Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
Some countries have moved from "climate change may happen and will be disastrous so we must avoid it" to "climate change is happening and will be disastrous for some but not all, and opens up opportunities which we can exploit for advantage" This explains US aggression towards Greenland and Canada: a navigable Northwest Passage courtesy of melted ice is a strategic resource which Trump wants.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
You get sneered at or hounded on here if you challenge the groupthink on immigration, state spending, Trump or Ukraine. I only drop in occasionally now for that reason. I expect once the lull of having nothing to do between xmas and ny is over, I’ll be off for a while again too.
It’s a shame as it can be an unparalleled resource for understanding the world but it does need plurality of thought. I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short). Without Byronic (?) incessantly plugging away with the doom narrative I doubt I’d have made the trade in time. It’s a much much poorer place for Leon’s absence.
I think it can be very hard to express minority opinions in any setting. It's not unreasonable for people in the majority to disagree with you, but even if they do so in a reasonable and measured way, everyone wants to have their say, and it feels like a pile-on. Normally subsequent contributors feel the need to dial things up so that their contribution is more noticeable, and that makes things worse.
But then, if we do disagree we're going to want to say so.
This happens in contexts that are trivial, just as much as places like this, where things can feel a bit more charged because the subject matter is more important.
For example, I was once the target of a pile-on in a Warhammer discord because I expressed the minority opinion that I didn't have a problem with the apparent unreality of a specific fantasy miniature that is regularly the subject of derision online.
If you say things I disagree with I may well tell you why I disagree with them. I hope I do not make it a personal attack, and I also hope we could have a mutually enlightening exchange of views so that we'd understand each other's opinions better
Seems like a perfectly flightworthy eagle powered chariot to me
Gosh. That cannot be doing us much good at all. A factor in our low productivity?
It defines bread as ultraprocessed. And yet:
"A number of studies show that although UPFs in general are associated with higher health risks, there exists a large heterogeneity among UPF subgroups. For example, although bread and cereals are classified as UPFs, a large 2023 study published in The Lancet finds them inversely associated with cancer and cardiometabolic diseases in the European population (hazard ratio 0.97)."
It seems to have some use as a categorisation, but also some buzzword tendencies.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
Fair enough if it doesn't rank as important to you, but there are some climate change deniers, like @Luckyguy1983 and Donald Trump and lots of people funding Reform UK.
If you read both your last two posts in this thread in succession the clear implication is that Donnie is a Reform-leaning PB poster. Care to doxx him?
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Thank you. Was there a triggering event for the mass panic (COVID? Biden election?)?
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
A more optimistic factor is that many of the key technologies we need to deploy to reduce the scale of the problem (solar and batteries, say) have reached a level of maturity where government intervention is not required to kick-start their development and deployment.
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
Fair enough if it doesn't rank as important to you, but there are some climate change deniers, like @Luckyguy1983 and Donald Trump and lots of people funding Reform UK.
If you read both your last two posts in this thread in succession the clear implication is that Donnie is a Reform-leaning PB poster. Care to doxx him?
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
Watts up with that is still going and the current most likely winner of the next UK general election flaunts their climate denialism as a badge of honour.
But hopefully it doesn't matter now that solar energy is cheap.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
Thanks for sharing the interview.
I agree with him on it and have raised this point myself many times. It is also (and I would not expect him to mention this) Reform Party policy to cease paying commercial banks interest on their QE holdings.
Listening to the rest of the interview is somewhat frustrating, as I think his narrative about climate change is disingenuous. But that isn't unique to him - it is pretty much across the board with those of like mind.
He also doesn't address the mobility of wealth - or simply its foreign ownership. He raises the case of the Cargill family profiteering from poor cocoa harvests - that family is American. What are we to do about it? The best thing we can really do in this instance is attract their wealth by making Britain a playground for them. But that's so far from the red/green prescription it's in another galaxy.
In turn thanks for giving up your time to listen to it.
Yes very much to your credit imv you have consistently raised BoE QE holdings, I confess until now I have never put in the time to fully understand the mechanisms by which this is costing us money (and I still don't fully understand the implications for our future creditworthiness of ceasing to pay interest).
Agreed on your other points. Though I would note he does better than most left-wing economists in at least acknowledging that, whatever we do with our 2% of global GDP, we need to fit with the economic realities created by the other 98%. I'd also add a critique that he doesn't really offer a coherent solution to the economic problems of the current government.
But, as I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate as a fellow radical, cogent arguments that I agree with are thin on the ground so one has to make the most of slim pickings.
Ceasing to pay interest would only be on the money that the BOE printed and gave the commercial banks, that they then deposited with the BOE. Not on their own deposits with the Bank. This money is basically a bung to the banking industry.
Its withdrawal will have an impact - depriving an industry of £20bn is always going to have an impact, just as tightening up Motability will harm car dealerships. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, and done now. That money could be paid off the national debt.
If you have a time machine handy, go back a year and invest your SIPP in bank shares. Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest have all risen by 50 to 75 per cent.
I’ve been wary of home bank shares, but my holdings in Swedbank and Intesa SP have certainly done well this year.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
I would agree with a lot of this. Agriculture in India is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, but Modi hasn't cottoned on as quickly as China has.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
It's sometimes hard to discern the true motivations of an autocracy, but there's no real argument about the actual policy.
What's beyond doubt, though, is that the direction of government policy both in practical and scientific terms has undergone a change completely opposite to that of the US in the last decade and a half.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
Yes, it became politicised in an unhelpful and counterproductive way rather than, say, just being a fact that's accepted - like the industrial revolution- with the debate being about what to do to manage or mitigate it.
Yes, the Industrial Revolution was entirely an accepted fact at the time with no controversies at all.
Aside from the Luddites was there any major party pledged to throw it into full reverse?
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
Thanks for sharing the interview.
I agree with him on it and have raised this point myself many times. It is also (and I would not expect him to mention this) Reform Party policy to cease paying commercial banks interest on their QE holdings.
Listening to the rest of the interview is somewhat frustrating, as I think his narrative about climate change is disingenuous. But that isn't unique to him - it is pretty much across the board with those of like mind.
He also doesn't address the mobility of wealth - or simply its foreign ownership. He raises the case of the Cargill family profiteering from poor cocoa harvests - that family is American. What are we to do about it? The best thing we can really do in this instance is attract their wealth by making Britain a playground for them. But that's so far from the red/green prescription it's in another galaxy.
In turn thanks for giving up your time to listen to it.
Yes very much to your credit imv you have consistently raised BoE QE holdings, I confess until now I have never put in the time to fully understand the mechanisms by which this is costing us money (and I still don't fully understand the implications for our future creditworthiness of ceasing to pay interest).
Agreed on your other points. Though I would note he does better than most left-wing economists in at least acknowledging that, whatever we do with our 2% of global GDP, we need to fit with the economic realities created by the other 98%. I'd also add a critique that he doesn't really offer a coherent solution to the economic problems of the current government.
But, as I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate as a fellow radical, cogent arguments that I agree with are thin on the ground so one has to make the most of slim pickings.
Ceasing to pay interest would only be on the money that the BOE printed and gave the commercial banks, that they then deposited with the BOE. Not on their own deposits with the Bank. This money is basically a bung to the banking industry.
Its withdrawal will have an impact - depriving an industry of £20bn is always going to have an impact, just as tightening up Motability will harm car dealerships. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, and done now. That money could be paid off the national debt.
Or could be spend on climate change adaptation 😋.
Thanks. It has only taken me about 5 years but you should be pleased that your efforts on this front have educated at least one person on here.
I shall await our Reform overlords with just a modicum less foreboding.
I don't think it's anything to do with my efforts but kind of you to say so.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
In the 1980s I worked for a boss who had been a real horse racing addict, but by the time I worked for him had given up gambling altogether. I always remember the story he told of how this came to be. He’d been a serious student of form for years prior, and had generally done a little better than break-even from the many hours he’d spent poring over the Post inside the betting shop, always dreaming of the one day coming when he would achieve his big win.
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Indeed, as he hi-tailed it out of the Smoke (as Eadric) in a blind panic.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
A more optimistic factor is that many of the key technologies we need to deploy to reduce the scale of the problem (solar and batteries, say) have reached a level of maturity where government intervention is not required to kick-start their development and deployment.
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
Solar is now the cheapest to install. Solar + battery is approaching that.
China is installing it at an insane rate. They are starting to shift to green steel production as well - while we do nothing.
EV upfront price is now falling below ICE upfront price.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
I would agree with a lot of this. Agriculture in India is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, but Modi hasn't cottoned on as quickly as China has.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
It is melting Siberian permafrost, giving remarkable rises in temperature in Russia, and creating a dustbowl in the great plains of America, as well as many more wildfires and violent storms, so I don't think it's all chips and gravy.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Indeed, as he hi-tailed it out of the Smoke (as Eadric) in a blind panic.
And then, from his South Wales hideout, where we all knew he was, but the credulous readers of that right-wing rag did not, went on to write an article for that magazine about life in our Covid-stricken capital.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
I accept the main thrust of your argument, but would argue the picture wrt China and renewables is more nuanced.
Regardless, in my view our economic system is incapable of addressing climate change at the speed required as externalities are so deeply embedded within the system. Renewables is a relative positive, I agree, and electric cars downstream of this. But more broadly I think we are still a long way away from decoupling the health of our economies from our use of natural resources, including carbon-emitting ones.
I also think the global coordination needed to tackle some of the more systemic challenges will be unlikely to be in place until we are all vassal states of China or India.
And with that note of joy I bid you all a belated Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
A more optimistic factor is that many of the key technologies we need to deploy to reduce the scale of the problem (solar and batteries, say) have reached a level of maturity where government intervention is not required to kick-start their development and deployment.
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
Solar is now the cheapest to install. Solar + battery is approaching that.
China is installing it at an insane rate. They are starting to shift to green steel production as well - while we do nothing.
EV upfront price is now falling below ICE upfront price.
Etc. etc.
They are doing it because they used 'dirty' fuel to get there. Their industry has grown fat from our Net Zero push, now they are leaders in the technology and will deploy it where it makes sense (continuing to use dirty fuels where it's more economical to do so).
If we want to replicate China's success, we'll do pretty much the same.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
A more optimistic factor is that many of the key technologies we need to deploy to reduce the scale of the problem (solar and batteries, say) have reached a level of maturity where government intervention is not required to kick-start their development and deployment.
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
Solar is now the cheapest to install. Solar + battery is approaching that.
China is installing it at an insane rate. They are starting to shift to green steel production as well - while we do nothing.
EV upfront price is now falling below ICE upfront price.
Etc. etc.
Right. We had that whole argument over green steel production a few years ago when the question of that coking mine came up. I believe I'm right in saying that the British choice was to do neither. No coking mine, no green steel production, maybe no steel production at all before long.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
For sure, but nothing he posted back then, had you been consuming all of this output, would have led you to that conclusion. Congrats if you joined the dots yourself, but you are rewriting history if you think you acted on any sort of reliable tip from Leon.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
A more optimistic factor is that many of the key technologies we need to deploy to reduce the scale of the problem (solar and batteries, say) have reached a level of maturity where government intervention is not required to kick-start their development and deployment.
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
Solar is now the cheapest to install. Solar + battery is approaching that.
China is installing it at an insane rate. They are starting to shift to green steel production as well - while we do nothing.
EV upfront price is now falling below ICE upfront price.
Etc. etc.
Right. We had that whole argument over green steel production a few years ago when the question of that coking mine came up. I believe I'm right in saying that the British choice was to do neither. No coking mine, no green steel production, maybe no steel production at all before long.
Yes, we all got slightly dogmatic about it - and hobbled ourselves- which is hardly helpful.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
Where could China get clean freshwater? Outer Manchuria, aka half of Siberia. Not Taiwan.
Although now they give away solar panels in cornflake noodle packets, desalination must be a serious option.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
You have an uncanny Leonesque writing style.
Since he is a best selling author, I suppose I shall take that as a complement
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
I would agree with a lot of this. Agriculture in India is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, but Modi hasn't cottoned on as quickly as China has.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
It is melting Siberian permafrost, giving remarkable rises in temperature in Russia, and creating a dustbowl in the great plains of America, as well as many more wildfires and violent storms, so I don't think it's all chips and gravy.
Yes.
The main reason I say least vulnerable is because both countries produce a food surplus, and although rainfall changes are particularly uncertain they're less likely to be as severe as they might be in the Sahel, southern Europe, or the Indian subcontinent.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
You have an uncanny Leonesque writing style.
Since he is a best selling author, I suppose I shall take that as a complement
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
A more insightful take on the past few years is that it's when the climate vandalism of the green lobby became an undeniable fact. We saw wildfires in California blamed on 'climate change', when they were in fact quite clearly derived from 'green' policies stopping the clearing of forests and rolling back grazing on the land.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
You have an uncanny Leonesque writing style.
Since he is a best selling author, I suppose I shall take that as a complement
That's the odd thing. Leon was a bestselling author who used to regale us with his Norweigan and Spanish royalty cheques, but then he stopped for some reason and now goes on holiday for a living.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
In the 1980s I worked for a boss who had been a real horse racing addict, but by the time I worked for him had given up gambling altogether. I always remember the story he told of how this came to be. He’d been a serious student of form for years prior, and had generally done a little better than break-even from the many hours he’d spent poring over the Post inside the betting shop, always dreaming of the one day coming when he would achieve his big win.
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
Ah, yes, been there. Good win and you beat yourself up for not doing more. It can feel worse than losing! Trouble is, you end up a continual misery guts with that way of thinking, so I try to fight it. Another eg of a 'bad win' is where you cash out too early. Would have made tons more if you'd let it ride. I'm a little bit prone to that too.
Have the Democrats figured out why they keep losing yet?
In November they swept the board in the mini mid terms, they can win now without changing at all from last year as Trump's approval rating has slumped to 42% from the 50% he got last year in the presidential election.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Which currency were you betting against and what were your reasons for betting against it?
I was betting on US stocks crashing, when they inevitably suffered the same mass panic.
Whatever, that won’t have been from any cogent analysis Leon posted, since he always flailed about making all sorts of wild and often contradictory posts without ever specifically predicting anything you could reliably stake money on. On the rare occasions that he did - for example during the 2017 GE when he claimed to have just sold all of his investments because Corbyn was about to be elected PM - he was probably feeding us made-up BS and in any case proved to be completely wrong. Either you are misremembering, or you were extraordinarily lucky to have acted on one of his posts not having seen all the contradictory ones.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
Alastair wrote an excellent header talking about Before Covid and After Covid. Well done if you were ahead of the curve. Leon’s doom posting is what did it for me. I knew all about Covid having been living with its effects since Jan 20 in Asia. I’m pretty sure I caught it in Jan 20 actually.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
You have an uncanny Leonesque writing style.
Since he is a best selling author, I suppose I shall take that as a complement
Where would folks departing from our National Express coach stations be, without his pap, to anaesthetise their journeys?
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
In the 1980s I worked for a boss who had been a real horse racing addict, but by the time I worked for him had given up gambling altogether. I always remember the story he told of how this came to be. He’d been a serious student of form for years prior, and had generally done a little better than break-even from the many hours he’d spent poring over the Post inside the betting shop, always dreaming of the one day coming when he would achieve his big win.
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
Ah, yes, been there. Good win and you beat yourself up for not doing more. It can feel worse than losing! Trouble is, you end up a continual misery guts with that way of thinking, so I try to fight it. Another eg of a 'bad win' is where you cash out too early. Would have made tons more if you'd let it ride. I'm a little bit prone to that too.
It depends, of course, on why you’re betting in the first place. If you’re just hoping to fill the time and make your life a bit more interesting, hoping to make some spare spending money on the side if you do well, then fair play and do carry on. But the impression I got from him was that all the hours he had invested studying form really were intended to, one day, make him rich and transform his life; once he realised that wasn’t going to happen, the spell was broken.
What is your point in posting this article on here? To trigger those who don't like a particular level of melatonin in the skin or for some other reason related to how this might affect the result of the next General Election?
Genuine question.
To be fair to @Andy_JS my understanding was that it was illegal (or possibly against official regulations not law). If charities are giving guidance that is outside the *intention* of the lawmakers which (IIRC was clear at the time) then that should be highlighted.
It’s nothing to do with skin colour (although the Tomes mentions a specific community) but a general issue of charities usurping the role of official bodies to push their own agenda
IIRC the law says that sex is not a lawful grounds for termination. But that doctors get round that by using the patient mental wellbeing grounds.
The patient mental wellbeing grounds are used by most doctors as a catch-all to allow abortion on demand. It's an example of how the implementation of a law regulating a medical procedure can differ markedly in practice from that (probably) intended by Parliament when the law was passed.
It doesn't receive much attention because most people are fine with how the abortion law operates in practice (though it does mean that sometimes a pregnant woman who wants a termination can face extra difficulty if they encounter one of the small number of doctors who don't follow the common practice, which is why BPAS and others have called for the law to be updated).
It's an example much on my mind in relation to the supposed safeguards for assisted dying. How might those actually operate in practice?
You don’t need to worry about that.
The zealots have eliminated most of the safeguards anyway
Far too many still exist like the preposterous six month rule.
The only safeguard that should exist is "do you want to die?"
If no, then don't kill the person. If yes, then do so.
A potential second sensible safeguard could be a cooling off period after which the question is repeated. However again, all that should matter is the patients choice. Nobody else's.
The problem is that, once you are dead, no-one can check with you that it really was your choice to die. So on whose word are you relying that a murder was not committed?
That's why there would have to be safeguards, and why I am concerned about whether those safeguards are implemented as intended.
CCTV is not exactly unheard of.
"Do you wish to die" with a clear and unambiguous "yes" response recorded.
Why do we need any of this six month bullshit? If someone has years of suffering ahead and wishes to end it, then their choice should be respected, not be told to wait through years of suffering until their case is terminal.
Because the rules are established to protect the vulnerable. Yes they may seem clunky to someone like you in good health and of soundish mind but they aren’t there for you
I feel the rules are there to attempt to placate people who oppose the concept in general, more than to protect anyone.
If someone has years of suffering ahead of them and clearly and unambiguously wishes to have their life be terminated in a safe and dignified manner, then should their wish be respected, or should the objections of third parties who oppose free choice be respected instead?
Their wish should be respected, subject to safeguards to ensure there is no coercion (either imposed or self-imposed). A time delay, for example, is not unreasonable.
Indeed, I specifically suggested a time delay as a logical safeguard: A potential second sensible safeguard could be a cooling off period after which the question is repeated.
That makes far, far, far more sense as a safeguard than the asinine six month rule that means that eg people with life-long debilitating conditions that are able to communicate a desire to die, like some of those that took the case to the Supreme Court which ruled that Parliament should decide on this instead, are denied the right to do so safely and with dignity.
6 months makes sense. People change their minds. Prognosises change.
The state being involved in someone’s death is not a step that should be taken lightly
People may change their minds, which is why there should be a cooling off period, perhaps a week or two, to see if they do or don't.
If they don't, their choice should be respected. Whatever their reasons are.
If someone for example is 'locked in', unable to move, unable to go to the toilet by themselves, in constant agony, but able to communicate a clear and unambiguous desire to die, then why should their choice not be respected just because they are not terminally ill?
There are fates worse than death.
A long, drawn out death can be considerably worse than a short, sharp one.
'The state' should have no say in whether a person does or does not die, that should be the person's choice and theirs alone. Any safeguards should be about ensuring that it is the person's considered opinion, not second-guessing it or the state putting in their say.
You and I disagree in principle.
There is little point in continuing this discussion
Circles back to what I said before, this is not about safeguarding to ensure that the person's choice is actually their own, but about satisfying those who object to the very principle.
If you want safeguards to ensure that someone's choice is their own, then I respect that, and a sensible compromise is how we do that. We both have different views, but agree for instance that a cooling off period (my words) or time delay (your words) is logical.
However the six months to death proviso in the proposed law has jack all to do with that. It does absolutely nothing for those trapped in non-terminal conditions that wish to die and can clearly and unambiguously express their own wishes.
It is purely about placating those who oppose the principle of letting people rather than the state choose their own fates.
Laws can’t be written for specific cases. They need to be kept simple and designed to protect the vulnerable.
I certainly very reluctant that governments should get involved in killing citizens or even assisting them in dying. Because it is simply no business of the government to do that, and most powers that the government takes are expanded and abused over time.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
A more insightful take on the past few years is that it's when the climate vandalism of the green lobby became an undeniable fact. We saw wildfires in California blamed on 'climate change', when they were in fact quite clearly derived from 'green' policies stopping the clearing of forests and rolling back grazing on the land.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
While you can trust the Science you just cant trust the scientists
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
In the 1980s I worked for a boss who had been a real horse racing addict, but by the time I worked for him had given up gambling altogether. I always remember the story he told of how this came to be. He’d been a serious student of form for years prior, and had generally done a little better than break-even from the many hours he’d spent poring over the Post inside the betting shop, always dreaming of the one day coming when he would achieve his big win.
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
Ah, yes, been there. Good win and you beat yourself up for not doing more. It can feel worse than losing! Trouble is, you end up a continual misery guts with that way of thinking, so I try to fight it. Another eg of a 'bad win' is where you cash out too early. Would have made tons more if you'd let it ride. I'm a little bit prone to that too.
It depends, of course, on why you’re betting in the first place. If you’re just hoping to fill the time and make your life a bit more interesting, hoping to make some spare spending money on the side if you do well, then fair play and do carry on. But the impression I got from him was that all the hours he had invested studying form really were intended to, one day, make him rich and transform his life; once he realised that wasn’t going to happen, the spell was broken.
Perfectly reasonable reaction. Poignant but reasonable based on that mindset. It is key why you're doing it. Recreational is very different to pro. The first you'd like to make £££ - and there's maybe even some pride and self-regard involved - whereas with the second you need to. I've been both but the 'pro' phase was with other people's money. That's nice work if you can get it.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
That was an opportunity for you to graciously withdraw your baseless accusation, and demonstrate both your character and integrity.
You have chosen not to do so.
Noted. I will now engage with you on this forum going forwards accordingly.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
That was an opportunity for you to graciously withdraw your baseless accusation, and demonstrate both your character and integrity.
You have chosen not to do so.
Noted. I will now engage with you on this forum going forwards accordingly.
Have the Democrats figured out why they keep losing yet?
In November they swept the board in the mini mid terms, they can win now without changing at all from last year as Trump's approval rating has slumped to 42% from the 50% he got last year in the presidential election.
Have the Democrats figured out why they keep losing yet?
In November they swept the board in the mini mid terms, they can win now without changing at all from last year as Trump's approval rating has slumped to 42% from the 50% he got last year in the presidential election.
The Washington Post chooses its first State of the Year: Indiana.
This is a large part of why Indiana is The Post’s State of the Year. Twenty-one principled conservatives in the state Senate resisted four months of intense threats, from primary challenges to federal funding cuts, and never caved to demands from the Trump White House and Gov. Mike Braun (R) to redraw the congressional map. This act of political courage has emboldened others, including Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D), who continues trying to fend off Gov. Wes Moore’s brazen power grab.
Critically, Indiana also made significant strides on policy. An estimated two-thirds of homeowners will pay less property taxes next year thanks to a broad overhaul in funding formulas — the sort of change a responsible state can make. Indeed, Indiana actually cut spending, not just the rate of growth, while increasing education funding.
Note: The award is given to the state that the the WaPo editorial board believes has made the most improvement.
(New Hampshire and California are the other two states in their top three finalists, California because Governor Newsom has been trying — with some success — to reverse decades of misgovernment.)
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
That was an opportunity for you to graciously withdraw your baseless accusation, and demonstrate both your character and integrity.
You have chosen not to do so.
Noted. I will now engage with you on this forum going forwards accordingly.
Scary stuff.
Not really. It just confirms you in my mind to be something of a fool, rather than someone worthy of commanding my respect - that's all.
If you can't find it within you to make an apology for baselessly besmirching someone else's position for your own purposes, and then failing to withdraw that when it's pointed out to you, then your gaze needs to be directed inwards at yourself, not me.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
I haven’t (and won’t) have a chance to look but people get way to focused on accounting and what that means in terms of the “rules” that the government has set itself.
It doesn’t matter.
If the debt exists and needs to be paid back, in which case it is a real liability and should be thought of as such - ie it is a constraint on our ability to borrow additional money and should bear interest (even if you are just moving money to another pocket that can be helpful from a budget control mechanism).
Alternatively the debt is not “real” in which case the government has effectively printed money and we need to accept that the money supply is higher than it would otherwise be, with a consequent impact on inflation and interest rates.
That’s it. There are no other alternatives. What we do at the moment is pretend that it is real, whereas in reality it probably isn’t, but ignore it anyway for spending purposes.
I personally believe that we should treat it as real and should sterilise the debt. The increase in the money supply has inflated the price of real assets (such as housing) and is a big part of the societal pressure that we are under
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
What is your point in posting this article on here? To trigger those who don't like a particular level of melatonin in the skin or for some other reason related to how this might affect the result of the next General Election?
Genuine question.
To be fair to @Andy_JS my understanding was that it was illegal (or possibly against official regulations not law). If charities are giving guidance that is outside the *intention* of the lawmakers which (IIRC was clear at the time) then that should be highlighted.
It’s nothing to do with skin colour (although the Tomes mentions a specific community) but a general issue of charities usurping the role of official bodies to push their own agenda
IIRC the law says that sex is not a lawful grounds for termination. But that doctors get round that by using the patient mental wellbeing grounds.
The patient mental wellbeing grounds are used by most doctors as a catch-all to allow abortion on demand. It's an example of how the implementation of a law regulating a medical procedure can differ markedly in practice from that (probably) intended by Parliament when the law was passed.
It doesn't receive much attention because most people are fine with how the abortion law operates in practice (though it does mean that sometimes a pregnant woman who wants a termination can face extra difficulty if they encounter one of the small number of doctors who don't follow the common practice, which is why BPAS and others have called for the law to be updated).
It's an example much on my mind in relation to the supposed safeguards for assisted dying. How might those actually operate in practice?
You don’t need to worry about that.
The zealots have eliminated most of the safeguards anyway
Far too many still exist like the preposterous six month rule.
The only safeguard that should exist is "do you want to die?"
If no, then don't kill the person. If yes, then do so.
A potential second sensible safeguard could be a cooling off period after which the question is repeated. However again, all that should matter is the patients choice. Nobody else's.
The problem is that, once you are dead, no-one can check with you that it really was your choice to die. So on whose word are you relying that a murder was not committed?
That's why there would have to be safeguards, and why I am concerned about whether those safeguards are implemented as intended.
CCTV is not exactly unheard of.
"Do you wish to die" with a clear and unambiguous "yes" response recorded.
Why do we need any of this six month bullshit? If someone has years of suffering ahead and wishes to end it, then their choice should be respected, not be told to wait through years of suffering until their case is terminal.
Because the rules are established to protect the vulnerable. Yes they may seem clunky to someone like you in good health and of soundish mind but they aren’t there for you
I feel the rules are there to attempt to placate people who oppose the concept in general, more than to protect anyone.
If someone has years of suffering ahead of them and clearly and unambiguously wishes to have their life be terminated in a safe and dignified manner, then should their wish be respected, or should the objections of third parties who oppose free choice be respected instead?
Their wish should be respected, subject to safeguards to ensure there is no coercion (either imposed or self-imposed). A time delay, for example, is not unreasonable.
Indeed, I specifically suggested a time delay as a logical safeguard: A potential second sensible safeguard could be a cooling off period after which the question is repeated.
That makes far, far, far more sense as a safeguard than the asinine six month rule that means that eg people with life-long debilitating conditions that are able to communicate a desire to die, like some of those that took the case to the Supreme Court which ruled that Parliament should decide on this instead, are denied the right to do so safely and with dignity.
6 months makes sense. People change their minds. Prognosises change.
The state being involved in someone’s death is not a step that should be taken lightly
People may change their minds, which is why there should be a cooling off period, perhaps a week or two, to see if they do or don't.
If they don't, their choice should be respected. Whatever their reasons are.
If someone for example is 'locked in', unable to move, unable to go to the toilet by themselves, in constant agony, but able to communicate a clear and unambiguous desire to die, then why should their choice not be respected just because they are not terminally ill?
There are fates worse than death.
A long, drawn out death can be considerably worse than a short, sharp one.
'The state' should have no say in whether a person does or does not die, that should be the person's choice and theirs alone. Any safeguards should be about ensuring that it is the person's considered opinion, not second-guessing it or the state putting in their say.
You and I disagree in principle.
There is little point in continuing this discussion
Circles back to what I said before, this is not about safeguarding to ensure that the person's choice is actually their own, but about satisfying those who object to the very principle.
If you want safeguards to ensure that someone's choice is their own, then I respect that, and a sensible compromise is how we do that. We both have different views, but agree for instance that a cooling off period (my words) or time delay (your words) is logical.
However the six months to death proviso in the proposed law has jack all to do with that. It does absolutely nothing for those trapped in non-terminal conditions that wish to die and can clearly and unambiguously express their own wishes.
It is purely about placating those who oppose the principle of letting people rather than the state choose their own fates.
Laws can’t be written for specific cases. They need to be kept simple and designed to protect the vulnerable.
I certainly very reluctant that governments should get involved in killing citizens or even assisting them in dying. Because it is simply no business of the government to do that, and most powers that the government takes are expanded and abused over time.
What I meant was you can’t design general law to deal with specific edge cases
I agree, but pedantry has overcome me. I nearly posted before but resisted it, but now @bondegezou has I will add to the list and these aren't private members bills:
Equitable Life Payments Act 2010 and presumably an Act to allow the PHSO to investigate as they were barred by statue from investigating GAD and therefore required a change in the law. I am sure there are loads of other Acts for specific purposes.
Still I agree with the principle of the point you are making, but I just can't resist.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
I haven’t (and won’t) have a chance to look but people get way to focused on accounting and what that means in terms of the “rules” that the government has set itself.
It doesn’t matter.
If the debt exists and needs to be paid back, in which case it is a real liability and should be thought of as such - ie it is a constraint on our ability to borrow additional money and should bear interest (even if you are just moving money to another pocket that can be helpful from a budget control mechanism).
Alternatively the debt is not “real” in which case the government has effectively printed money and we need to accept that the money supply is higher than it would otherwise be, with a consequent impact on inflation and interest rates.
That’s it. There are no other alternatives. What we do at the moment is pretend that it is real, whereas in reality it probably isn’t, but ignore it anyway for spending purposes.
I personally believe that we should treat it as real and should sterilise the debt. The increase in the money supply has inflated the price of real assets (such as housing) and is a big part of the societal pressure that we are under
What is your point in posting this article on here? To trigger those who don't like a particular level of melatonin in the skin or for some other reason related to how this might affect the result of the next General Election?
Genuine question.
To be fair to @Andy_JS my understanding was that it was illegal (or possibly against official regulations not law). If charities are giving guidance that is outside the *intention* of the lawmakers which (IIRC was clear at the time) then that should be highlighted.
It’s nothing to do with skin colour (although the Tomes mentions a specific community) but a general issue of charities usurping the role of official bodies to push their own agenda
IIRC the law says that sex is not a lawful grounds for termination. But that doctors get round that by using the patient mental wellbeing grounds.
The patient mental wellbeing grounds are used by most doctors as a catch-all to allow abortion on demand. It's an example of how the implementation of a law regulating a medical procedure can differ markedly in practice from that (probably) intended by Parliament when the law was passed.
It doesn't receive much attention because most people are fine with how the abortion law operates in practice (though it does mean that sometimes a pregnant woman who wants a termination can face extra difficulty if they encounter one of the small number of doctors who don't follow the common practice, which is why BPAS and others have called for the law to be updated).
It's an example much on my mind in relation to the supposed safeguards for assisted dying. How might those actually operate in practice?
You don’t need to worry about that.
The zealots have eliminated most of the safeguards anyway
Far too many still exist like the preposterous six month rule.
The only safeguard that should exist is "do you want to die?"
If no, then don't kill the person. If yes, then do so.
A potential second sensible safeguard could be a cooling off period after which the question is repeated. However again, all that should matter is the patients choice. Nobody else's.
The problem is that, once you are dead, no-one can check with you that it really was your choice to die. So on whose word are you relying that a murder was not committed?
That's why there would have to be safeguards, and why I am concerned about whether those safeguards are implemented as intended.
CCTV is not exactly unheard of.
"Do you wish to die" with a clear and unambiguous "yes" response recorded.
Why do we need any of this six month bullshit? If someone has years of suffering ahead and wishes to end it, then their choice should be respected, not be told to wait through years of suffering until their case is terminal.
Because the rules are established to protect the vulnerable. Yes they may seem clunky to someone like you in good health and of soundish mind but they aren’t there for you
I feel the rules are there to attempt to placate people who oppose the concept in general, more than to protect anyone.
If someone has years of suffering ahead of them and clearly and unambiguously wishes to have their life be terminated in a safe and dignified manner, then should their wish be respected, or should the objections of third parties who oppose free choice be respected instead?
Their wish should be respected, subject to safeguards to ensure there is no coercion (either imposed or self-imposed). A time delay, for example, is not unreasonable.
Indeed, I specifically suggested a time delay as a logical safeguard: A potential second sensible safeguard could be a cooling off period after which the question is repeated.
That makes far, far, far more sense as a safeguard than the asinine six month rule that means that eg people with life-long debilitating conditions that are able to communicate a desire to die, like some of those that took the case to the Supreme Court which ruled that Parliament should decide on this instead, are denied the right to do so safely and with dignity.
6 months makes sense. People change their minds. Prognosises change.
The state being involved in someone’s death is not a step that should be taken lightly
People may change their minds, which is why there should be a cooling off period, perhaps a week or two, to see if they do or don't.
If they don't, their choice should be respected. Whatever their reasons are.
If someone for example is 'locked in', unable to move, unable to go to the toilet by themselves, in constant agony, but able to communicate a clear and unambiguous desire to die, then why should their choice not be respected just because they are not terminally ill?
There are fates worse than death.
A long, drawn out death can be considerably worse than a short, sharp one.
'The state' should have no say in whether a person does or does not die, that should be the person's choice and theirs alone. Any safeguards should be about ensuring that it is the person's considered opinion, not second-guessing it or the state putting in their say.
You and I disagree in principle.
There is little point in continuing this discussion
Circles back to what I said before, this is not about safeguarding to ensure that the person's choice is actually their own, but about satisfying those who object to the very principle.
If you want safeguards to ensure that someone's choice is their own, then I respect that, and a sensible compromise is how we do that. We both have different views, but agree for instance that a cooling off period (my words) or time delay (your words) is logical.
However the six months to death proviso in the proposed law has jack all to do with that. It does absolutely nothing for those trapped in non-terminal conditions that wish to die and can clearly and unambiguously express their own wishes.
It is purely about placating those who oppose the principle of letting people rather than the state choose their own fates.
Laws can’t be written for specific cases. They need to be kept simple and designed to protect the vulnerable.
I certainly very reluctant that governments should get involved in killing citizens or even assisting them in dying. Because it is simply no business of the government to do that, and most powers that the government takes are expanded and abused over time.
What I meant was you can’t design general law to deal with specific edge cases
I agree, but pedantry has overcome me. I nearly posted before but resisted it, but now @bondegezou has I will add to the list and these aren't private members bills:
Equitable Life Payments Act 2010 and presumably an Act to allow the PHSO to investigate as they were barred by statue from investigating GAD and therefore required a change in the law. I am sure there are loads of other Acts for specific purposes.
Still I agree with the principle of the point you are making, but I just can't resist.
IANAL but the usual expression for m'colleague's point is: ‘hard cases make bad law’.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
I would agree with a lot of this. Agriculture in India is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, but Modi hasn't cottoned on as quickly as China has.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
It is melting Siberian permafrost, giving remarkable rises in temperature in Russia, and creating a dustbowl in the great plains of America, as well as many more wildfires and violent storms, so I don't think it's all chips and gravy.
Yes.
The main reason I say least vulnerable is because both countries produce a food surplus, and although rainfall changes are particularly uncertain they're less likely to be as severe as they might be in the Sahel, southern Europe, or the Indian subcontinent.
Which areas of the world will benefit from global warming, from deserts getting rain, or agriculture becoming more productive from higher temperatures and higher CO2, or just better weather encouraging tourism. There must be some surely?
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
Thanks for sharing the interview.
I agree with him on it and have raised this point myself many times. It is also (and I would not expect him to mention this) Reform Party policy to cease paying commercial banks interest on their QE holdings.
Listening to the rest of the interview is somewhat frustrating, as I think his narrative about climate change is disingenuous. But that isn't unique to him - it is pretty much across the board with those of like mind.
He also doesn't address the mobility of wealth - or simply its foreign ownership. He raises the case of the Cargill family profiteering from poor cocoa harvests - that family is American. What are we to do about it? The best thing we can really do in this instance is attract their wealth by making Britain a playground for them. But that's so far from the red/green prescription it's in another galaxy.
In turn thanks for giving up your time to listen to it.
Yes very much to your credit imv you have consistently raised BoE QE holdings, I confess until now I have never put in the time to fully understand the mechanisms by which this is costing us money (and I still don't fully understand the implications for our future creditworthiness of ceasing to pay interest).
Agreed on your other points. Though I would note he does better than most left-wing economists in at least acknowledging that, whatever we do with our 2% of global GDP, we need to fit with the economic realities created by the other 98%. I'd also add a critique that he doesn't really offer a coherent solution to the economic problems of the current government.
But, as I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate as a fellow radical, cogent arguments that I agree with are thin on the ground so one has to make the most of slim pickings.
Ceasing to pay interest would only be on the money that the BOE printed and gave the commercial banks, that they then deposited with the BOE. Not on their own deposits with the Bank. This money is basically a bung to the banking industry.
Its withdrawal will have an impact - depriving an industry of £20bn is always going to have an impact, just as tightening up Motability will harm car dealerships. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, and done now. That money could be paid off the national debt.
What money did the Bank of England print and “give” to the commercial banks?
There was a programme whereby the commercial banks could sell illiquid assets to the bank in return for money printed. But that’s not the same as “giving”. What it is doing is using the public sector’s balance sheet to preserve liquidity in the market
Have the Democrats figured out why they keep losing yet?
In November they swept the board in the mini mid terms, they can win now without changing at all from last year as Trump's approval rating has slumped to 42% from the 50% he got last year in the presidential election.
The Senate currently has 53 Republicans, so the Democrats need to make 4 gains to take control of the Senate.
To make 4 gains the Democrats would need to win Maine, North Carolina and two from Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas or Florida.
Plus, of course, hold all their existing seats, such as Georgia and Michigan.
The Cook PVIs for the closest Republican defences are: Maine D+4 North Carolina R+1 Ohio R+5 Florida R+5 Iowa R+6 Alaska R+6 Texas R+6
For national generic opinion polls in December 18 polls had the Democrats lead at 4 points, or lower, while 5 polls put the Democrat lead at 5 points, or higher.
It's a bit crude as a prediction - maybe local factors in the relevant States favour Democrats - but at the moment the Democrats are well short of where they would need to be to take control of the Senate.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
I would agree with a lot of this. Agriculture in India is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, but Modi hasn't cottoned on as quickly as China has.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
It is melting Siberian permafrost, giving remarkable rises in temperature in Russia, and creating a dustbowl in the great plains of America, as well as many more wildfires and violent storms, so I don't think it's all chips and gravy.
Yes.
The main reason I say least vulnerable is because both countries produce a food surplus, and although rainfall changes are particularly uncertain they're less likely to be as severe as they might be in the Sahel, southern Europe, or the Indian subcontinent.
Which areas of the world will benefit from global warming, from deserts getting rain, or agriculture becoming more productive from higher temperatures and higher CO2, or just better weather encouraging tourism. There must be some surely?
There's some tentative evidence of tourism in places like Norway benefiting from people looking for an alternative to 40C in the Mediterranean summer.
In principle Canada and Russia will see agriculture at more northerly latitudes benefit from an earlier thaw, but I don't know whether farming practices have actually changed anywhere in those countries as a result.
Obviously we have our very own PBer (known as Scary Spice) who has planted a vineyard in England to benefit from the improved climate for growing grapes that global warming has brought to Southern England. I think there's an olive grower down in Devon too.
A problem is that the detail of the changes is hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy to take advantage of them until you can see that the change has happened. Meanwhile the negative effects are felt straight away.
Although I mentioned the Sahel earlier as a region particularly vulnerable to possible rainfall changes, it might go the other way and the southern boundary of the Sahara might move north.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
Thanks for sharing the interview.
I agree with him on it and have raised this point myself many times. It is also (and I would not expect him to mention this) Reform Party policy to cease paying commercial banks interest on their QE holdings.
Listening to the rest of the interview is somewhat frustrating, as I think his narrative about climate change is disingenuous. But that isn't unique to him - it is pretty much across the board with those of like mind.
He also doesn't address the mobility of wealth - or simply its foreign ownership. He raises the case of the Cargill family profiteering from poor cocoa harvests - that family is American. What are we to do about it? The best thing we can really do in this instance is attract their wealth by making Britain a playground for them. But that's so far from the red/green prescription it's in another galaxy.
In turn thanks for giving up your time to listen to it.
Yes very much to your credit imv you have consistently raised BoE QE holdings, I confess until now I have never put in the time to fully understand the mechanisms by which this is costing us money (and I still don't fully understand the implications for our future creditworthiness of ceasing to pay interest).
Agreed on your other points. Though I would note he does better than most left-wing economists in at least acknowledging that, whatever we do with our 2% of global GDP, we need to fit with the economic realities created by the other 98%. I'd also add a critique that he doesn't really offer a coherent solution to the economic problems of the current government.
But, as I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate as a fellow radical, cogent arguments that I agree with are thin on the ground so one has to make the most of slim pickings.
Ceasing to pay interest would only be on the money that the BOE printed and gave the commercial banks, that they then deposited with the BOE. Not on their own deposits with the Bank. This money is basically a bung to the banking industry.
Its withdrawal will have an impact - depriving an industry of £20bn is always going to have an impact, just as tightening up Motability will harm car dealerships. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, and done now. That money could be paid off the national debt.
What money did the Bank of England print and “give” to the commercial banks?
There was a programme whereby the commercial banks could sell illiquid assets to the bank in return for money printed. But that’s not the same as “giving”. What it is doing is using the public sector’s balance sheet to preserve liquidity in the market
I think if someone gives you a very large amount of money, in return for something you canot otherwise sell, 'giving' is an appropriate layman's term.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
I don't think it is included in the above £10 billion - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from that are everywhere, with controlled outflow *. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design. One of the features was a half acre semi-lake for a 120 house development.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
* An interesting side point here is that these seem not to count for the "million ponds initiative", which is a long-term decades long project to help habitat recovery.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
I think it's more that one of the world's two most significant economies has accepted the case completely, and is entirely rebuilding its economy around renewables, while the other is led by an administration where complete denialism is government policy.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
Creeping desertification has been a real problem for a long time in China, hence the Great Green Wall dating to the 1970s. Most of the rationale for their renewables drive is in my opinion national security related, to lessen import dependency on hydrocarbons.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
I would agree with a lot of this. Agriculture in India is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, but Modi hasn't cottoned on as quickly as China has.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
It is melting Siberian permafrost, giving remarkable rises in temperature in Russia, and creating a dustbowl in the great plains of America, as well as many more wildfires and violent storms, so I don't think it's all chips and gravy.
Yes.
The main reason I say least vulnerable is because both countries produce a food surplus, and although rainfall changes are particularly uncertain they're less likely to be as severe as they might be in the Sahel, southern Europe, or the Indian subcontinent.
Which areas of the world will benefit from global warming, from deserts getting rain, or agriculture becoming more productive from higher temperatures and higher CO2, or just better weather encouraging tourism. There must be some surely?
There's some tentative evidence of tourism in places like Norway benefiting from people looking for an alternative to 40C in the Mediterranean summer.
In principle Canada and Russia will see agriculture at more northerly latitudes benefit from an earlier thaw, but I don't know whether farming practices have actually changed anywhere in those countries as a result.
Obviously we have our very own PBer (known as Scary Spice) who has planted a vineyard in England to benefit from the improved climate for growing grapes that global warming has brought to Southern England. I think there's an olive grower down in Devon too.
A problem is that the detail of the changes is hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy to take advantage of them until you can see that the change has happened. Meanwhile the negative effects are felt straight away.
Although I mentioned the Sahel earlier as a region particularly vulnerable to possible rainfall changes, it might go the other way and the southern boundary of the Sahara might move north.
Yes, it does look as if the Sahel may be the one part of Africa to significantly benefit via more rainfail. Not entirely good news in an arid zone as there is the risk of flash floods.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
I don't think it is included in the above - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
That is a fair response to a point I made that included hyperbole but was still an important one.
There have been no major reservoirs built for over 30 years - the last one (there are some being built now) was completed in 1992. At the same time, the population has risen by 11 million.
I find that staggering, and it makes me extremely cynical when people panic about our weather conditions.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
In the 1980s I worked for a boss who had been a real horse racing addict, but by the time I worked for him had given up gambling altogether. I always remember the story he told of how this came to be. He’d been a serious student of form for years prior, and had generally done a little better than break-even from the many hours he’d spent poring over the Post inside the betting shop, always dreaming of the one day coming when he would achieve his big win.
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
My mother's father had a first-time bet (on a horse, not more than he could afford to lose) and won quite a lot of money. It frightened him so much he never bet again, because to him it implied he could just as easily have lost that amount of money (very much more than he could afford to lose).
OTOH my father never ever bet on anything, because his earlier life had taught him that, whilst he might be lucky at guessing as long as it didn't matter, if he bet even a spent match on the outcome he'd lose.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
A more insightful take on the past few years is that it's when the climate vandalism of the green lobby became an undeniable fact. We saw wildfires in California blamed on 'climate change', when they were in fact quite clearly derived from 'green' policies stopping the clearing of forests and rolling back grazing on the land.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
While you can trust the Science you just cant trust the scientists
The West Coast water problems in the USA are a lot longer term "climate change", and start with an inability to deal with what are treated as historic rights, massive canals moving water hundreds of miles, and the USA's total inability to manage resources and demand in any way other than "use it now - burn, baby, burn" (as displayed by Trump).
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
A more insightful take on the past few years is that it's when the climate vandalism of the green lobby became an undeniable fact. We saw wildfires in California blamed on 'climate change', when they were in fact quite clearly derived from 'green' policies stopping the clearing of forests and rolling back grazing on the land.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
While you can trust the Science you just cant trust the scientists
The West Coast water problems in the USA are a lot longer term "climate change", and start with an inability to deal with what are treated as historic rights, massive canals moving water hundreds of miles, and the USA's total inability to manage resources and demand in any way other than "use it now - burn, baby, burn" (as displayed by Trump).
The native American tribes living in California used a very 'burn baby burn' approach to forestry in that area historically to manage forest fires.
It's all down to the timing of the AI bubble bursting. If it happens this year, then there is no fig leaf for Republicans. It will be brutal.
In an alternative version of 2026 being a bad one, what if 2026 is the year that emergent consciousness arises in AI labs…
Welcome back Leon, we've missed you
I do for one miss Leon’s perspective. He’s still on X of course but he’s a little more restrained on there.
I think the site has improved immeasurably since he left. He was a bore, and he was relentless. He killed every conversation. Now there is a much healthier ecosystem and the ratio of interesting to annoying is much better.
He was though one of the few Reform backers here as well as being a good writer even if he liked to stir.
We are seriously short of Reform posters on here now given Reform currently lead the polls, if anyone knows any Reform voters who want to post please do suggest it! This site has always been good as it has tended to represent all views, with plenty of Tories, Labour and LDs and even a few Greens and Scots Nats but support for Farage here is very limited
...I made 100k dollars in 2020 because of this place (S&P short)...
The biggest winner on PB by my recollection was @Dromedary who claimed to have won 6/7 figures on Brexit. So your statement of "100k dollars in 2020" gladdens my heart. Consequently I would be grateful if you could expand on your winning bet please. Starting with what the "S&P short" was...
I bought a strip of out the money put options. At the time my financial affairs were split between two countries but I didn’t have a sterling brokerage account. So with my sterling liquidity I did the same trade but with spread bets.
I let the bet run until I hit $100k profit across the two accounts, living US trading hours for the duration of the bet (I had recently taken voluntary redundancy). My timing was fortuitous because the Fed big bazooka was unleashed the very next day.
IG Index then took weeks to honour the bet. At the time I was worried they were suffering a liquidity event, I wrote to their senior management to enquire as such. At it was, I think I raised an AML flag - a British citizen resident overseas that opened an account, turned over a huge profit in a week or two and then immediately closing it.
The shame was that I didn’t have more cash on hand as I would have bet even bigger - my host country had locked off my salary to settle tax obligations the moment I signed my redundancy papers the month or two before.
Nice one. How much did you risk losing if things had gone against you?
I don’t really remember now. I expect given the options volatility in that period it was a 5-bagger so perhaps I had $20k down. It was a moment of pure clarity and the amount at risk did not matter to me because I had such high conviction that the US market was about to tank.
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
Yep. When you get a genuine flash of BPI (Big Picture Intuition) you should (if you're not averse to gambling) really go for it. Reason I asked about the max loss was for context. The lower the amount risked the better is any given profit. Eg winning £1m risking £1m is different to winning £1m risking £50k.
In the 1980s I worked for a boss who had been a real horse racing addict, but by the time I worked for him had given up gambling altogether. I always remember the story he told of how this came to be. He’d been a serious student of form for years prior, and had generally done a little better than break-even from the many hours he’d spent poring over the Post inside the betting shop, always dreaming of the one day coming when he would achieve his big win.
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
Obviously in reality he was wise not to have bet his life savings on that horse because it could have pulled up near the end of the race for some freak reason and he would have lost everything.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
A more insightful take on the past few years is that it's when the climate vandalism of the green lobby became an undeniable fact. We saw wildfires in California blamed on 'climate change', when they were in fact quite clearly derived from 'green' policies stopping the clearing of forests and rolling back grazing on the land.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
While you can trust the Science you just cant trust the scientists
The West Coast water problems in the USA are a lot longer term "climate change", and start with an inability to deal with what are treated as historic rights, massive canals moving water hundreds of miles, and the USA's total inability to manage resources and demand in any way other than "use it now - burn, baby, burn" (as displayed by Trump).
The native American tribes living in California used a very 'burn baby burn' approach to forestry in that area historically to manage forest fires.
The MAGA types got (and get) very upset with controlled burns. They much prefer the Yarnell approach.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
I don't think it is included in the above - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
That is a fair response to a point I made that included hyperbole but was still an important one.
There have been no major reservoirs built for over 30 years - the last one (there are some being built now) was completed in 1992. At the same time, the population has risen by 11 million.
I find that staggering, and it makes me extremely cynical when people panic about our weather conditions.
One problem has been that, at every stage, politicians have insisted that the population won't be increasing so much. Eastern Europeans weren't expected to come to Britain in such large numbers when they joined the EU. Cameron insisted he would reduce net migration to the tens of thousands. Everyone seems to have been surprised by the Boriswave.
So it would have been a bit hard to anticipate the population growth and plan infrastructure for it, because it was never supposed to happen.
"Sweden and Norway rethink cashless society plans over Russia security fears Rise in hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks blamed on pro-Russia groups prompt Nordic neighbours to backpedal"
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
I don't feel much hate when I campaign for those kind of things. It brings me great joy implementing a new LTN, or saving a habitat from development, or encouraging people to holiday here in the UK rather than abroad - the positive effect on carbon emissions is a happy side-effect.
Looking forward to another successful year doing all that .
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I was going to say that all the Reform-leaning posters here seem variously disconnected from reality. Climate change denial is one example.
I don’t think a great many people are climate change denialists. But different people place a different emphasis on things. I don’t for example put it in the top 10 of things to worry about, even though it’s pretty obvious to me that anthropogenic carbon releases do impact the climate.
I have found it dropping down my list of priorities, personally.
In part that is because I think we are probably past the point when we will be able to have a meaningful chance of preventing self-reinforcing feedback systems of warning.
In part I think it has been displaced by more immediate priorities: sustaining democracy, national security, inequality, the broken nature of our economic system.
In part I can recognise that concern about climate change is a privileged concern - whilst it is likely to have some fairly catastrophic effects, these only really register if one is right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, not least because most of the impacts are still in the future.
I still think it will be the defining historical narrative of the 21st century but am much more fatalistic about it than I used to be.
A more optimistic factor is that many of the key technologies we need to deploy to reduce the scale of the problem (solar and batteries, say) have reached a level of maturity where government intervention is not required to kick-start their development and deployment.
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
Solar is now the cheapest to install. Solar + battery is approaching that.
China is installing it at an insane rate. They are starting to shift to green steel production as well - while we do nothing.
EV upfront price is now falling below ICE upfront price.
Etc. etc.
Right. We had that whole argument over green steel production a few years ago when the question of that coking mine came up. I believe I'm right in saying that the British choice was to do neither. No coking mine, no green steel production, maybe no steel production at all before long.
Yes, we all got slightly dogmatic about it - and hobbled ourselves- which is hardly helpful.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
Moving past climate change denial to climatr change bargaining:
"Climate change is happenning but we don't need to take serious action, we can carry on much the same"
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
A more insightful take on the past few years is that it's when the climate vandalism of the green lobby became an undeniable fact. We saw wildfires in California blamed on 'climate change', when they were in fact quite clearly derived from 'green' policies stopping the clearing of forests and rolling back grazing on the land.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
While you can trust the Science you just cant trust the scientists
The West Coast water problems in the USA are a lot longer term "climate change", and start with an inability to deal with what are treated as historic rights, massive canals moving water hundreds of miles, and the USA's total inability to manage resources and demand in any way other than "use it now - burn, baby, burn" (as displayed by Trump).
The native American tribes living in California used a very 'burn baby burn' approach to forestry in that area historically to manage forest fires.
Aiui problems have been exacerbated by lack of clearance of under-bush an scrub.
"Sweden and Norway rethink cashless society plans over Russia security fears Rise in hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks blamed on pro-Russia groups prompt Nordic neighbours to backpedal"
“…her friend Mr Upham "put others before himself on Christmas Day, seeing a woman in trouble Matthew, on true form, went to help along with the other unnamed man"
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
Thanks for sharing the interview.
I agree with him on it and have raised this point myself many times. It is also (and I would not expect him to mention this) Reform Party policy to cease paying commercial banks interest on their QE holdings.
Listening to the rest of the interview is somewhat frustrating, as I think his narrative about climate change is disingenuous. But that isn't unique to him - it is pretty much across the board with those of like mind.
He also doesn't address the mobility of wealth - or simply its foreign ownership. He raises the case of the Cargill family profiteering from poor cocoa harvests - that family is American. What are we to do about it? The best thing we can really do in this instance is attract their wealth by making Britain a playground for them. But that's so far from the red/green prescription it's in another galaxy.
In turn thanks for giving up your time to listen to it.
Yes very much to your credit imv you have consistently raised BoE QE holdings, I confess until now I have never put in the time to fully understand the mechanisms by which this is costing us money (and I still don't fully understand the implications for our future creditworthiness of ceasing to pay interest).
Agreed on your other points. Though I would note he does better than most left-wing economists in at least acknowledging that, whatever we do with our 2% of global GDP, we need to fit with the economic realities created by the other 98%. I'd also add a critique that he doesn't really offer a coherent solution to the economic problems of the current government.
But, as I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate as a fellow radical, cogent arguments that I agree with are thin on the ground so one has to make the most of slim pickings.
Ceasing to pay interest would only be on the money that the BOE printed and gave the commercial banks, that they then deposited with the BOE. Not on their own deposits with the Bank. This money is basically a bung to the banking industry.
Its withdrawal will have an impact - depriving an industry of £20bn is always going to have an impact, just as tightening up Motability will harm car dealerships. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, and done now. That money could be paid off the national debt.
If you have a time machine handy, go back a year and invest your SIPP in bank shares. Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest have all risen by 50 to 75 per cent.
I’ve been wary of home bank shares, but my holdings in Swedbank and Intesa SP have certainly done well this year.
I’ve been long gold and silver since early 21 and am currently 250% up…
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
I don't think it is included in the above - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
That is a fair response to a point I made that included hyperbole but was still an important one.
There have been no major reservoirs built for over 30 years - the last one (there are some being built now) was completed in 1992. At the same time, the population has risen by 11 million.
I find that staggering, and it makes me extremely cynical when people panic about our weather conditions.
In general I'd argue that building more reservoirs should be the last resort, as it is a 'tailpipe' solution. Reduction of demand should come first, just as reduction of energy demand should come before building more power stations or windmills or solar farms. So for me that means measures such as leak reduction and 100% water meters, which apply the market mechanism and themselves generate a reduction of 10-12% in water usage, before we spend hundreds of millions on new reservoirs.
I think one of the unforeseen problems of the last budget will be caused by the unbundling of insulation etc programmes from energy bills - it can now be seen and will be far easier to target in political debate. The programme has been very successful for 15 years doing basics such as loft insulation, until the current one is under severe question - when the programme has been doing more complex installations (eg external wall insulation) with inadequate standards / supervision.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
Moving past climate change denial to climatr change bargaining:
"Climate change is happenning but we don't need to take serious action, we can carry on much the same"
Embracing clean technologies is taking serious action, which enables us to carry on much the same, yes.
Cutting off our nose to spite our face is not taking serious action and won't impact global emissions as the rest of the world isn't stupid enough to do that.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
Moving past climate change denial to climatr change bargaining:
"Climate change is happenning but we don't need to take serious action, we can carry on much the same"
What some people find difficult to accept is that it does require a bit of stick from government to push people away from the path of least resistance to something that is, overall, better for the country. E.g. getting rid of leaded fuel - that was something that industry was resistant to initially - I think they even claimed it was technically impossible and spent huge amounts of money fighting it. In the beginning the regulation did increase the cost to consumers, but eventually industry innovated around that regulation and the costs came down, and the overall benefits have been enormous.
Energy companies have been aware of the dangers of carbon emissions for decades, in the same way that they did about leaded fuel - it's only when government(s) have got stuck in that there has been a move away from them. So far it's been almost an exact mirror of that journey.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
I don't feel much hate when I campaign for those kind of things. It brings me great joy implementing a new LTN, or saving a habitat from development, or encouraging people to holiday here in the UK rather than abroad - the positive effect on carbon emissions is a happy side-effect.
Looking forward to another successful year doing all that .
Had a very pleasant Christmas present: a 20mph sign outside our house.
Long term, northern Scotland and the Western Isles are going to be the new tourist places when the Med becomes intolerably hot. There are some fantastic beaches in the Hebrides and along the northern Scottish coast and they will be developed with accompanying infrastructure and transport links over the next century or so.
If I wanted a really long term investment, I’d be looking at South Uist.
As for @IanB2’s friend, I’ve met a few pro punters over the years - it always seemed a miserable existence endlessly watching and researching horse racing. For me, it’s always been fun - I keep a record of my bets - on average for every £1 I bet, I get back 87p over a year so I couldn’t make a living but it’s entertainment, rather like coming on here and doing a little political jousting.
Sky saying extraordinary claim coming out from Russia
Seems Russia has accused Ukraine of an attack on Putin's residence near St Petersburg using 91 long distance drones
As I said yesterday peace is as far away as ever
What goes around comes around.
What is the problem supposed to be? *
On day one of their attack Russia chose to try and decapitate Zelensky's Government, involving killing him, plus there have been numerous attempts to have Z assassinated.
And Zelensky has been offering a ceasefire for months, which Putin has rejected repeatedly.
Reduction of demand should come first, just as reduction of energy demand should come before building more power stations or windmills or solar farms.
I do beg to differ, here. Demand reduction measures are an admission a country's energy policy has failed. Abundant, affordable energy has long been acknowledged to be a significant economic asset and social good. Now that we have multiple ways of generating power with little environmental impact, that should always be the priority.
Spending money on insulation schemes, to pick the example you mentioned, is, on a macro level, a complete waste of money. It's an extremely expensive way of reducing demand in one very specific area, without having enough scale to give any general benefits.
Spend that money on new generation facilities and overall supply improves, prices go down for everyone (presuming a free market) and it increases reliability in the system. Build enough and you end up with a surplus of supply, which attracts energy-intensive industries, providing jobs, and can bring opportunities to profit by supplying excess to countries with an energy shortfall.
We should be building wind farms, solar and SMRs as fast as possible. Having too much energy is always better than not having enough.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again).
Er, sod off, old boy.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
Nope - you suggested that "Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience" - as if caring about the environment is simply a fad for the left. From my experience, concerns for Gaza and the consequences of climate change are both deeply held - and can be at the same time.
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
People who desire to embrace clean technologies to transition away from dirty ones care about the environment.
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
Moving past climate change denial to climatr change bargaining:
"Climate change is happenning but we don't need to take serious action, we can carry on much the same"
What some people find difficult to accept is that it does require a bit of stick from government to push people away from the path of least resistance to something that is, overall, better for the country. E.g. getting rid of leaded fuel - that was something that industry was resistant to initially - I think they even claimed it was technically impossible and spent huge amounts of money fighting it. In the beginning the regulation did increase the cost to consumers, but eventually industry innovated around that regulation and the costs came down, and the overall benefits have been enormous.
Energy companies have been aware of the dangers of carbon emissions for decades, in the same way that they did about leaded fuel - it's only when government(s) have got stuck in that there has been a move away from them. So far it's been almost an exact mirror of that journey.
Phasing out leaded fuel gave an immediate benefit to the people living in this country, even if there was an upfront cost. Phasing out fossil fuels doesn’t do anything much to benefit the lifestyles of people living here, the opposite probably in the round. It’s no good our government punishing the people of this country to abate, when our emissions are a drop in the global ocean.
I say this as someone with solar, home battery and Ev, and who has personally planted several thousand trees in the last few years.
I am optimistic that road transport will be very rapidly decarbonised, as I think autonomous EVs will soon dominate. I think too that data centre growth (at least American owned) will indeed move to orbit and beyond in the next 5-10 years.
But working within the industry, there really is little hope in the near term of decarbonising air transport, heavy industrial processes and domestic heating in places with older housing stock such as the uk. I am also sceptical we can decarbonise our power grid, with the solar + storage model inappropriate for our latitude and seasonality of our energy demand.
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
I don't think it is included in the above - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
That is a fair response to a point I made that included hyperbole but was still an important one.
There have been no major reservoirs built for over 30 years - the last one (there are some being built now) was completed in 1992. At the same time, the population has risen by 11 million.
I find that staggering, and it makes me extremely cynical when people panic about our weather conditions.
In general I'd argue that building more reservoirs should be the last resort, as it is a 'tailpipe' solution. Reduction of demand should come first, just as reduction of energy demand should come before building more power stations or windmills or solar farms. So for me that means measures such as leak reduction and 100% water meters, which apply the market mechanism and themselves generate a reduction of 10-12% in water usage, before we spend hundreds of millions on new reservoirs.
I think one of the unforeseen problems of the last budget will be caused by the unbundling of insulation etc programmes from energy bills - it can now be seen and will be far easier to target in political debate. The programme has been very successful for 15 years doing basics such as loft insulation, until the current one is under severe question - when the programme has been doing more complex installations (eg external wall insulation) with inadequate standards / supervision.
I am sure you would argue that - I would argue the opposite. Your argument leads to the British economy where it now is - mine leads to the Chinese economy where it now is. Abundant and cheap energy is a pre-requisite for any prosperous society, and is the lifeblood of human progress.
More specifically, having a deliberate policy of failing to build sufficient reservoirs, and instead blame the public for water shortages - encouraging them to water their gardens less, even to shower less (truly revolting) and take other punitive measures to combat 'water shortages' (when Winter floods will be along soon) is simply gaslighting.
Reduction of demand should come first, just as reduction of energy demand should come before building more power stations or windmills or solar farms.
I do beg to differ, here. Demand reduction measures are an admission a country's energy policy has failed. Abundant, affordable energy has long been acknowledged to be a significant economic asset and social good. Now that we have multiple ways of generating power with little environmental impact, that should always be the priority.
Spending money on insulation schemes, to pick the example you mentioned, is, on a macro level, a complete waste of money. It's an extremely expensive way of reducing demand in one very specific area, without having enough scale to give any general benefits.
Spend that money on new generation facilities and overall supply improves, prices go down for everyone (presuming a free market) and it increases reliability in the system. Build enough and you end up with a surplus of supply, which attracts energy-intensive industries, providing jobs, and can bring opportunities to profit by supplying excess to countries with an energy shortfall.
We should be building wind farms, solar and SMRs as fast as possible. Having too much energy is always better than not having enough.
Is that true in all cases: encouraging the use of heat pumps is (a) demand reduction, but also (b) gives people cooling in summer?
Can I recommend to you all a thoroughly interesting 45 minute conversation between Polanski and James Medway, one of the economists I respect most: https://pca.st/episode/aa464011-8ea3-4f3f-8903-0cef76bf3481. Even if Polanski is not your cup of tea (and he isn't mine economically), Meadway is both very intelligent and an excellent communicator.
Two points, a trigger warning and a question: 1. One of the things I respect most about Meadway is that, almost uniquely amongst left-wing economists, he engages with the reality of the power of the bond markets in the UK, resisting the simplistic 'just borrow more' that Polanski wants to hear. 2. Meadway laces his conversation about economics with an understanding of the current and likely future impacts of climate change. At a time when it feels like everyone has just stopped talking about this, that's really refreshing.
The trigger warning: Meadway was economic adviser to McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor. If your thinking goes McDonnell=Corbyn=Antisemitism=Evil, maybe spend your scarce 45 mins elsewhere. But if you're interested in a coherent left-wing critique of our economic system it's worth your time.
The question: particularly for @Luckyguy1983 as I know you have views on this, but also for any right of centre person interested in economics - what do you make of Meadway's arguments (first 10 mins of the podcast) about how the BoE deals with its ownership of government debt?
The fact everyone has stopped talking about it shows just how fickle and faddish most public opinion is.
Trump has blocked it on the Right and the Left has decided that Gaza offers a far better social bonding experience.
I will still talk about climate change, but I have asymptotically approached my personal limit on the number of times I am willing to have the same fruitless "debate" with people who deny the science.
As fruitless internet debates go it has nearly a 15 year head start on Brexit, for example.
I think it's more that the debate is effectively over. Very few people continue to deny it exists, or that humans are responsible for it. You still get people like Casino_Royale who think it's just some culture war game, but the data is becoming metronomic - we're about to declare this year our hottest year on record (again). I think we all understand that with Trump any debate/campaign for mitigation is fruitless until we get a sane Thatcher-type figure on the right again.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
I don't think it is included in the above - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
That is a fair response to a point I made that included hyperbole but was still an important one.
There have been no major reservoirs built for over 30 years - the last one (there are some being built now) was completed in 1992. At the same time, the population has risen by 11 million.
I find that staggering, and it makes me extremely cynical when people panic about our weather conditions.
In general I'd argue that building more reservoirs should be the last resort, as it is a 'tailpipe' solution. Reduction of demand should come first, just as reduction of energy demand should come before building more power stations or windmills or solar farms. So for me that means measures such as leak reduction and 100% water meters, which apply the market mechanism and themselves generate a reduction of 10-12% in water usage, before we spend hundreds of millions on new reservoirs.
I think one of the unforeseen problems of the last budget will be caused by the unbundling of insulation etc programmes from energy bills - it can now be seen and will be far easier to target in political debate. The programme has been very successful for 15 years doing basics such as loft insulation, until the current one is under severe question - when the programme has been doing more complex installations (eg external wall insulation) with inadequate standards / supervision.
I am sure you would argue that - I would argue the opposite. Your argument leads to the British economy where it now is - mine leads to the Chinese economy where it now is. Abundant and cheap energy is a pre-requisite for any prosperous society, and is the lifeblood of human progress.
More specifically, having a deliberate policy of failing to build sufficient reservoirs, and instead blame the public for water shortages - encouraging them to water their gardens less, even to shower less (truly revolting) and take other punitive measures to combat 'water shortages' (when Winter floods will be along soon) is simply gaslighting.
I am still under a hose pipe ban. We’ve exploded the population in the SE of England in the last 30 years but I believe I am correct in saying we haven’t built a single new reservoir in that time. Like everything else in this place, nothing is run properly and we can’t execute infrastructure when it’s needed and without billions being siphoned off by grifters.
Sky saying extraordinary claim coming out from Russia
Seems Russia has accused Ukraine of an attack on Putin's residence near St Petersburg using 91 long distance drones
As I said yesterday peace is as far away as ever
What goes around comes around.
What is the problem supposed to be? *
On day one of their attack Russia chose to try and decapitate Zelensky's Government, involving killing him, plus there have been numerous attempts to have Z assassinated.
And Zelensky has been offering a ceasefire for months, which Putin has rejected repeatedly.
* Perhaps Trump will tantrum again?
Russia, like the IRA, seems to get genuinely indignant, when their intended victims, *shoot back."
Long term, northern Scotland and the Western Isles are going to be the new tourist places when the Med becomes intolerably hot. There are some fantastic beaches in the Hebrides and along the northern Scottish coast and they will be developed with accompanying infrastructure and transport links over the next century or so.
If I wanted a really long term investment, I’d be looking at South Uist.
As for @IanB2’s friend, I’ve met a few pro punters over the years - it always seemed a miserable existence endlessly watching and researching horse racing. For me, it’s always been fun - I keep a record of my bets - on average for every £1 I bet, I get back 87p over a year so I couldn’t make a living but it’s entertainment, rather like coming on here and doing a little political jousting.
When the Mediterranean and other places become intolerably hot, their populations will need to move elsewhere. Where will they be welcomed?
Sky saying extraordinary claim coming out from Russia
Seems Russia has accused Ukraine of an attack on Putin's residence near St Petersburg using 91 long distance drones
As I said yesterday peace is as far away as ever
What goes around comes around.
What is the problem supposed to be? *
On day one of their attack Russia chose to try and decapitate Zelensky's Government, involving killing him, plus there have been numerous attempts to have Z assassinated.
And Zelensky has been offering a ceasefire for months, which Putin has rejected repeatedly.
Comments
Why Medieval Bread Was a Superfood but Modern Bread Makes You Sick
Sure, it would have been better if we could have reached this point earlier, and there's still things government can do to ease and speed the transition, but the very worst-case emissions scenarios are now almost impossible because solar is now cheaper than coal.
It's much harder to anticipate the adaptations we will need to make to deal with the climate change our past emissions have committed us to, because they're hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy.
So I'm mainly crossing my fingers and hoping for the best at this stage.
At some point we are going to need to have a serious conversation about adaptation. That's what so pathetic about those people who suggest we can't stop it happening - fine, so where's the big plan for 3 degrees+?
I remember going to a cafe and telling my friend that Covid would kill more people than the holocaust and I was about to pile in with everything I could lay my hands on. Those moments come about rarely in life.
As far as the global politics of climate change is concerned, our influence is minimal - and it's now more of a practical than ideological argument for us.
The Trump bet on fossil fuels is pretty dumb / borderline insane, but there's very little we can do about this sort of malevolent idiocy beyond noting it.
The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which is the nation’s premier atmospheric science center. In his announcement of the closing, OMB Director Russell Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
NCAR, as the center is known, was founded in 1960 and has facilitated generations of breakthroughs in climate and weather science.
https://x.com/NewsHour/status/2004698743325565054
But hopefully it doesn't matter now that solar energy is cheap.
As I am prone to over-labouring, most of their policy since 2000 should be seen through the lens of a paranoid autocracy that considers itself already at war.
A secondary but still important consideration, has been urban air quality from internal combustion.
Arguably two of the countries least vulnerable to climate change are Russia and the USA.
As I remember the pre-Covid economic discussion on here, I was well ahead of Leon (or whatever he traded under back then) in both predicting and acting on the coming stock market downturn, and he only started claiming to have predicted it once it was already underway. The one thing I do remember him predicting is that Covid would be “contagious but essentially benign”
What's beyond doubt, though, is that the direction of government policy both in practical and scientific terms has undergone a change completely opposite to that of the US in the last decade and a half.
Here, for example, is an analysis of Chinese climate science.
https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/feature-story/chinas-climate-change-research-contributions-global-perspective
One Saturday, he had seen a horse that he’d been following for some time priced at very attractive odds in a race that he seemed certain to win. My boss was convinced that he would, and had told all his friends about it and put a reasonable, but still modest, in relation to his finances, amount of money on it. Watching the race, his tip led from the outset, led all the way round, and won the race at a canter. He’d be happy, you’d think, except that he said that at that moment he realised that the ‘sure win’ he’d been waiting for, to cash in on his knowledge, had just played out before his eyes, and he’d only staked a few times more than his usual, whereas he should have remortgaged his house and committed his life savings to back his certainty. He realised, right then, that the best he could ever hope for was spending hours of his time studying form so that he could scrape back some pocket money from slightly beating the odds, and so the spell was broken and he never bet again.
I've never said anything but climate change is a real thing on here, and have been remarkably consistent in saying that for decades. I also regularly cite Thatcher as one of the first major political leaders to draw attention to the issue, because she understood the science. And a reason why those on the Right shouldn't view climate change as a secret Lefty plot.
Take that back please.
China is installing it at an insane rate. They are starting to shift to green steel production as well - while we do nothing.
EV upfront price is now falling below ICE upfront price.
Etc. etc.
Regardless, in my view our economic system is incapable of addressing climate change at the speed required as externalities are so deeply embedded within the system. Renewables is a relative positive, I agree, and electric cars downstream of this. But more broadly I think we are still a long way away from decoupling the health of our economies from our use of natural resources, including carbon-emitting ones.
I also think the global coordination needed to tackle some of the more systemic challenges will be unlikely to be in place until we are all vassal states of China or India.
And with that note of joy I bid you all a belated Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
Before reading the interactions on here, i was operating under the basis that the “nailing doors shut” approach was an obscene overreaction by the Chinese, with the main problem being municipal level corruption collapsing the health system in localised areas.
Leon’s reaction made me realise that everywhere in the world was also going to go bananas with their response, regardless of how severe the problem really was. But I did lean (incorrectly as it turns out) towards it being a
highly significant problem.
What I hadn’t squared correctly, was that “killing more than the holocaust” wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded in my head. Whatever, financial markets are mostly about prejudging policy responses, and that’s all that was important for that trade.
If we want to replicate China's success, we'll do pretty much the same.
We need a practical path to emissions balance.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/frenchman-wild-ideas-poisoned-politics-economy-4118304
Although now they give away solar panels in
cornflakenoodle packets, desalination must be a serious option.The main reason I say least vulnerable is because both countries produce a food surplus, and although rainfall changes are particularly uncertain they're less likely to be as severe as they might be in the Sahel, southern Europe, or the Indian subcontinent.
We also saw rises in sea temperatures over and above the predictions any climate change models take place because of the banning of sulphur in marine fuels leading to a reduction in clouds over the seas. We could have a stab at reversing this with cloud brightening (and to be fair to Ed Milliband, some of this was included in his £20bn carbon capture scheme), but bad faith actors would rather bank the change and use it to fuel climate alarmism.
On the domestic front, we have nobody building any water infrastructure, and a virtual ban on dredging for the last 20-25 years, due to EU habitat legislation, then we blame the resulting summer droughts and winter floods on climate change.
This is eco-legislation, causing eco-disasters, and using those disasters to call for more eco-legislation.
Thankfully we also have a leading party that stands in opposition to all the works of Net Zero, and the next most popular party who also now opposes it.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html
What I meant was you can’t design general law to deal with specific edge cases
I'm sure your personal concern about climate change is sincere - perhaps consider that is also the case for those you would normally consider your political opposites.
You have chosen not to do so.
Noted. I will now engage with you on this forum going forwards accordingly.
The Democrats should be asking themselves some very hard and searching questions about their appeal to the American electorate.
So far, I see very little evidence they've done so.
Have the Republicans figured out why they keep losing yet?
The Washington Post chooses its first State of the Year: Indiana. source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/22/post-editorial-board-state-of-year/
Note: The award is given to the state that the the WaPo editorial board believes has made the most improvement.
(New Hampshire and California are the other two states in their top three finalists, California because Governor Newsom has been trying — with some success — to reverse decades of misgovernment.)
If you can't find it within you to make an apology for baselessly besmirching someone else's position for your own purposes, and then failing to withdraw that when it's pointed out to you, then your gaze needs to be directed inwards at yourself, not me.
It doesn’t matter.
If the debt exists and needs to be paid back, in which case it is a real liability and should be thought of as such - ie it is a constraint on our ability to borrow additional money and should bear interest (even if you are just moving money to another pocket that can be helpful from a budget control mechanism).
Alternatively the debt is not “real” in which case the government has effectively printed money and we need to accept that the money supply is higher than it would otherwise be, with a consequent impact on inflation and interest rates.
That’s it. There are no other alternatives. What we do at the moment is pretend that it is real, whereas in reality it probably isn’t, but ignore it anyway for spending purposes.
I personally believe that we should treat it as real and should sterilise the debt. The increase in the money supply has inflated the price of real assets (such as housing) and is a big part of the societal pressure that we are under
People who desire us not to extract domestic oil and gas but to burn as many imports as desired instead do not.
People who wish to prevent others from having holidays or living their lives do not.
People who wish to use the mantra of the environment to further their own agenda, whether it be smashing capitalism or pushing veganism or any other bullshit do not.
There is nothing wrong with caring about the environment and we should seek to transition to clean technologies to do so, the problem is too many with a hate-filled agenda they try to sneak past others in the name of the environment.
Equitable Life Payments Act 2010 and presumably an Act to allow the PHSO to investigate as they were barred by statue from investigating GAD and therefore required a change in the law. I am sure there are loads of other Acts for specific purposes.
Still I agree with the principle of the point you are making, but I just can't resist.
There was a programme whereby the commercial banks could sell illiquid assets to the bank in return for money printed. But that’s not the same as “giving”. What it is doing is using the public sector’s balance sheet to preserve liquidity in the market
To make 4 gains the Democrats would need to win Maine, North Carolina and two from Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas or Florida.
Plus, of course, hold all their existing seats, such as Georgia and Michigan.
The Cook PVIs for the closest Republican defences are:
Maine D+4
North Carolina R+1
Ohio R+5
Florida R+5
Iowa R+6
Alaska R+6
Texas R+6
For national generic opinion polls in December 18 polls had the Democrats lead at 4 points, or lower, while 5 polls put the Democrat lead at 5 points, or higher.
It's a bit crude as a prediction - maybe local factors in the relevant States favour Democrats - but at the moment the Democrats are well short of where they would need to be to take control of the Senate.
In principle Canada and Russia will see agriculture at more northerly latitudes benefit from an earlier thaw, but I don't know whether farming practices have actually changed anywhere in those countries as a result.
Obviously we have our very own PBer (known as Scary Spice) who has planted a vineyard in England to benefit from the improved climate for growing grapes that global warming has brought to Southern England. I think there's an olive grower down in Devon too.
A problem is that the detail of the changes is hard to predict with the necessary precision and accuracy to take advantage of them until you can see that the change has happened. Meanwhile the negative effects are felt straight away.
Although I mentioned the Sahel earlier as a region particularly vulnerable to possible rainfall changes, it might go the other way and the southern boundary of the Sahara might move north.
According to Water UK, it has run at about £10 billion a year since 2000 - though I'm sure we would all question some places that the water companies get the money from (ie corporate borrowing):
https://www.water.org.uk/news-views-publications/views/record-levels-investment
I don't think it is included in the above £10 billion - one of our basic planning policies since about 2010 has been that surface water runoff from a development should be no more than the pre-existing site - that's where all our balancing ponds come from that are everywhere, with controlled outflow *. The last one of these I did required a preliminary design as part of Outline Permission, required to establish that the site was suitable for development; it was done by Mott McDonald and came to around £250 per potential housing unit just for the preliminary design. One of the features was a half acre semi-lake for a 120 house development.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which came online last year, was about £5 billion on its own.
That's all water infrastructure, as is investment in sewerage treatment, canal and river maintenance, and the rest.
* An interesting side point here is that these seem not to count for the "million ponds initiative", which is a long-term decades long project to help habitat recovery.
There have been no major reservoirs built for over 30 years - the last one (there are some being built now) was completed in 1992. At the same time, the population has risen by 11 million.
I find that staggering, and it makes me extremely cynical when people panic about our weather conditions.
OTOH my father never ever bet on anything, because his earlier life had taught him that, whilst he might be lucky at guessing as long as it didn't matter, if he bet even a spent match on the outcome he'd lose.
So it would have been a bit hard to anticipate the population growth and plan infrastructure for it, because it was never supposed to happen.
"Sweden and Norway rethink cashless society plans over Russia security fears
Rise in hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks blamed on pro-Russia groups prompt Nordic neighbours to backpedal"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/30/sweden-and-norway-rethink-cashless-society-plans-over-russia-security-fears
Looking forward to another successful year doing all that
CCS.
"Climate change is happenning but we don't need to take serious action, we can carry on much the same"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1gplzzv3o
“…her friend Mr Upham "put others before himself on Christmas Day, seeing a woman in trouble Matthew, on true form, went to help along with the other unnamed man"
It’s not just your own life you risk with DGAF
I think one of the unforeseen problems of the last budget will be caused by the unbundling of insulation etc programmes from energy bills - it can now be seen and will be far easier to target in political debate. The programme has been very successful for 15 years doing basics such as loft insulation, until the current one is under severe question - when the programme has been doing more complex installations (eg external wall insulation) with inadequate standards / supervision.
Cutting off our nose to spite our face is not taking serious action and won't impact global emissions as the rest of the world isn't stupid enough to do that.
Energy companies have been aware of the dangers of carbon emissions for decades, in the same way that they did about leaded fuel - it's only when government(s) have got stuck in that there has been a move away from them. So far it's been almost an exact mirror of that journey.
Seems Russia has accused Ukraine of an attack on Putin's residence near St Petersburg using 91 long distance drones
As I said yesterday peace is as far away as ever
A hot winter for the mullahs in Iran…
Long term, northern Scotland and the Western Isles are going to be the new tourist places when the Med becomes intolerably hot. There are some fantastic beaches in the Hebrides and along the northern Scottish coast and they will be developed with accompanying infrastructure and transport links over the next century or so.
If I wanted a really long term investment, I’d be looking at South Uist.
As for @IanB2’s friend, I’ve met a few pro punters over the years - it always seemed a miserable existence endlessly watching and researching horse racing. For me, it’s always been fun - I keep a record of my bets - on average for every £1 I bet, I get back 87p over a year so I couldn’t make a living but it’s entertainment, rather like coming on here and doing a little political jousting.
On day one of their attack Russia chose to try and decapitate Zelensky's Government, involving killing him, plus there have been numerous attempts to have Z assassinated.
And Zelensky has been offering a ceasefire for months, which Putin has rejected repeatedly.
* Perhaps Trump will tantrum again?
Spending money on insulation schemes, to pick the example you mentioned, is, on a macro level, a complete waste of money. It's an extremely expensive way of reducing demand in one very specific area, without having enough scale to give any general benefits.
Spend that money on new generation facilities and overall supply improves, prices go down for everyone (presuming a free market) and it increases reliability in the system. Build enough and you end up with a surplus of supply, which attracts energy-intensive industries, providing jobs, and can bring opportunities to profit by supplying excess to countries with an energy shortfall.
We should be building wind farms, solar and SMRs as fast as possible. Having too much energy is always better than not having enough.
I say this as someone with solar, home battery and Ev, and who has personally planted several thousand trees in the last few years.
I am optimistic that road transport will be very rapidly decarbonised, as I think autonomous EVs will soon dominate. I think too that data centre growth (at least American owned) will indeed move to orbit and beyond in the next 5-10 years.
But working within the industry, there really is little hope in the near term of decarbonising air transport, heavy industrial processes and domestic heating in places with older housing stock such as the uk. I am also sceptical we can decarbonise our power grid, with the solar + storage model inappropriate for our latitude and seasonality of our energy demand.
More specifically, having a deliberate policy of failing to build sufficient reservoirs, and instead blame the public for water shortages - encouraging them to water their gardens less, even to shower less (truly revolting) and take other punitive measures to combat 'water shortages' (when Winter floods will be along soon) is simply gaslighting.