On topic, I think this could be very interesting for New York, and potentially a hinge point for North America.
Mandami will be taking his models from places like London and Paris, and I'm not aware of anywhere in the USA or Canada that has seriously tried to build a European style life in a major city. Maybe bits of Berlin or Amsterdam, but Berlin is small and Amsterdam is so far transformed that anyone starting out finds it difficult to comprehend. I don't think places like Austin, Texas really count - too small.
I think he'll try and go more for rapid change a la Paris rather than London's gradualist approach.
No wonder Trump is upset - he came up through the gangster society in New York. And Mandami could potentially leave the entire approach of US cities festering in the past.
One area that will be difficult will be sorting out the NYPD, and making motoring law enforcible rather than routinely ignored. He'll need to do something about false number plates.
One to watch is the Manhattan Congestion Charge area, which has been successful but is timid. There will be some symbolic changes. Left up to me, I'd go for the symbol of turning 100 miles of parking spaces (which is a tiny percentage) into bus and mobility lanes.
Paris has demonstrated what's possible, and just how quickly you can achieve it. Makes life extremely awkward for UK politicians because they are so used to palming stuff away or taking 10 years to build a crappy wee cycle lane.
We'll find out whether Mandami is New York's Hidalgo.
The challenge with making NYC bike friendly is the grid system, especially in Manhattan. As a driver or pedestrian yore only ever about 100 metres away from a crossroads where the lights may well be red. Cyclists would be forever stop-starting. No worse than for walkers or drivers but certainly not a nice fluid commute to work.
And yet there plenty of cyclists in New York. Who despite the murderous traffic have discovered a secret (Sith technology?). Brakes and gears.
In the age of the eBike, you can't even claim that infirmity prevents you from doing stop-start.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Sorry - random occurrence causing a random question.
Why is there an Australian wine named after Dangermouse?
Aka Penfold's Grange, and why does it cost £500+.
I need help from an oenological rabbitholer.
The winery bases its branding and nomenclature on British children’s programmes of the 80s. This cuvee is named for the long running school drama series of the same name (the other half is taken by its stablemate Nottage Hill).
Reputedly still an excellent wine (I’ve not tried it) but the price point is largely down to history and heritage. It was the first Aussie wine to achieve international fame as a great - the first Aussie grand cru essentially. Though it’s quite unusual in coming from a wide range of vineyards rather than a single site, more like a grande marque champagne than say a top Hermitage.
No, Penfolds Grange is not named after Grange Hill, nor is Penfolds named after Dangermouse. The winery was founded by Christopher Penfold in 1844. The first vintage of Penfolds Grange to be commercially released was in 1952.
Thanks for the important correction. It was the other way round. Grange Hill was actually named after the famous Australian wine. As was the University of Oxford, which got its name from the mid priced varietal-led Oxford Landing.
Nottage Hill wine was the inspiration for the Richard Curtis romcom of the same name, as it was reputedly Hugh Grant’s famous tipple. And of course as we know, the wild success of that film led to the London district of East Holland Park renaming itself in tribute.
Grange was originally called Grange Hermitage, after the museum in St Petersburg, but removed the second part in protest against Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?.
I have no idea, and I don't think anyone else really has. I briefly set out a couple of possibilities in the past thread, but really we just need to wait and see how he governs.
The government run food shops and rent control puts him on the Hard Left, in the UK. For example.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Edit - has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational. Got to say I think he’s made the bets a bit too early
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
They won't no but could a socialist like AOC or Mamdani win the Democratic primaries to be their candidate for President in 2028? Not impossible, if they do I suspect VP Vance will be dreaming of a landslide win Nixon over McGovern 1972 style.
If however the Democrats go for a more centrist candidate like Buttigieg similar to their winning candidates in NJ and Virginia in ideology and style then Vance would be fearing defeat I suspect
AOC could get the nomination, but would have a lot of difficulty in a general. Unless the Republican candidate was Trump without the Trump cult, maybe.
The problem is that people assume centrists are useless compromisers. That’s because we’ve (the West) have had a lot of useless compromisers running as centrists. See the number of such creatures who’ve scuttled to the MAGA tent.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Obama were useless compromisers. And they were definitely centrists - but with actual politics and actions.
AOC does seem to be mellowing though. Not the far left firebrand she started off as.
As I mentioned last night, to win the Dem nomination you need to win heavily black southern states with a lot of delegates. Not sure wild socialist firebrands from NY can do that. Remember, Biden was all but dead for nominee until South Carolina saved him and he then swept the south.
Yes, I think there's basically no chance of AOC getting the nomination for 2028. It's not entirely impossible (though still unlikely) that she, or someone from her side of the party might get the VP slot.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Plenty of scope for disaster capitalism off the back of policies like that.
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white . But the party who supported a corrupt morally bankrupt man are the GOP . The GOP are the ones trying to suppress votes in urban areas who have refused to support voter legislation at the federal level . This attempt at false equivalence ignores the reality . The Dems have decided to stop trying to be the honourable folk and have decided to fight fire with fire . In an ideal world there would be no gerrymandering in the US . The Dems attempted to pass legislation to level the playing field nationwide . The GOP voted against . California is simply reacting to Texas or do you expect them to sit there and play the honourable card whilst the GOP embark on stealing the mid-terms ?
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white
Followed by application of whitewash.
California gerrymanders, Texas gerrymanders, Texas gerrymanders some more, California gerrymanders some more.
Both sides are so filled with self-righteousness that they would prefer to destroy the country than let the other side win.
The result will be the country is destroyed irrespective of who wins.
California has an independent re-districting commission which had good support from the public . The proposition 50 vote was to suspend that until 2030 as a result of the Texas re-districting . If Texas hadn’t changed their house map California would have not gone ahead with their changes . Again I ask should Dems just sit there and do nothing under some let’s play the martyrs as the GOP steal the mid-terms ?
Just another reason why the USA ha't got the right to lecture other countries about 'democracy'.
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
They won't no but could a socialist like AOC or Mamdani win the Democratic primaries to be their candidate for President in 2028? Not impossible, if they do I suspect VP Vance will be dreaming of a landslide win Nixon over McGovern 1972 style.
If however the Democrats go for a more centrist candidate like Buttigieg similar to their winning candidates in NJ and Virginia in ideology and style then Vance would be fearing defeat I suspect
AOC could get the nomination, but would have a lot of difficulty in a general. Unless the Republican candidate was Trump without the Trump cult, maybe.
The problem is that people assume centrists are useless compromisers. That’s because we’ve (the West) have had a lot of useless compromisers running as centrists. See the number of such creatures who’ve scuttled to the MAGA tent.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Obama were useless compromisers. And they were definitely centrists - but with actual politics and actions.
AOC does seem to be mellowing though. Not the far left firebrand she started off as.
As I mentioned last night, to win the Dem nomination you need to win heavily black southern states with a lot of delegates. Not sure wild socialist firebrands from NY can do that. Remember, Biden was all but dead for nominee until South Carolina saved him and he then swept the south.
Yes, I think there's basically no chance of AOC getting the nomination for 2028. It's not entirely impossible (though still unlikely) that she, or someone from her side of the party might get the VP slot.
The unknown is does she go for President or Senator - I suspect she will go for the latter
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white . But the party who supported a corrupt morally bankrupt man are the GOP . The GOP are the ones trying to suppress votes in urban areas who have refused to support voter legislation at the federal level . This attempt at false equivalence ignores the reality . The Dems have decided to stop trying to be the honourable folk and have decided to fight fire with fire . In an ideal world there would be no gerrymandering in the US . The Dems attempted to pass legislation to level the playing field nationwide . The GOP voted against . California is simply reacting to Texas or do you expect them to sit there and play the honourable card whilst the GOP embark on stealing the mid-terms ?
The Democrats have a long record of corruption and cheating in elections.
It’s just that Trump, and those around him, are worse than the Democrats are.
The bloody "two sides" arguing drives me nuts. One's a football hooligan and the other Jack the Ripper. They are not the same.
But even here there are those who think Trump is only the football hooligan in that metaphor.
For all that many hate him there is no doubt Trump's charisma and vote getting ability, once he goes the Republicans may find themselves in problems at the ballot box. Much as the Tories have been post Boris, like Trump Boris had an ability to win white working class voters other Republicans and Conservatives did not
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
They won't no but could a socialist like AOC or Mamdani win the Democratic primaries to be their candidate for President in 2028? Not impossible, if they do I suspect VP Vance will be dreaming of a landslide win Nixon over McGovern 1972 style.
If however the Democrats go for a more centrist candidate like Buttigieg similar to their winning candidates in NJ and Virginia in ideology and style then Vance would be fearing defeat I suspect
AOC could get the nomination, but would have a lot of difficulty in a general. Unless the Republican candidate was Trump without the Trump cult, maybe.
The problem is that people assume centrists are useless compromisers. That’s because we’ve (the West) have had a lot of useless compromisers running as centrists. See the number of such creatures who’ve scuttled to the MAGA tent.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Obama were useless compromisers. And they were definitely centrists - but with actual politics and actions.
AOC does seem to be mellowing though. Not the far left firebrand she started off as.
As I mentioned last night, to win the Dem nomination you need to win heavily black southern states with a lot of delegates. Not sure wild socialist firebrands from NY can do that. Remember, Biden was all but dead for nominee until South Carolina saved him and he then swept the south.
If they won Iowa and NH though, which Biden's opponents failed to do in 2020, then a socialist candidate would then have a shot as they could probably win California and New York even if they still lost the southern primaries
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
They won't no but could a socialist like AOC or Mamdani win the Democratic primaries to be their candidate for President in 2028? Not impossible, if they do I suspect VP Vance will be dreaming of a landslide win Nixon over McGovern 1972 style.
If however the Democrats go for a more centrist candidate like Buttigieg similar to their winning candidates in NJ and Virginia in ideology and style then Vance would be fearing defeat I suspect
AOC could get the nomination, but would have a lot of difficulty in a general. Unless the Republican candidate was Trump without the Trump cult, maybe.
The problem is that people assume centrists are useless compromisers. That’s because we’ve (the West) have had a lot of useless compromisers running as centrists. See the number of such creatures who’ve scuttled to the MAGA tent.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Obama were useless compromisers. And they were definitely centrists - but with actual politics and actions.
AOC does seem to be mellowing though. Not the far left firebrand she started off as.
As I mentioned last night, to win the Dem nomination you need to win heavily black southern states with a lot of delegates. Not sure wild socialist firebrands from NY can do that. Remember, Biden was all but dead for nominee until South Carolina saved him and he then swept the south.
Yes, I think there's basically no chance of AOC getting the nomination for 2028. It's not entirely impossible (though still unlikely) that she, or someone from her side of the party might get the VP slot.
The unknown is does she go for President or Senator - I suspect she will go for the latter
Yes, she’s only 36 and Reps don’t generally run for President. She’s going to try and unseat or retire Schumer who will be 78 in 2028.
On topic, I think this could be very interesting for New York, and potentially a hinge point for North America.
Mandami will be taking his models from places like London and Paris, and I'm not aware of anywhere in the USA or Canada that has seriously tried to build a European style life in a major city. Maybe bits of Berlin or Amsterdam, but Berlin is small and Amsterdam is so far transformed that anyone starting out finds it difficult to comprehend. I don't think places like Austin, Texas really count - too small.
I think he'll try and go more for rapid change a la Paris rather than London's gradualist approach.
No wonder Trump is upset - he came up through the gangster society in New York. And Mandami could potentially leave the entire approach of US cities festering in the past.
One area that will be difficult will be sorting out the NYPD, and making motoring law enforcible rather than routinely ignored. He'll need to do something about false number plates.
One to watch is the Manhattan Congestion Charge area, which has been successful but is timid. There will be some symbolic changes. Left up to me, I'd go for the symbol of turning 100 miles of parking spaces (which is a tiny percentage) into bus and mobility lanes.
Paris has demonstrated what's possible, and just how quickly you can achieve it. Makes life extremely awkward for UK politicians because they are so used to palming stuff away or taking 10 years to build a crappy wee cycle lane.
We'll find out whether Mandami is New York's Hidalgo.
The challenge with making NYC bike friendly is the grid system, especially in Manhattan. As a driver or pedestrian yore only ever about 100 metres away from a crossroads where the lights may well be red. Cyclists would be forever stop-starting. No worse than for walkers or drivers but certainly not a nice fluid commute to work.
The cities with grids that I've cycled in typically solved this by increasing the size of the grid by turning 2x2 or 3x3 blocks into LTNs, enabling a continuous street for cyclists (but with no through-traffic), and thereby significantly reducing intersections.
This often has the counter- intuitive effect of making the motor traffic flow faster, because ultimately it's junctions that slow it down. Will take some serious bravery to do that in NYC though.
(E.g. close every 2nd avenue to thru-traffic for 2x5 LTNs?)
Is there another site I can follow the race for the White House 2028 upon?
It seems this board still loves Trump bashing; it reads like a Bluesky thread at the moment, and some of us want rational analysis not a circle-jerk.
We don't want to lose money again.
What’s irrational about saying Trump has undermined democracy? If you’re betting on 2028, you definitely need to consider how fair the vote is going to be.
What we'll get is two things absolutely simultaneously: one, that's he's bound to lose and these 'polls/figures/leaks' show why and, two, if he does win it will be explained away because cheating.
At no point will any credenece be given to the fact he might win fair and square with the voters, or any serious analysis as to why, and there's your problem right there.
Trump cheats. There is a rational discussion as to how much he will cheat and what impact it will have. If you're betting on the result, you need to take that into account.
Trump remains popular with some voters. The Republicans are still predicted to hold the Senate next year. Those who dislike Trump are able to recognise that.
The current polling and the elections last night suggest the Republican party is not popular and point to the Democrats doing well in 2026 and 2028. But, sure, things can change! If you'd like to put forth a "serious analysis" as to why the Republicans will do well in 2028, go for it. You also seem to be saying that Trump could win in 2028. Could you offer a serious analysis as to how he stands when he is clearly forbidden to do so by the constitution?
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white . But the party who supported a corrupt morally bankrupt man are the GOP . The GOP are the ones trying to suppress votes in urban areas who have refused to support voter legislation at the federal level . This attempt at false equivalence ignores the reality . The Dems have decided to stop trying to be the honourable folk and have decided to fight fire with fire . In an ideal world there would be no gerrymandering in the US . The Dems attempted to pass legislation to level the playing field nationwide . The GOP voted against . California is simply reacting to Texas or do you expect them to sit there and play the honourable card whilst the GOP embark on stealing the mid-terms ?
The Democrats have a long record of corruption and cheating in elections.
It’s just that Trump, and those around him, are worse than the Democrats are.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Also, Trump is not going to sort Ukraine.
To be honest I’d probably rather Trump gets the peace prize than either Netanyahu or Putin, or whoever leads Hamas these days.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He's not a communist. He's further to the left than Kinnock, I'd say. Maybe not quite as far as Polanski? It's hard to compare: US and UK politics can be very different, and Mamdani's policy platform was geared around what a New York mayor can do rather than the broader powers of a UK PM.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Go and read some Lenin. Mamdami does not support revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He does not support state-ownership of the means of production.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
At some point AI will be - but it won’t be this version of it LLM is a useful tool but dead end.
Observation. And I promise this isn’t intended as some sort of look at me world traveller humble brag.
I’m on the BA to Houston in club world. Yet again, an airline class that used to be almost uniquely used by actual business travellers is chockablock with boomer civilians. And no they’re not all Texans, there are plenty of Brits in that category here too.
There is a lot of wealth in the nation. Something that also strikes me when I see the number of Range Rovers, XC90s, Teslas and Porsches on the road.
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Also, Trump is not going to sort Ukraine.
To be honest I’d probably rather Trump gets the peace prize than either Netanyahu or Putin, or whoever leads Hamas these days.
Fair enough, but the Peace Prize committee have a long history of awarding the prize to dubious individuals.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
At some point AI will be - but it won’t be this version of it LLM is a useful tool but dead end.
Tell that to millions of young graduates struggling to get jobs at the moment.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
They won't no but could a socialist like AOC or Mamdani win the Democratic primaries to be their candidate for President in 2028? Not impossible, if they do I suspect VP Vance will be dreaming of a landslide win Nixon over McGovern 1972 style.
If however the Democrats go for a more centrist candidate like Buttigieg similar to their winning candidates in NJ and Virginia in ideology and style then Vance would be fearing defeat I suspect
AOC could get the nomination, but would have a lot of difficulty in a general. Unless the Republican candidate was Trump without the Trump cult, maybe.
The problem is that people assume centrists are useless compromisers. That’s because we’ve (the West) have had a lot of useless compromisers running as centrists. See the number of such creatures who’ve scuttled to the MAGA tent.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Obama were useless compromisers. And they were definitely centrists - but with actual politics and actions.
AOC does seem to be mellowing though. Not the far left firebrand she started off as.
As I mentioned last night, to win the Dem nomination you need to win heavily black southern states with a lot of delegates. Not sure wild socialist firebrands from NY can do that. Remember, Biden was all but dead for nominee until South Carolina saved him and he then swept the south.
If they won Iowa and NH though, which Biden's opponents failed to do in 2020, then a socialist candidate would then have a shot as they could probably win California and New York even if they still lost the southern primaries
Newsom, who’s made national headlines for trolling Republican President Donald Trump on social media, came second, with 15% of the vote, while Ocasio-Cortez, who’s been increasingly mentioned as a White House contender, finished third at 14%, according to the poll.
Eighty-one percent of the likely Democratic primary voters who responded to the poll said they had a favorable opinion of Buttigieg...
RCP average has Newsom and Buttigieg with 40% between them. After AOC come Harris and Pritzker. In other words, the radical candidate is barely breaking double figures nationally, and it's hard to see what changes that.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Whatever else that platform is, it isn't Communism. More like left wing Populism.
We saw lots of commentary both here and in the wider media on the lessons that the Dems needed to learn from the 2024 elections (basically shift right and anti-immigrant).
What lessons do you thing the Republicans need to learn from the pasting in the mid-mid-terms? Presumably to shift left and do something about unaffordable rents and poverty pay?
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
They won't no but could a socialist like AOC or Mamdani win the Democratic primaries to be their candidate for President in 2028? Not impossible, if they do I suspect VP Vance will be dreaming of a landslide win Nixon over McGovern 1972 style.
If however the Democrats go for a more centrist candidate like Buttigieg similar to their winning candidates in NJ and Virginia in ideology and style then Vance would be fearing defeat I suspect
AOC could get the nomination, but would have a lot of difficulty in a general. Unless the Republican candidate was Trump without the Trump cult, maybe.
The problem is that people assume centrists are useless compromisers. That’s because we’ve (the West) have had a lot of useless compromisers running as centrists. See the number of such creatures who’ve scuttled to the MAGA tent.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Obama were useless compromisers. And they were definitely centrists - but with actual politics and actions.
AOC does seem to be mellowing though. Not the far left firebrand she started off as.
As I mentioned last night, to win the Dem nomination you need to win heavily black southern states with a lot of delegates. Not sure wild socialist firebrands from NY can do that. Remember, Biden was all but dead for nominee until South Carolina saved him and he then swept the south.
If they won Iowa and NH though, which Biden's opponents failed to do in 2020, then a socialist candidate would then have a shot as they could probably win California and New York even if they still lost the southern primaries
Newsom, who’s made national headlines for trolling Republican President Donald Trump on social media, came second, with 15% of the vote, while Ocasio-Cortez, who’s been increasingly mentioned as a White House contender, finished third at 14%, according to the poll.
Eighty-one percent of the likely Democratic primary voters who responded to the poll said they had a favorable opinion of Buttigieg...
RCP average has Newsom and Buttigieg with 40% between them. After AOC come Harris and Pritzker. In other words, the radical candidate is barely breaking double figures nationally, and it's hard to see what changes that.
Her best shot by far is for the Senate seat.
I am a big AOC fan, but Senate is her better option. She would win that and have a much stronger platform for a later run as President. She still is very young by US political standards.
I note that the poster said these are 'terrifying words'. In what way are they terrifying? Wishful thinking maybe. Soundbite definitely. But surely a good Government should be there to solve the big problems and it would be nice to know they care about the little ones as well.
So terrifying words seems like a bonkers sentiment.
On topic, I think this could be very interesting for New York, and potentially a hinge point for North America.
Mandami will be taking his models from places like London and Paris, and I'm not aware of anywhere in the USA or Canada that has seriously tried to build a European style life in a major city. Maybe bits of Berlin or Amsterdam, but Berlin is small and Amsterdam is so far transformed that anyone starting out finds it difficult to comprehend. I don't think places like Austin, Texas really count - too small.
I think he'll try and go more for rapid change a la Paris rather than London's gradualist approach.
No wonder Trump is upset - he came up through the gangster society in New York. And Mandami could potentially leave the entire approach of US cities festering in the past.
One area that will be difficult will be sorting out the NYPD, and making motoring law enforcible rather than routinely ignored. He'll need to do something about false number plates.
One to watch is the Manhattan Congestion Charge area, which has been successful but is timid. There will be some symbolic changes. Left up to me, I'd go for the symbol of turning 100 miles of parking spaces (which is a tiny percentage) into bus and mobility lanes.
Paris has demonstrated what's possible, and just how quickly you can achieve it. Makes life extremely awkward for UK politicians because they are so used to palming stuff away or taking 10 years to build a crappy wee cycle lane.
We'll find out whether Mandami is New York's Hidalgo.
The challenge with making NYC bike friendly is the grid system, especially in Manhattan. As a driver or pedestrian yore only ever about 100 metres away from a crossroads where the lights may well be red. Cyclists would be forever stop-starting. No worse than for walkers or drivers but certainly not a nice fluid commute to work.
I'd make 2 points:
1 - It's not about "blike-friendly"; it's a far broader vision than than, about being "human-friendly". 2 - There are well established design approaches for dealing with how to do the urban networks. If you like I can promote reference sources, but David Hembrow's blog "A View from the Cycle PatH" is a good start.
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Also, Trump is not going to sort Ukraine.
Give it to Trump and Zelensky jointly.
I don’t think the NPP should be for belligerents in just wars against aggression. It’s surely something designed for warring parties in conflicts where both sides are to blame, who are prepared to bury the hatchet for the greater good. Eg you wouldn’t have given the peace prize to Churchill, Truman and Stalin in 1945.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
I note that the poster said these are 'terrifying words'. In what way are they terrifying? Wishful thinking maybe. Soundbite definitely. But surely a good Government should be there to solve the big problems and it would be nice to know they care about the little ones as well.
So terrifying words seems like a bonkers sentiment.
The problem is the past history of such thinking - which rapidly turns in centralised "Do this, ignoring all realties, local and otherwise"
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
That just makes him a socialist. The state-owned grocery stores is an oddity but rent controls used to be common in Western countries, Luxembourg, a bastion of communism, has free public transport, we have free surgery, the US has a federal system and federal police need to comply with State law. Hardly a Communist. When has he advocated a dictatorship of the proletariat?
Also, he's a big city mayor. Running a big city effectively involves a large measure of communal living.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Also, Trump is not going to sort Ukraine.
Give it to Trump and Zelensky jointly.
The only rewards or recognition that Trump should get is extra prison rations in Sing Sing, if he cooperates. That is, if treason is no longer a capital offence.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
Even Leisure Suit Larry can only buy so many yachts, so why not? If you have stupid money you might as well.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Most of those exist in Europe, or have been considered in Europe. And Europe is not communist.
Are there any significant number of grocery stores in New York. Is this just meeting a basic need - a kind of paid food bank? There's a video somewhere of Evan Edinger trying to buy an apple in NY, and finding it difficult.
Rent controls have been a thing in NY since the 1920s, and are the dominant case study as to why they do not work.
That minimum wage is high, but in place across most of Europe. I don't see him doing $30.
Wealth taxes are just one option, again in use in various places in Europe.
Free city buses are a small change from flat rate travel cards (eg London). NY already has a 7-day one costing $5 a day for bus and subway.
Sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police. I don't see these as being "communist".
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
That just makes him a socialist. The state-owned grocery stores is an oddity but rent controls used to be common in Western countries, Luxembourg, a bastion of communism, has free public transport, we have free surgery, the US has a federal system and federal police need to comply with State law. Hardly a Communist. When has he advocated a dictatorship of the proletariat?
Also, he's a big city mayor. Running a big city effectively involves a large measure of communal living.
In most provinces of Canada (and indeed in a few other countries) the state owns all liquor stores and it is illegal for grocery stores to sell alcohol.
He's a very left-wing socialist, even by European standards, but he's not a full fat communist. Comes pretty close though.
Watching last night's US voting, it seems in many cases, Americans have resolved to cleanse the system of pro-Russian far right in exchange for the pro-Russian far left.
The US electorate is a 15 year old, spoiled, suburban teenager, swapping out the goth look for the hippy look in effort to further piss off daddy with the most contrarian stance possible.
Sadly, the dumbing down of America costs real lives all over the world, as Russia's coalition of terror plays it like a violin, only growing.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Most of those exist in Europe, or have been considered in Europe. And Europe is not communist.
Are there any significant number of grocery stores in New York. Is this just meeting a basic need - a kind of paid food bank? There's a video somewhere of Evan Edinger trying to buy an apple in NY, and finding it difficult.
Rent controls have been a thing in NY since the 1920s, and are the dominant case study as to why they do not work.
That minimum wage is high, but in place across most of Europe. I don't see him doing $30.
Wealth taxes are just one option, again in use in various places in Europe.
Free city buses are a small change from flat rate travel cards (eg London). NY already has a 7-day one costing $5 a day for bus and subway.
Sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police. I don't see these as being "communist".
We'll see.
In most communist countries a politician advocating non cooperation with federal police would be well advised to stay away from tall buildings.....
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Most of those exist in Europe, or have been considered in Europe. And Europe is not communist.
Are there any significant number of grocery stores in New York. Is this just meeting a basic need - a kind of paid food bank? There's a video somewhere of Evan Edinger trying to buy an apple in NY, and finding it difficult.
Rent controls have been a thing in NY since the 1920s, and are the dominant case study as to why they do not work.
That minimum wage is high, but in place across most of Europe. I don't see him doing $30.
Wealth taxes are just one option, again in use in various places in Europe.
Free city buses are a small change from flat rate travel cards (eg London). NY already has a 7-day one costing $5 a day for bus and subway.
Sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police. I don't see these as being "communist".
We'll see.
Even in Europe, this is mostly far left stuff.
The one thing that economists agree on, whether right or left, is that rent controls are a terrible idea.
NEW: Norwegian Defence Minister fails to back Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
Tore O. Sandvik tells me it's one for the prize committee
Not sure that any Norwegian minister has ever given an opinion on the Nobel Prizes before, it’s always been up to the committee.
But if Trump can sort Ukraine, and keep the Gaza ceasefire in place, then give him the peace prize.
As I have previously noted, Peace Prizes usually go to the leaders of the warring factions who come to peace. They don't go to the guy who helped the negotiations. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the 1978 Peace Prize going to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, not to President Carter. The 1998 Prize went to Hume and Trimble, not to Clinton and Mitchell.
Also, Trump is not going to sort Ukraine.
Give it to Trump and Zelensky jointly.
I don’t think the NPP should be for belligerents in just wars against aggression. It’s surely something designed for warring parties in conflicts where both sides are to blame, who are prepared to bury the hatchet for the greater good. Eg you wouldn’t have given the peace prize to Churchill, Truman and Stalin in 1945.
Cordell Hull win in 1945. Who, you might well ask?! He helped set up the UN. The Red Cross won in 1944, and there was no prize awarded 1939-43.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
It is a shame that Schwarzenegger was ineligible to become POTUS as he would have made a very, very good one I think. He was a very good Governor and he has his head screwed on right on most issues.
It seems America needs more Actors turned GOP Governors of California as that's two from two that I can think of who have done very good jobs.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Most of those exist in Europe, or have been considered in Europe. And Europe is not communist.
Are there any significant number of grocery stores in New York. Is this just meeting a basic need - a kind of paid food bank? There's a video somewhere of Evan Edinger trying to buy an apple in NY, and finding it difficult.
Rent controls have been a thing in NY since the 1920s, and are the dominant case study as to why they do not work.
That minimum wage is high, but in place across most of Europe. I don't see him doing $30.
Wealth taxes are just one option, again in use in various places in Europe.
Free city buses are a small change from flat rate travel cards (eg London). NY already has a 7-day one costing $5 a day for bus and subway.
Sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police. I don't see these as being "communist".
We'll see.
Even in Europe, this is mostly far left stuff.
The one thing that economists agree on, whether right or left, is that rent controls are a terrible idea.
Significant* rent controls are actually an awesome idea. If you want to reduce the availability of property to rent. 100% success rate.
*In a few places they have vestigial rent controls that don't set the rents much (if anything) below the market. So they have rent control in name only.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
That just makes him a socialist. The state-owned grocery stores is an oddity but rent controls used to be common in Western countries, Luxembourg, a bastion of communism, has free public transport, we have free surgery, the US has a federal system and federal police need to comply with State law. Hardly a Communist. When has he advocated a dictatorship of the proletariat?
Also, he's a big city mayor. Running a big city effectively involves a large measure of communal living.
In most provinces of Canada (and indeed in a few other countries) the state owns all liquor stores and it is illegal for grocery stores to sell alcohol.
He's a very left-wing socialist, even by European standards, but he's not a full fat communist. Comes pretty close though.
I was going to reply, but MattW has done it better. None of that is communism.
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
No sh!t, Sherlock. Public procurement is basically broken at this point, in both the UK and US.
Watching from somewhere that just gets sh!t done, it’s terrible to see.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Most of those exist in Europe, or have been considered in Europe. And Europe is not communist.
Are there any significant number of grocery stores in New York. Is this just meeting a basic need - a kind of paid food bank? There's a video somewhere of Evan Edinger trying to buy an apple in NY, and finding it difficult.
Rent controls have been a thing in NY since the 1920s, and are the dominant case study as to why they do not work.
That minimum wage is high, but in place across most of Europe. I don't see him doing $30.
Wealth taxes are just one option, again in use in various places in Europe.
Free city buses are a small change from flat rate travel cards (eg London). NY already has a 7-day one costing $5 a day for bus and subway.
Sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police. I don't see these as being "communist".
We'll see.
Even in Europe, this is mostly far left stuff.
The one thing that economists agree on, whether right or left, is that rent controls are a terrible idea.
I'd go with progressive, but not far left.
Which is the country with the most complete set - Switzerland?
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
It is indisputable that the Democrats must shoulder a good deal of the blame for Trump's success. That doesn't alter the need for an informed Site like this to monitor with concern the Nazification of US Government.
Since betting is its USP it is entirely appropriate to reflect on whether the democratic process in the USA remains sufficiently free and fair that you can bet on outcomes with confidence. Personally, I wouldn't. From a more general perspective than betting, that's a bit of a worry.
That's a fair comment.
Its how much more than normal will be US elections be affected which is important.
Trump will certainly attempt to manipulate and cheat if he thinks he would benefit from doing so.
But is that a 0.1% effect, a 1% effect or a 10% effect ?
Judging from yesterday's results it looks rather more towards the lower end.
Naturally I agree with that, Richard, and hope like you that it stays at the lower end. I do think it is a genuine concern though.
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
No sh!t, Sherlock. Public procurement is basically broken at this point, in both the UK and US.
Watching from somewhere that just gets sh!t done, it’s terrible to see.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Not a prime target. Just on the main target list.
More that once you have 22,000 deliverable warheads, why not? You can kill NZ as a first world state with a handful of warheads - what's left is agriculture and very few people.
The Soviets were utterly certain that the no-nukes thing was a lie. Because how could anybody be that stupid?
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Water surely?
Florida has gated communities with private residential docks/pontoons.
Ultimately both are about rarifying your personal atmosphere in search of your personal happiness.
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white . But the party who supported a corrupt morally bankrupt man are the GOP . The GOP are the ones trying to suppress votes in urban areas who have refused to support voter legislation at the federal level . This attempt at false equivalence ignores the reality . The Dems have decided to stop trying to be the honourable folk and have decided to fight fire with fire . In an ideal world there would be no gerrymandering in the US . The Dems attempted to pass legislation to level the playing field nationwide . The GOP voted against . California is simply reacting to Texas or do you expect them to sit there and play the honourable card whilst the GOP embark on stealing the mid-terms ?
The Democrats have a long record of corruption and cheating in elections.
It’s just that Trump, and those around him, are worse than the Democrats are.
The bloody "two sides" arguing drives me nuts. One's a football hooligan and the other Jack the Ripper. They are not the same.
Worse than that. They blame football supporters who support the same team as the hooligan for all of Jack the Ripper's murders.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Nuclear-free Sheffield was, however, targeted as an act of compassion for the residents…
"OpenAI Inc.’s failure to shield internal communications about pirated books from copyright plaintiffs threatens to expose the company to billions in damages and potentially debilitating sanctions."
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
It is a shame that Schwarzenegger was ineligible to become POTUS as he would have made a very, very good one I think. He was a very good Governor and he has his head screwed on right on most issues.
It seems America needs more Actors turned GOP Governors of California as that's two from two that I can think of who have done very good jobs.
Arnie was the only GOP gov of California this century.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Nuclear-free Sheffield was, however, targeted as an act of compassion for the residents…
No one has ever answered The Big Question.
If a nuclear war turned Slough into a radioactive wasteland, inhabited by cannibal zombies, who would pay the CGT on the uplift in property values?
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He's not a communist. He's further to the left than Kinnock, I'd say. Maybe not quite as far as Polanski? It's hard to compare: US and UK politics can be very different, and Mamdani's policy platform was geared around what a New York mayor can do rather than the broader powers of a UK PM.
It's more important what his reaction is to reality and opposition confronting his policies, rather than where his policies lie on a left-right scale.
The extent and method by which a politician bends to reality and in the face of opposition determines whether they can make meaningful change which has a good chance of success, or if they are so wedded to their ideological priors that they fail.
For example, Livingstone made a big thing of bringing back bus conductors to London buses, and I did see a bus conductor on one bus after his election, but that policy was rapidly dropped in the face of reality, and instead Livingstone pursued other policies which improved the London bus service. The core of what he set out to do - to improve London public transport - was achieved, but by means not entirely identical to those he had advocated in the election campaign.
Overnight I listened to a thoroughly depressing video about conditions in ICE detention camps, where there is now a class action lawsuit.
A transit facility, so no beds and multiple people sleeping on the floor in cells. Standing room only - so lying down in shifts. Medication denied, so an inmate shits their pants, then a change of clothing denied, and so on.
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white . But the party who supported a corrupt morally bankrupt man are the GOP . The GOP are the ones trying to suppress votes in urban areas who have refused to support voter legislation at the federal level . This attempt at false equivalence ignores the reality . The Dems have decided to stop trying to be the honourable folk and have decided to fight fire with fire . In an ideal world there would be no gerrymandering in the US . The Dems attempted to pass legislation to level the playing field nationwide . The GOP voted against . California is simply reacting to Texas or do you expect them to sit there and play the honourable card whilst the GOP embark on stealing the mid-terms ?
It’s not just reacting to Texas, it’s reacting to gerrymanders in Ohio, in North Carolina, in Arkansas, in Wisconsin, no doubt among others.
You can’t bring a knife to a gunfight. The Dems have finally realised that.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Nuclear-free Sheffield was, however, targeted as an act of compassion for the residents…
No one has ever answered The Big Question.
If a nuclear war turned Slough into a radioactive wasteland, inhabited by cannibal zombies, who would pay the CGT on the uplift in property values?
No idea, but the legal sector would very much like the billing opportunities that would come from working it out.
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
No sh!t, Sherlock. Public procurement is basically broken at this point, in both the UK and US.
Watching from somewhere that just gets sh!t done, it’s terrible to see.
Overnight I listened to a thoroughly depressing video about conditions in ICE detention camps, where there is now a class action lawsuit.
A transit facility, so no beds and multiple people sleeping on the floor in cells. Standing room only - so lying down in shifts. Medication denied, so an inmate shits their pants, then a change of clothing denied, and so on.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
"OpenAI Inc.’s failure to shield internal communications about pirated books from copyright plaintiffs threatens to expose the company to billions in damages and potentially debilitating sanctions."
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Nuclear-free Sheffield was, however, targeted as an act of compassion for the residents…
No one has ever answered The Big Question.
If a nuclear war turned Slough into a radioactive wasteland, inhabited by cannibal zombies, who would pay the CGT on the uplift in property values?
No idea, but the legal sector would very much like the billing opportunities that would come from working it out.
Now, I'm imagining a horde of radioactive, zombie... lawyers...
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
The Democrats aren't going to run socialists in suburban, small town and rural districts, of course. It appears (to me, at least) that they're remembering that a two party system requires a party to be a broad coalition to have the best chance of winning. The Republicans under Trump have chosen the opposite extreme to broad coalition, and without their subverting the entire electoral process, that is not going to win them either the midterms or the next presidential election.
Are Mandami's positions very far left? Where does he sit relative to say Zak Polanski or Neil Kinnock?
Are there not lots of Trumpists running around in circles telling the world that Keir Starmer is a socialist and Sadiq Khan is an Islamist? For Mandami, we have Trump's own yammerings about Mandami the Communist Jew Hater.
The issue there is not that Mandami is what they say, but that the logic of their own ideological positions means they have defined Islam as their enemy - and need to stick the label on anything that moves to justify themselves. The MAGA problem is overwhelmingly in their own heads.
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Whatever else that platform is, it isn't Communism. More like left wing Populism.
We saw lots of commentary both here and in the wider media on the lessons that the Dems needed to learn from the 2024 elections (basically shift right and anti-immigrant).
What lessons do you thing the Republicans need to learn from the pasting in the mid-mid-terms? Presumably to shift left and do something about unaffordable rents and poverty pay?
I see only tumbleweed....
It shows what happens when a party obsesses over its own niche concerns instead of focusing on the bread and butter issues that ordinary people actually care about. The GOP need to drop the dumbo 'antiwokery', the Trump worship, the white christian ethno-nationalism, the climate change denial, the health quackery, the America First international posturing, all of that nonsense, and get back to sanity and moderation. If they don't the US will elect a far left populist DEM as president, probably a crazed corrupt narcissist who is palpably unfit for office, and it will be completely 100% the fault of the Republicans.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
Do others agree that a suppurating sore at the heart of the US problem is healthcare?
Could Mandami find a way to have a go at that just for New York? I can't see a practical way.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Nuclear-free Sheffield was, however, targeted as an act of compassion for the residents…
No one has ever answered The Big Question.
If a nuclear war turned Slough into a radioactive wasteland, inhabited by cannibal zombies, who would pay the CGT on the uplift in property values?
No idea, but the legal sector would very much like the billing opportunities that would come from working it out.
Now, I'm imagining a horde of radioactive, zombie... lawyers...
Billing in six minute increments until they disintegrate
I understand what @Casino_Royale wrote. There IS a lot of Trump-bashing on here. The problem is that our source is Trump.
This is not about partisan politics, left vs right, this perspective vs that perspective. We all have opinions and I am the first to volunteer that mine isn't always consistent and is frequently judged by myself to have been in error. Mea Culpa and all that.
What this is about is America - the law, the constitution, its institutions. Trump is openly, actively, currently undermining all of them. Flouting them. Violating them. Its undeniable because its happening in front of us,
CR wants a rational analysis. I think we're having one about something wholly irrational. Its rational to look at the government shutdown, the official statements and videos from the White House, the actions of Congress and to summarise that based on the American constitution, its institutions and political system, what is happening is wholly irrational.
Yesterday we had "mid-midterm" elections. The Republicans got routed. That's the rational bit. The irrational bit is what happens afterwards in the context of all that has already been done and all that the same people say they will do next.
So I feel for Casino. We all want rationality.
The problem isn't the Trump bashing but rather the pompom waving for the Dems.
Much of the opinion here over the last few years was that the Dems are noble, honest, competent people who were pursuing the best way to bring Trump to justice, who had not driven centrists out of their party and who never gerrymander or rig elections and were led by a man who was not in deep mental decline and who would not issue a presidential pardon to his son who was not a criminal in any case.
No one’s saying the Dems are whiter than white . But the party who supported a corrupt morally bankrupt man are the GOP . The GOP are the ones trying to suppress votes in urban areas who have refused to support voter legislation at the federal level . This attempt at false equivalence ignores the reality . The Dems have decided to stop trying to be the honourable folk and have decided to fight fire with fire . In an ideal world there would be no gerrymandering in the US . The Dems attempted to pass legislation to level the playing field nationwide . The GOP voted against . California is simply reacting to Texas or do you expect them to sit there and play the honourable card whilst the GOP embark on stealing the mid-terms ?
It’s not just reacting to Texas, it’s reacting to gerrymanders in Ohio, in North Carolina, in Arkansas, in Wisconsin, no doubt among others.
You can’t bring a knife to a gunfight. The Dems have finally realised that.
It’s a shame it took them so long . Biden and his administration acted as if things would go back to normal , that Trump was out of the picture . By the time Garland did something it was too late .
Overnight I listened to a thoroughly depressing video about conditions in ICE detention camps, where there is now a class action lawsuit.
A transit facility, so no beds and multiple people sleeping on the floor in cells. Standing room only - so lying down in shifts. Medication denied, so an inmate shits their pants, then a change of clothing denied, and so on.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
I am not sure it is true most people think like that, but most swing voters certainly do. To be honest, they don't even have to make life a bit better - just not making it worse will do fine!
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
If you follow his twitter and his positions in the market over the past 2-3 years, he has predicted 74 of the last 1 recessions (the brief one under Biden). Last year he was betting massively against Chinese tech companies.
On topic, there's a real danger Democrats take the wrong message from the elections and focus too much on New York.
New York isn't particularly typical of America as a whole, and the dynamics of the race were really weird - a "democratic socialist" versus a highly problematic ex-Democrat governor, endorsed by a highly problematic outgoing mayor and current Republican President - I mean, pick the bones out of that.
Virginia and New Jersey are much more relevant - moderate Democrat women with CVs with some appeal to soft Republicans and Independents, absolutely romping home in blue-leaning but nonetheless slightly purple states. Virginia and New Jersey won't be the tipping point states in 2028... but states that are similar and not that much redder will be - they are in the ballpark.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
Do others agree that a suppurating sore at the heart of the US problem is healthcare?
Could Mandami find a way to have a go at that just for New York? I can't see a practical way.
The only politically possible way to universal health care in the US would be Bernie Sanders idea. Expand Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people and more and more conditions.
A city level system could be tried, but the problem would be moving the mountain of vested interests in the existing system. The issue is moving the money train from the company schemes/insurance companies....
It's interesting that if you sum up Federal US healthcare spending - include Veterans and various other health plans for government employees plus Medicare and Medicaid plus some other stuff - you end up with more per head than the UK spends on the NHS.
Michael Burry, the investor depicted in The Big Short who bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, had placed heavy positions against Palantir and Nvidia.
Telegraph
Had or has. Now I agree with him 100% that Nvidia’s share price is based on impossible targets but I can’t afford those bets at the moment because the market is still utterly irrational
Who was it who said that you could easily go bankrupt waiting for the market to return to rationality?
There needs to be a trigger to change the mood music - and I simply don't see it yet.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
Being private doesn't mean that you can defy the gravity of spending. Just that the end is not easily visible.
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
At the moment the money men all think AI is the next Industrial Revolution.
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I was doing a roundtable with data centre businesses yesterday. All pretty much accept it’s a bubble, but a bubble that could keep inflating for a decade or more.
If they said that, then my advice is to buy canned goods*, firearms and a bunker in New Zealand. Yesterday.
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Which is pretty much what Theil has done, albeit on a much grander scale. He is building a proper Bond Villain Lair in NZ.
What is he afraid of?
The only difference between a gated island and a gated community is the scale.
Apparently during the Cold War NZ was one of the Soviet Union's prime targets. They were highly suspicious of its claims to nuclear-freeness and thought the west was hiding something big there and therefore better obliterate it early on, just to be on the safe side. Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
Nuclear-free Sheffield was, however, targeted as an act of compassion for the residents…
No one has ever answered The Big Question.
If a nuclear war turned Slough into a radioactive wasteland, inhabited by cannibal zombies, who would pay the CGT on the uplift in property values?
Reminds me of the main unanswered question about potential Scottish independence: not currency, but Doncaster.
During the anarchy a lot of territory as temporarily ceded to the Scots before being reclaimed. Doncaster was ceded but never formally returned. Would the Scots actually confirm their independence if it meant that had to take Doncaster?
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
I am not sure it is true most people think like that, but most swing voters certainly do. To be honest, they don't even have to make life a bit better - just not making it worse will do fine!
Seeing as we appear to be re running the 1920s, I'd suggest getting out of the market in September 2029.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
Do others agree that a suppurating sore at the heart of the US problem is healthcare?
Could Mandami find a way to have a go at that just for New York? I can't see a practical way.
The only politically possible way to universal health care in the US would be Bernie Sanders idea. Expand Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people and more and more conditions.
A city level system could be tried, but the problem would be moving the mountain of vested interests in the existing system. The issue is moving the money train from the company schemes/insurance companies....
It's interesting that if you sum up Federal US healthcare spending - include Veterans and various other health plans for government employees plus Medicare and Medicaid plus some other stuff - you end up with more per head than the UK spends on the NHS.
That’s a crazy read. If anyone in the UK thinks that HS2 has a scope and budget problem, the Americans are way better at scope and budget problems.
Though they can go the other way.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
No sh!t, Sherlock. Public procurement is basically broken at this point, in both the UK and US.
Watching from somewhere that just gets sh!t done, it’s terrible to see.
You do live in an absolute monarchy, though.
With huge levels of corruption, sex trafficking, etc.
Clearly a good night for the Democrats, winning the big 3 races of the NJ and Virginia governors races and the NYC Mayoralty..
Their margins of victory however in the 3 told its own story. Landslide victories for the Democrat candidate in NJ, beating the Republican candidate by a 13% margin compared to the 6% margin Harris beat Trump by in NJ last year and in Virginia, where the Democrat candidate won by a 15% margin over the GOP candidate compared to the 6% margin Harris also beat Trump by in that state. Both those results will be especially pleasing for the Dems as they show a clear swing away from Trump and the GOP.
For all the story of Mamdani's NYC Mayoral win though he won with only 50.4% of the vote against the 41.6% for Trump backed Independent Cuomo and 7% for GOP candidate Silwa, That is significantly less for the official Democratic candidate than the 68% Harris won in New York city against Trump last year. Suggesting that if democratic socialism can barely scrape a majority even in deep blue NYC then socialism is certainly not the path back to victory for the Democrats in the midterms next year or the 2028 White House. Some comfort there for Trump and Vance and the GOP if Mamdani's tax rises send the wealthy and businesses fleeing Manhattan and wider New York city and they can tar other Democrats with the same brush. As Corbyn and Melenchon found even if a socialist can win the biggest city in the nation it certainly does not mean a socialist will be able to win suburban, small town and rural parts of the nation
Cuomo isn't an Independent, he was a loser in the Democratic primary just a few moths ago.
So NYC was 90% Dem, not 50.4%, albeit with tactical voting for Cuomo.
Cuomo won’t have got many Democrat votes. He ran as MAGA (are allegations of extreme personal sleeze mandatory for MAGA?)
New York has been won by moderate Republicans (remember them) a number of times. But it also gets moderate Democrat Mayors - because they need the centre to win.
And there has always been a serious right wing vote in NY.
Last nights result is unusual - the anti-Trump factor got a more left wing Democrat across the line, than usual.
Yes. The other factor is personal record. If Mamdani is successful in implementing half his manifesto and blaming the obstacles in the other half on State and Washington goivernment - two big ifs - then he should be comfortable for re-election and perhaps more.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
Probably better to say that things looked worse in 2024 than 2020 so the Democrats lost.
After all that is the logic by which the Republicans will lose if there is a fair election in 2028.
Comments
In the age of the eBike, you can't even claim that infirmity prevents you from doing stop-start.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/25/zohran-mamdani-platform-policies-issues/84350898007/
He’s all up for state-owned grocery stores, rent controls, $30 minimum wage, wealth taxes, free city buses, sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police etc. etc.
Nottage Hill wine was the inspiration for the Richard Curtis romcom of the same name, as it was reputedly Hugh Grant’s famous tipple. And of course as we know, the wild success of that film led to the London district of East Holland Park renaming itself in tribute.
Grange was originally called Grange Hermitage, after the museum in St Petersburg, but removed the second part in protest against Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
It's not entirely impossible (though still unlikely) that she, or someone from her side of the party might get the VP slot.
Also, Trump is not going to sort Ukraine.
Unlucky for Judd, Wu Yize advances to the quarter-finals 6-4 winner.
I can see a whole set of reasons why the market is a bubble but I can't see anything yet where the reality will be made so obvious the market will change mood..
To add - one reason for that is that none of the core players in the LLM market are actually public so the only figures you see are fluttering or ignorable (such as the $11.5bn Microsoft revealed OpenAi lost)
This often has the counter- intuitive effect of making the motor traffic flow faster, because ultimately it's junctions that slow it down. Will take some serious bravery to do that in NYC though.
(E.g. close every 2nd avenue to thru-traffic for 2x5 LTNs?)
Trump remains popular with some voters. The Republicans are still predicted to hold the Senate next year. Those who dislike Trump are able to recognise that.
The current polling and the elections last night suggest the Republican party is not popular and point to the Democrats doing well in 2026 and 2028. But, sure, things can change! If you'd like to put forth a "serious analysis" as to why the Republicans will do well in 2028, go for it. You also seem to be saying that Trump could win in 2028. Could you offer a serious analysis as to how he stands when he is clearly forbidden to do so by the constitution?
The end will come when there is an interrupting of the investment flow. At the moment, you have a small circle of investing companies who are terrified of being left behind. At some point, one of them will defect.
"We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about."
https://x.com/libbyemmons/status/1985932221522591825
They’re all way more afraid of being left behind than proved wrong. At some point this attitude might change, but that’s still a long way off.
I’m on the BA to Houston in club world. Yet again, an airline class that used to be almost uniquely used by actual business travellers is chockablock with boomer civilians. And no they’re not all Texans, there are plenty of Brits in that category here too.
There is a lot of wealth in the nation. Something that also strikes me when I see the number of Range Rovers, XC90s, Teslas and Porsches on the road.
NH last week, for example.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/surprise-candidate-leads-pack-dems-192845819.html
...Buttigieg, a former presidential candidate and the one-time mayor of South Bend, Ind., took 19% of the vote in a hypothetical, head-to-head matchup.
Newsom, who’s made national headlines for trolling Republican President Donald Trump on social media, came second, with 15% of the vote, while Ocasio-Cortez, who’s been increasingly mentioned as a White House contender, finished third at 14%, according to the poll.
Eighty-one percent of the likely Democratic primary voters who responded to the poll said they had a favorable opinion of Buttigieg...
RCP average has Newsom and Buttigieg with 40% between them. After AOC come Harris and Pritzker.
In other words, the radical candidate is barely breaking double figures nationally, and it's hard to see what changes that.
Her best shot by far is for the Senate seat.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-dollar100-billion-lesson-in-why-building-public-transportation-is-so-expensive-in-the-us/
Nil.
We saw lots of commentary both here and in the wider media on the lessons that the Dems needed to learn from the 2024 elections (basically shift right and anti-immigrant).
What lessons do you thing the Republicans need to learn from the pasting in the mid-mid-terms? Presumably to shift left and do something about unaffordable rents and poverty pay?
I see only tumbleweed....
So terrifying words seems like a bonkers sentiment.
1 - It's not about "blike-friendly"; it's a far broader vision than than, about being "human-friendly".
2 - There are well established design approaches for dealing with how to do the urban networks. If you like I can promote reference sources, but David Hembrow's blog "A View from the Cycle PatH" is a good start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ysB8KifC8
*Don't forget the entire rack of can openers from the store.
Humans are non-linear.
My late brother in law got it in 1988 as part of the UN peacekeeping force
Also, he's a big city mayor. Running a big city effectively involves a large measure of communal living.
What is he afraid of?
Are there any significant number of grocery stores in New York. Is this just meeting a basic need - a kind of paid food bank? There's a video somewhere of Evan Edinger trying to buy an apple in NY, and finding it difficult.
Rent controls have been a thing in NY since the 1920s, and are the dominant case study as to why they do not work.
That minimum wage is high, but in place across most of Europe. I don't see him doing $30.
Wealth taxes are just one option, again in use in various places in Europe.
Free city buses are a small change from flat rate travel cards (eg London). NY already has a 7-day one costing $5 a day for bus and subway.
Sanctuary city, free gender surgery, non-co-operation with federal police. I don't see these as being "communist".
We'll see.
He's a very left-wing socialist, even by European standards, but he's not a full fat communist. Comes pretty close though.
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/1985992682053775740
Watching last night's US voting, it seems in many cases, Americans have resolved to cleanse the system of pro-Russian far right in exchange for the pro-Russian far left.
The US electorate is a 15 year old, spoiled, suburban teenager, swapping out the goth look for the hippy look in effort to further piss off daddy with the most contrarian stance possible.
Sadly, the dumbing down of America costs real lives all over the world, as Russia's coalition of terror plays it like a violin, only growing.
When a critical freeway collapsed in LA (quake), Schwarzenegger (Governor at the time) let a contract to get it replaced. Faster got the company more money - but they had to post a bond to liable for the repairs for several decades.
They got the job done in a ridiculously short period of time, using special concrete, cooling pipes in the concrete etc, working round the clock. It actually turned out to be one of the lowest maintenance pieces of the LA freeway system, IIRC.
The one thing that economists agree on, whether right or left, is that rent controls are a terrible idea.
It seems America needs more Actors turned GOP Governors of California as that's two from two that I can think of who have done very good jobs.
Reform 31%
Con 19%
Labour 18%
Lib Dem 13%
Green 12%
*In a few places they have vestigial rent controls that don't set the rents much (if anything) below the market. So they have rent control in name only.
Watching from somewhere that just gets sh!t done, it’s terrible to see.
Which is the country with the most complete set - Switzerland?
Either that or they just wanted to annoy the smug bastards who thought they could buy their way out of armageddon.
More that once you have 22,000 deliverable warheads, why not? You can kill NZ as a first world state with a handful of warheads - what's left is agriculture and very few people.
The Soviets were utterly certain that the no-nukes thing was a lie. Because how could anybody be that stupid?
Ultimately both are about rarifying your personal atmosphere in search of your personal happiness.
"OpenAI Inc.’s failure to shield internal communications about pirated books from copyright plaintiffs threatens to expose the company to billions in damages and potentially debilitating sanctions."
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/openai-risks-billions-as-court-weighs-privilege-in-copyright-row
https://bsky.app/profile/moreperfectunion.bsky.social/post/3m4su7l7u7k2a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_California
If a nuclear war turned Slough into a radioactive wasteland, inhabited by cannibal zombies, who would pay the CGT on the uplift in property values?
The extent and method by which a politician bends to reality and in the face of opposition determines whether they can make meaningful change which has a good chance of success, or if they are so wedded to their ideological priors that they fail.
For example, Livingstone made a big thing of bringing back bus conductors to London buses, and I did see a bus conductor on one bus after his election, but that policy was rapidly dropped in the face of reality, and instead Livingstone pursued other policies which improved the London bus service. The core of what he set out to do - to improve London public transport - was achieved, but by means not entirely identical to those he had advocated in the election campaign.
A transit facility, so no beds and multiple people sleeping on the floor in cells. Standing room only - so lying down in shifts. Medication denied, so an inmate shits their pants, then a change of clothing denied, and so on.
It's real Third World stuff. This is Chicago.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJV43WT55qc
One report: https://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/judge-appears-poised-to-issue-order-on-unacceptable-conditions-at-broadview-ice-facility/3847644/
You can’t bring a knife to a gunfight. The Dems have finally realised that.
On PB we tend to think that most people think on a left-right axis, but actually mostly people don't think much about politics, and when they do it's based largely on an assessment of whether X is successful and makes life a bit better. That's how Trump won, come to that.
One interesting tidbit from the exits: @ZohranKMamdani won 9% of Trump 2024 voters
Could Mandami find a way to have a go at that just for New York? I can't see a practical way.
Commie Donald.
New York isn't particularly typical of America as a whole, and the dynamics of the race were really weird - a "democratic socialist" versus a highly problematic ex-Democrat governor, endorsed by a highly problematic outgoing mayor and current Republican President - I mean, pick the bones out of that.
Virginia and New Jersey are much more relevant - moderate Democrat women with CVs with some appeal to soft Republicans and Independents, absolutely romping home in blue-leaning but nonetheless slightly purple states. Virginia and New Jersey won't be the tipping point states in 2028... but states that are similar and not that much redder will be - they are in the ballpark.
A city level system could be tried, but the problem would be moving the mountain of vested interests in the existing system. The issue is moving the money train from the company schemes/insurance companies....
It's interesting that if you sum up Federal US healthcare spending - include Veterans and various other health plans for government employees plus Medicare and Medicaid plus some other stuff - you end up with more per head than the UK spends on the NHS.
During the anarchy a lot of territory as temporarily ceded to the Scots before being reclaimed. Doncaster was ceded but never formally returned. Would the Scots actually confirm their independence if it meant that had to take Doncaster?
After all that is the logic by which the Republicans will lose if there is a fair election in 2028.