian money . I look forward to the DM asking the Tories to return their Russian blood money !
I bought the Sunday Telegraph yesterday. Every other page is an angle on Trans, like nothing else going on in the world. Bit boring and a tad unhinged to go over the top on one issue like that.
I also thought the Telegraphs coverage of the current economic situation rather clueless. Anyone who wants to argue or use the headline it’s the bank of of Englands fault, and I’m up for a proper tear up and knocking some sense into these heads so we can hear their two brain cells, neither in use, rattle about. The BoE have remit on inflation, they have a 2% target, in my view utterly arbitrary and meaningless as it was set when in an untypical era of historically lower inflation. The bank have some levers to pull in the fight against inflation, but the governments generous hand out schemes, spraying money around like confetti, quite thoroughly undermined the inflation busting monetary tightening efforts at the banks disposal. RCS pointed us to a Truss era leaflet where the Tories were boasting about spending on the way up to 10% of GDP, bucking the UKs energy market.
A couple of sentences around BoE and Government failing to read the tea leaves, and have not acted in a joined up way - bank building a sandcastle, government washing it away - would have been far superior to the pages of drivel the Telegraph published on this.
The 2% inflation target, though better than what came before, is heavily flawed for two main reasons:
- it does not distinguish between demand and input cost inflation, which need radically different answers. The former needs jumping on immediately, but if you do so with the latter after, say, a spike in global food prices, you risk plunging the economy into an unnecessary recession. - the measure of inflation we target is a very narrow measure of the cost of living, and it does not include asset prices, even though many people's biggest expense is their home. This means that the Bank (and the Fed and the ECB) become in effect serial bubble blowers, because manufactured goods and most commodities have been relatively cheap over the last generation, so interest rates have been kept too low, which has been one of the major factors in blowing asset price bubble after bubble - not just houses, also fine art, cryptocurrencies, tech stocks, etc. etc. Now, there is a danger of a correction the other way - a big price spike in commodities causing unnecessary asset price crashes.
Given these issues, it is surprising it worked as well as it did for as long as it did. But we should rethink the framework.
New red tape only affects UK exports to Europe (14% of the economy).
Bollocks.
Try buying from suppliers in Europe now.
It's a fucking shitshow.
So domestic suppliers now have a competitive advantage? It will be interesting to see the medium-term effects of that.
Prosperity through autarky! The Pyongyang School of Economics has another graduate.
This is probably an easy undergraduate question, so forgive me. But how does the world economy generate prosperity, absent trade with other planets?
- technological change - productive investment that increases the capital stock - improved human capital
Also structural reforms like reducing corruption, protecting property rights, etc., which Western economists have historically underestimated because we take property rights and reasonably effective government for granted.
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development ...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development ...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Starmer no policies ?
HS2 would have been massively cheaper, too.
Believe it when it happens.
Or, more likely, at the first NIMBY revolt, the gutless coward Starmer will drop it even faster than he dropped all the policies he was elected Labour leader on.
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development ...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Starmer no policies ?
HS2 would have been massively cheaper, too.
Believe it when it happens.
Or, more likely, at the first NIMBY revolt, the gutless coward Starmer will drop it even faster than he dropped all the policies he was elected Labour leader on.
That's part of the genius of it. Labour have few rural constituencies at present, and not many targeted rural ones, so it is a policy well fitted to their electorate. Neither Con or LD could do the same.
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development ...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Starmer no policies ?
HS2 would have been massively cheaper, too.
Believe it when it happens.
Or, more likely, at the first NIMBY revolt, the gutless coward Starmer will drop it even faster than he dropped all the policies he was elected Labour leader on.
Bombs and drones attacking Kiev this morning, third day running there have been air strikes. Mostly dealt with by Ukranian air defences, but a handful did get through with civilian casualties on the ground.
That Iranian drone factory really needs to be taken out.
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development ...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Starmer no policies ?
HS2 would have been massively cheaper, too.
Believe it when it happens.
Or, more likely, at the first NIMBY revolt, the gutless coward Starmer will drop it even faster than he dropped all the policies he was elected Labour leader on.
That's part of the genius of it. Labour have few rural constituencies at present, and not many targeted rural ones, so it is a policy well fitted to their electorate. Neither Con or LD could do the same.
It's likely to be their headline electoral promise. There's so little room for fiscal manoeuvre that something along these lines will be required to make a significant positive change in the course of a Parliament.
The other part of it, which I wholeheartedly approve, is the handing back of significant power from central to local government. (And note it would potentially allow councils to outcompete buy to let landlords on price on quite a large scale.)
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development ...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Starmer no policies ?
HS2 would have been massively cheaper, too.
Believe it when it happens.
Or, more likely, at the first NIMBY revolt, the gutless coward Starmer will drop it even faster than he dropped all the policies he was elected Labour leader on.
What like the gutless coward Johnson after the NIMBY revolt cost him Chesham and Amersham ?
You trying to spin it that Dale Vince money is somehow more acceptable as money from Putin’s regime?
The crimes Russia against Ukraine are indeed insignificant compared to those of of Forest Green Rovers against Football.
Get a grip FFS.
The characterisation of environmentalist activists - some of whom are indeed extreme in their views and methods - as anywhere close to the equivalent of an actual paramilitary or indeed a murderous dictatorship are just nutzoid. Hunt sabs as a domestic Wagner Group; get a grip indeed (“comrade, activate THE FALAFEL PROTOCOL!”).
Glueing yourself to the M25 is not the same as showering a city with explosives. Does that really need spelling out? That folk on the right try to show an equivalency is not just desperate (or stupid?), it’s morally questionable.
Btw, we never really did get to the bottom of Spaffer’s mateship with Levedev, did we?
You trying to spin it that Dale Vince money is somehow more acceptable as money from Putin’s regime?
The crimes Russia against Ukraine are indeed insignificant compared to those of of Forest Green Rovers against Football.
Get a grip FFS.
The characterisation of environmentalist activists - some of whom are indeed extreme in their views and methods - as anywhere close to the equivalent of an actual paramilitary or indeed a murderous dictatorship are just nutzoid. Hunt sabs as a domestic Wagner Group; get a grip indeed (“comrade, activate THE FALAFEL PROTOCOL!”).
Glueing yourself to the M25 is not the same as showering a city with explosives. Does that really need spelling out? That folk on the right try to show an equivalency is not just desperate (or stupid?), it’s morally questionable.
Btw, we never really did get to the bottom of Spaffer’s mateship with Levedev, did we?
I think you missed the gentle irony of Mr Seal’s post…
You trying to spin it that Dale Vince money is somehow more acceptable as money from Putin’s regime?
The crimes Russia against Ukraine are indeed insignificant compared to those of of Forest Green Rovers against Football.
Get a grip FFS.
The characterisation of environmentalist activists - some of whom are indeed extreme in their views and methods - as anywhere close to the equivalent of an actual paramilitary or indeed a murderous dictatorship are just nutzoid. Hunt sabs as a domestic Wagner Group; get a grip indeed (“comrade, activate THE FALAFEL PROTOCOL!”).
Glueing yourself to the M25 is not the same as showering a city with explosives. Does that really need spelling out? That folk on the right try to show an equivalency is not just desperate (or stupid?), it’s morally questionable.
Btw, we never really did get to the bottom of Spaffer’s mateship with Levedev, did we?
I think you missed the gentle irony of Mr Seal’s post…
I was hamfistedly agreeing, though Forest Green’s abject performance this season is indeed a crime against footy.
You trying to spin it that Dale Vince money is somehow more acceptable as money from Putin’s regime?
The crimes Russia against Ukraine are indeed insignificant compared to those of of Forest Green Rovers against Football.
Get a grip FFS.
The characterisation of environmentalist activists - some of whom are indeed extreme in their views and methods - as anywhere close to the equivalent of an actual paramilitary or indeed a murderous dictatorship are just nutzoid. Hunt sabs as a domestic Wagner Group; get a grip indeed (“comrade, activate THE FALAFEL PROTOCOL!”).
Glueing yourself to the M25 is not the same as showering a city with explosives. Does that really need spelling out? That folk on the right try to show an equivalency is not just desperate (or stupid?), it’s morally questionable.
Btw, we never really did get to the bottom of Spaffer’s mateship with Levedev, did we?
I think you missed the gentle irony of Mr Seal’s post…
I was hamfistedly agreeing, though Forest Green’s abject performance this season is indeed a crime against footy.
Bombs and drones attacking Kiev this morning, third day running there have been air strikes. Mostly dealt with by Ukranian air defences, but a handful did get through with civilian casualties on the ground.
That Iranian drone factory really needs to be taken out.
Satisfaction levels were also similar between respondents who installed a heat pump in a new-build home or in older properties, at more than 80%, despite persistent concerns that heat pumps are only effective in modern buildings.
The survey of more than 2,500 domestic heat pump owners and more than 1,000 domestic gas boiler owners in England, Scotland and Wales over the last winter is thought to be the largest investigation into how households have responded to heat pumps to date...
Comments
The axes B&Q sell will have been made a lot easier than those a neolithic trader sold.
I also thought the Telegraphs coverage of the current economic situation rather clueless. Anyone who wants to argue or use the headline it’s the bank of of Englands fault, and I’m up for a proper tear up and knocking some sense into these heads so we can hear their two brain cells, neither in use, rattle about. The BoE have remit on inflation, they have a 2% target, in my view utterly arbitrary and meaningless as it was set when in an untypical era of historically lower inflation. The bank have some levers to pull in the fight against inflation, but the governments generous hand out schemes, spraying money around like confetti, quite thoroughly undermined the inflation busting monetary tightening efforts at the banks disposal. RCS pointed us to a Truss era leaflet where the Tories were boasting about spending on the way up to 10% of GDP, bucking the UKs energy market.
A couple of sentences around BoE and Government failing to read the tea leaves, and have not acted in a joined up way - bank building a sandcastle, government washing it away - would have been far superior to the pages of drivel the Telegraph published on this.
Puns? Might as whale.
https://mastodon.me.uk/@garius/110339945582921150
- it does not distinguish between demand and input cost inflation, which need radically different answers. The former needs jumping on immediately, but if you do so with the latter after, say, a spike in global food prices, you risk plunging the economy into an unnecessary recession.
- the measure of inflation we target is a very narrow measure of the cost of living, and it does not include asset prices, even though many people's biggest expense is their home. This means that the Bank (and the Fed and the ECB) become in effect serial bubble blowers, because manufactured goods and most commodities have been relatively cheap over the last generation, so interest rates have been kept too low, which has been one of the major factors in blowing asset price bubble after bubble - not just houses, also fine art, cryptocurrencies, tech stocks, etc. etc. Now, there is a danger of a correction the other way - a big price spike in commodities causing unnecessary asset price crashes.
Given these issues, it is surprising it worked as well as it did for as long as it did. But we should rethink the framework.
- productive investment that increases the capital stock
- improved human capital
Also structural reforms like reducing corruption, protecting property rights, etc., which Western economists have historically underestimated because we take property rights and reasonably effective government for granted.
Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development
...An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare...
Coupled with their intentions towards planning law, that would be radical change indeed.
Starmer no policies ?
HS2 would have been massively cheaper, too.
How much of this is about Boris, and how much the PPE contracts ?
Cabinet Office may take legal action to deny Covid inquiry Boris Johnson material
Such a challenge over Lady Hallett’s request for unredacted diaries and messages would be seen as unprecedented
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/cabinet-office-may-take-legal-action-to-deny-covid-inquiry-lady-hallett-boris-johnson-material
Or, more likely, at the first NIMBY revolt, the gutless coward Starmer will drop it even faster than he dropped all the policies he was elected Labour leader on.
Get a grip FFS.
That Iranian drone factory really needs to be taken out.
There's so little room for fiscal manoeuvre that something along these lines will be required to make a significant positive change in the course of a Parliament.
The other part of it, which I wholeheartedly approve, is the handing back of significant power from central to local government.
(And note it would potentially allow councils to outcompete buy to let landlords on price on quite a large scale.)
Also a policy the Tories will find hard to steal.
https://twitter.com/viwiwrites/status/1659763744807763969?s=61&t=bofNjPVud-vlk2vHQX0AGA
Glueing yourself to the M25 is not the same as showering a city with explosives. Does that really need spelling out? That folk on the right try to show an equivalency is not just desperate (or stupid?), it’s morally questionable.
Btw, we never really did get to the bottom of Spaffer’s mateship with Levedev, did we?
https://www.politico.eu/article/banned-france-digital-minister-jean-noel-barrot-threatens-twitter-block-follow-eu-rules/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/30/heat-pumps-more-than-80-per-cent-of-households-in-great-britain-satisfied-with-system
Those who use heat pumps to warm their homes reported broadly similar levels of satisfaction to those with gas boilers, the survey commissioned by the innovation charity Nesta found.
Satisfaction levels were also similar between respondents who installed a heat pump in a new-build home or in older properties, at more than 80%, despite persistent concerns that heat pumps are only effective in modern buildings.
The survey of more than 2,500 domestic heat pump owners and more than 1,000 domestic gas boiler owners in England, Scotland and Wales over the last winter is thought to be the largest investigation into how households have responded to heat pumps to date...
Morning routine.
I get up off the floor where I’ve been sleeping since 🇷🇺 airstrikes hit Kyiv. Come out of shelter and go here.
Spend 45 mins punching the daylights out of it.
Then I get on with my day.
https://twitter.com/MelSimmonsFCDO/status/1663402569278930944