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Meanwhile in Canada – politicalbetting.com
Meanwhile in Canada – politicalbetting.com
Trump is now pretending that his administration was backing CDU all along when both the VP and Shadow President Musk very explicitly tried to get center-right Germans to vote AfD instead. pic.twitter.com/SZwt9Mvrj0
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All of them can, and do, change their minds on a head of a pin.
Turning allies into enemies, through tariffs; accusing them of “stealing” from the US, by selling consumers goods and services that they want; threatening to invade allied States, and seize territory off them; cutting deals with their enemies to gain mineral rights.
Those things are worse than unethical. They are massive blunders.
But it is strange to have polling so close to an election without knowing the leaders.
It's pretty similar here, albeit without the threat of Anschlaus. Yet.
One does wonder what those with some strategic form eg Vance were hoping for by cosying up to the AfD.
"I want to reassure you that none of the bill increase will go towards executive director bonuses. Customers do not pay for bonuses; they are entirely funded by our investors."
They have replied:
"I can totally understand your scepticism around the link between bill increases and executive directors bonuses, however I want to assure you that none of our executive directors’ bonuses are paid for by Severn Trent Water, they are paid by Severn Trent Plc, which is funded by our investors.
When setting prices for customers, Ofwat only allows Severn Trent Water to take into account the costs that we incur in delivering our service to customers. This does not include bonuses to our executive directors, so can assure you no part of the bill that you pay will go toward this."
So that's ok then. They must own the water company as a hobby.
I wonder if we'll get that here?
Its a brilliant plan. Demand that Ukraine hands over all its mineral wealth. Use it to build new products especially for defence, then force Ukraine's neighbours to buy them to protect themselves from Russia.
Well, I say brilliant. Europe and the middle east are two huge markets for defence equipment. I'm sure Bibi will keep buying American, but will Saudi? Qatar? After what Trump has done to destabilise the region? Europe?
This is gift week for Europe - if its political leaders and the big manufacturers can get the new narrative going quickly. Don't buy American, buy European. With support from our ally Ukraine.
What Trump does as the
new pork marketsglobal markets don't flood Murica with orders is the question. How do you extort the world when the world says "no thanks"? Threaten then with Putin? He can't threaten "America will cut you off". Great, go right ahead. We don't need you any more.'Figure 1. Adult UK population by marginal rate of income tax"
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/deepening-freeze-more-adults-ever-are-paying-higher-rate-tax
Some additional notes under the image.
Also they no doubt feel an affinity with fellow antidemocrats, but mostly they're just saying stuff for a domestic audience.
Despite Confederation actually taking place under a Conservative.
If Murica diver further towards Gilead and falls out with Europe, perhaps we should make overtures towards the newly reelected Canada about strengthening our historic ties...
See also: surrounding yourself with sycophants.
So there are more paying the higher rates, but the larger remainder are paying lower rates of income tax.
@realDonaldTrump has some of the lowest approval ratings in 70 years - don’t expect much improvement till Americans see the economy improving -so far no movement #itsthestilltheecony
https://x.com/benatipsos/status/1893936967202554133
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/23/donald-trump-bullshit-blitz-has-europe-on-its-knees
I think a big bunfest to wind it up would be appropriate, it was important to us for a long time but the party will not be fun if many of the attendees are not even speaking to each other. Merz wants a UK/France nuclear shield for Europe. The way he is talking he might even be willing to chip in the cost of it. We need to work out how we can make it less dependent on American assistance.
5 eyes is going to be another casualty of Trump's madness. We need to work out how GCHQ can work on its own rather than part of an American led alliance.
So much to do. Starmer is going to have his hands full. I frankly wonder if going to the White House is a good idea. Let's see how Macron gets on today.
If that belief has been adopted by the present administration, then it would explain their apparent deference to Russia and the need for more defence spending ($150bn) which they are trying to get through both houses.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-pentagon-cuts-8-troops-budget-09ed8f0f5ae92a93b3c1705c9d2dcc1c
The fear, ignorance, and condescension towards what is just another category of entertainment that pops up here occasionally is pretty hilarious.
I assume its back in vogue because of some online right wing idiots, and we all know radicals didn't exist before.
* Basic state(s) pension
* AVC such as the current piss poor 'Peoples Pension'
* Savings
It's the opt outs that cause the most problems with people thinking that the basic state pension is all they need. And with triple lock, why would they think otherwise.
The House Wants to Pass Trump’s Agenda in One Big Bill. Here’s What’s in It.
https://archive.ph/dn3qn
All this and the Wooden Spoon decider at the ICC trophy on Wednesday. We live in interesting times.
Not that matters as there will no more elections for some considerable time.
I think Skir will come away with a flea in his ears
Nineteen years on from my previous visit and I find Sentosa Island doing a passable imitation of Vegas with its own Resorts World (with casino) and monorail. The view from Palawan Beach hasn’t changed though with the rows of cargo vessels waiting to access Singapore Port.
On topic, Poilievre is desperately trying to thread the eye of a needle. He once offered economic policies straight out of the GOP playbook and was as scathing about Government waste as Musk but now he is flailing trying not to get caught in the anti-Trump backwash.
Who’d be a Conservative these days?
Merz duly won in Germany but a weak success on a historically low vote for the Union. For the SPD and FDP, an unmitigated disaster with Lindner doing worse than Nick Clegg in 2015. The Greens live to fight another day while Linke have seen off BSW but the key message is, as in the UK, the old duopoly is crumbling as the combined Union/SPD vote fell to 45%, a historic low.
Merz will form his coalition with the SPD and with an OVP/SPO/NEOS government looking likely in Austria, the populists in Central Europe will be condemned to supporting Trump from the futility of opposition.
Thus do we political divergence and convergence occur simultaneously. Divergence with America but convergence between traditionally adversarial parties in the face of a common political threat.
It's how he's always conducted business - just ask the hundreds of contractors he's stiffed in the past. To say that he's not a strategic thinker would be generous.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/14/thames-water-launches-appeal-for-permission-to-raise-bills-even-higher
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-28-mn-698-story.html
President Reagan decided Friday to impose punitive 100% tariffs on a wide variety of goods produced by Japanese electronic giants in retaliation for Tokyo’s failure to abide by the semiconductor trade agreement between the two nations.
In approving a recommendation Thursday by the Administration’s top economic officials, the White House decided to put the tariffs into effect about April 17, less than two weeks before Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone is scheduled to begin a visit to the United States aimed at easing trade frictions.
The tariffs will be targeted to bring in as much as $300 million and designed to punish such firms as NEC Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Oki Corp. by either pricing some of their goods out of the American market or by forcing them to accept substantial losses on U.S. sales.
It's what generally worked in Trump's first term. Whether it can this time given the moment you leave he'll be surrounded by some of the worst people in America, is open to question. But you have to try, and might be more a case of all leaders trying to buy us (and Ukraine) as much time as possible.
He insulted Trudeau again by inviting him to a US governors meeting .
Customer prices are negotiated with OFWAT based on a fixed return on the regulated operating base.
This return is net of certain operating costs including an allowance for management and administrative costs. This does not include executive bonuses.
Essentially what the company is saying is that executive bonuses are a “cost of doing business” in order to achieve the expected returns from their investment. Obviously in making an investment decision they look at the return after all costs so executive / holding company costs reduce the value they put on the company
(The reason why the utility investors did so well over the last 15 years was that OFWAT persistently overestimated the cost of debt, allowing the companies to capture the spread by the assumed and actual cost of debt)
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bsw-verpasst-einzug-in-den-bundestag-war-es-das-fuer-sahra-wagenknecht-a-4a5398ce-68d4-46f6-b735-95b6a64f9ddf
Basically the same factors discussed last night:
Recent develooments in Ukraine undermining their "peace" mesage.
Loss of support from leftwingers because of their willingness to vote alongside the AfD in Merz's stupid stunt.
Loss of support from protest voters because they went into coalition with the SPD and CDU after their success in last year's elections in Brandenburg and Thüringen.
A poor campaign and failure to click in the West and South outside of Wagenknecht's home state the Saarland.
Ideally, we are looking for something close to $20bn with roughly 10% of that from us.
A world where the US won't ever contemplate the use of nuclear weapons in defence of Europe, and where Europe has no deterrent of its own, is one in which Russia is more likely to at the very least consider their use in furtherance of its strategic aims in Europe.
A country prepared to suffer over half a million of its own casualties in a war which it started with its neighbour, is unlikely to baulk at the deaths of the few hundred thousand which would be the consequence of a limited strike on a couple of cities in a recalcitrant Europe.
And in those circumstances, effectively the US nuclear shield provides some deterrence against escalation.
Good morning!
The only fig leaf I can think of is - “Borrowing costs are absurdly low. If they vaguely return to normal in the next year.. we should allow for that”.
But a decade plus of that is an enormous fuckup.
*SHAT
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14425567/No10-Donald-Trump-Parliament-Special-Relationship.html
Such a move now is liable to force what are currently US allies into reconsidering who to side with in the competition with China. It's not a very palatable choice, but self preservation might eventually require it.
Japan in the 80s had nowhere to go, and it's certainly true that the tariffs were pretty successful in helping end their semiconductor dominance. The options for Taiwan or South Korea today are a little different.
Under Trump, we know that if Russia threatened to nuke European targets, the USA would say “nice cities you’ve got there, be a shame if something happened to them.”
#splittingthevote
We can only respond and triangulate. It's normal in politics but can Starmer finesse our position with such a chaotic administration.
Unless you mean that outright extortion of putative allies isn't a "catastrophic breach of norms" ?
You're not questioning, as much as conducting an exercise in casuistry on behalf of the Trump administration.
Polonium is entertaining stuff. It's not worth storing - the decay rate is pretty high. Which is part of it's... charm....
Long term, I am not convinced that the UK will be able to keep up the balancing act and at some point is likely to gravitate back to Europe, because our defence and economic interests primarily lie there.
Once Merz takes office there is likely a narrow window of opportunity to agree a plan of action for Europe. Personally I think defence reform will have to go hand-in-hand with EU reform but the latter is the trickier proposition.
At least in Germany Trump can still say the tough on immigration right of centre Merz led CDU and CSU conservatives won even if they will be more pro Zelensky than the pro Putin AfD. If the Liberals win in Canada that would be a clear defeat for Conservatives (and even there Poilievre's Conservatives are still more moderate than Bernier's Trumpite populist Peoples' party who are minor also rans unlike the AfD in Germany)
https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0UxrJb5sq6yRMyzLbxZskZkXvvSTUcraM3bUTWbJkXgWM8XSaRTTJtzPZSAdaggU1l
Likely an overestimate but then there will be other Russian losses from damage, accidents, lack of maintenance.
The Russian military has been broken in Ukraine.
And the longer it continues the longer it will take for Russia to recover - every further month's losses might take a year to replace.