Your no secondhand market point is toss because people can and do buy and sell Steam accounts (even though it's against Valve's ToS) on G2G (other scammy online marketplaces are available). So for AAA titles that are going have a consistent resale value people set up a dedicated Steam account with just that game in it so it's easy to resell. If you can be arsed you can share the game account's library with your main account so you don't even need to log,in and out of different Steam IDs. Something similar will happen with PS accounts if it is not already.
It's amazing what I learn from tutoring 18 year olds for A-Levels.
Interesting counterpoint.
Allow me to counter it, partially: most people won't do that. It's a pain. And there's also the chance that if you charge for something, give over the details, you may then find the payment gets subsequently cancelled. Hand over a physical disc and receive a tenner and that won't happen.
I do agree that'll happen, to an extent. Unless devices themselves start getting linked to specific accounts.
Which will presumably happen in the nearish future. Something something cybersecurity. And whilst some teenagers will undoubtedly work around these systems, I'd rather not rely on teenagers thank you.
All commercial activlity is on a spectrum from making a product for the joy of making, through making a product to make a profit, to making a profit without all the hassle of making a product. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but the ability to profit from someone else's historical endeavours probably causes a lot of our problems.
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
On the topic of taxing wealth or earnings there are two very different issues at play.
Most wealth can't be taxed as it can just be taken out of the country. Taxing that is futile.
The argument why tax wealth people have worked for is valid, but even more valid for incomes. Incomes people have worked for too.
Increasing taxes on potentially unearned wealth, that can't be transfered out of the country, with a commensurate reduction in taxing earned incomes would be both economically and philosophically justifiable.
What wealth can't be transferred out of the country? We come back to land ...
Which -as I'm sure you're alluding to- is the argument for taxing land. It's much harder to hide land than other assets, and if you tax the land directly you also avoid the situation where non-UK taxpayers own land, and benefit from the ownership of land, without paying tax.
Unless, of course, they rent the land out, in which case the tax is effectively paid by the tenants.
I don't think that's true: the cost of renting the land is set by supply and demand. A tax on the ultimate owner doesn't affect that.
Surely if rented property attracts, say, £1200 pa tax, landlords are all going to put their rents up by £100pcm and the tenants are going to be stuck with it.
That's not really how it works in the real world. Let me give you a simplified example.
Let's say there is some farm land, used for growing corn. The value of that farm land is set by how much money you can make by growing corn. If the landlord attempts to raise the rent, the tenant farmer simply won't rent it, because they cannot make enough money from farming to cover the rent.
And that's true -in slightly more complex ways- across the whole market. Prices are set by supply (of buildings, farmland. etc.) and demand (number of people needing housing, etc). The imposition of a tax does not affect supply and demand.
Yeah, but people who need to rent somewhere to live need to rent somewhere to live.
That's right: demand is unaffected by the tax on landlords.
If landlords could charge more today, they would. Why don't they? Because if they did, they wouldn't rent the place out.
(And, by the way, if rents rise, then demand will fall. People will stay with their parents longer, or will choose to rent out their spare bedroom. Etc. etc.)
Yes but taxes increase the cost to the landlord. Some of whom leave the market , the supply curve moves and we have fewer rental properties and higher rents.
How does fewer rental properties create higher rents? It's possible (heck likely) that as a house is sold reducing supply by 1, it's bought by a former renter so reducing demand by one.
Otherwise we are back to the old argument that as a landlord sells up the house magically disappears into thin air.
the renter still cannot afford to buy and a person who would have bought in any case buys it, still means pressure on rents. Renters don't magically buy houses when landlords sell.
People rent for a variety of reasons and not all renters want to buy. I’m sure some renters will buy when landlords sell up. But plenty of others buy too.
If rental supply falls and renting demand doesn’t by the same proportion then prices will go up. Hence the current demands for legalised rent caps by the backers of the Renters Rights Act.
This is nothing to do with marriage, it’s all about the couples versus single rates of Universal Credit. Which itself is based on the premise that a couple can live cheaper than two single people.
Ironically, the Centre for Social Justice was set up by none other than the architect of UC Iain Duncan Smith
I recall 40 odd years ago the ratio was that 2 could live as cheaply as 1.47.
I always found this kind of thing interesting but it was sadly ineffective as a chat up line. People are funny that way.
(To be serious for a second, the current weighting is 0.67 for first adult, 0.33 for subsequent adults, 0.2 for young children. It's slightly different if you do it after housing costs. )
This is nothing to do with marriage, it’s all about the couples versus single rates of Universal Credit. Which itself is based on the premise that a couple can live cheaper than two single people.
Ironically, the Centre for Social Justice was set up by none other than the architect of UC Iain Duncan Smith
And the possible solutions are:
1) a massive increase in benefit spending as couples are given the same allowance as two singles. Millions of households would be brought into the UC threshold for the first time. 2) a massive increase in child poverty as single parents see their allowance cut. It’s these households that make up the bulk of the non-working UC and poverty caseloads.
Yesterday's discussion was about using the Tax system as a signally mechanism. Tax land. Less tax on work etc. The Benefits system is simply a mirror image.
If you reward being single, then the economic rationale is to have more single families (though uncle Rob does stay over a few nights ...). Then there is a raft of DWP checks that single people are indeed single. So if coupling makes more economic sense at the national level then change the economics of the benefits system to reflect this. If you reward partnerships more than single families, people will partner up or reflect their real life situations to the DWP with related savings from less bedroom snooping. And if you want more children born in the UK, get rid of the two child limit and allow for more child friendly employment policies.
So if you intend to tax economic 'sins', then reward benefits virtues.
Trouble is, there are three limting points on the 'benefits solution' diagram.
1 Pay some people less than the minimum to keep body and soul sort-of together. Social ouch. 2 Pay some people more than the minimum to keep body and soul sort-of together. Political ouch, I fear. 3 Pay everyone the exact minimum to keep body and soul sort-of together. Brutal clawbacks when people do the right things (like working more or coupling.)
Option 3 is the one that minimises cost in the short term but stops problems being solved in the medium term. So of course it's the one the UK goes for.
Would agree the UK is in phase #3 and everything gets kicked into the long grass for the next lot to solve. But assuming benefits claimants are not as economically rational as a business owner is a mistake. Economics pervades every aspect of life but politicians prefer to demonise scroungers, landlords, tax avoiders etc rather than sit down and take some time to work out the effects.
Cameron's Behavioural Insights Team (aka the Nudge Unit) was a start but that was dumped when it was just showing fruit.
So not particularly rational at all? You're right, but I think it can be overstated to an extent. Simple habit, path dependency, sunk cost fallacies, information assymetry etc etc are all very powerful too. DWP think billions in benefits is not being claimed, mainly because not everyone is a spreadsheet wanker like me.
More. Only 19% of Ameicans think that the "Founding Fathers" would be pleased how America turned out. This too is a sharp drop, though much less divided by party or age:
O/T I keep seeing adverts online for self-contained ’air conditioning’ units that break the laws of physics by generating cold without dumping the extracted heat anywhere. Does the Advertising Standards Authority’s remit not include online adverts?
How may gullible people are being duped by these scammers I wonder?
The hot-dealing hub has some of these for its kitchen. The units out has work by using freezer packs in a water bath and blowing air over this top produce cooler air.
So, they do work and the effect is to time-shift the heat from when you use the unit to the night, when your freezer refreezes the ice pack.
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
The last part of that will be eased significantly because Labour-voting areas of the country are those generating the most tax. Other areas will still require a central redistribution of tax and spending. We'll see signs up with "funded by No10 North" all over Reform areas, a bit like the EU signs across the Highlands and Islands.
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
There's a further potential irony here. If Mayor Andy's vision of devolution is to work (and we have to hope it will), it will change the nature of PM Andy's job. It will mean giving away the bits of government that he seems to enjoy/be good at/be motivated by (public services, planning, economic development) whilst keeping the bits that he has shown little interest in (macroeconomics and foreign relations).
It's a sensible split, and would probably benefit all of us. And there's that trope that the best leaders are the ones who make themselves redundant. But it is going to require an awful lot of personal honour to go through with it, rather than just going from Mayor of GM to Mayor of England.
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
I had forgotten that Supermanc had already had two at bats. Perhaps a weak flame of hope still gutters in Penny Dreadful's ample bosom.
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
This Andy Burnham is going to be an excellent Liberal Democrat Prime Minister, isn't he?
Your no secondhand market point is toss because people can and do buy and sell Steam accounts (even though it's against Valve's ToS) on G2G (other scammy online marketplaces are available). So for AAA titles that are going have a consistent resale value people set up a dedicated Steam account with just that game in it so it's easy to resell. If you can be arsed you can share the game account's library with your main account so you don't even need to log,in and out of different Steam IDs. Something similar will happen with PS accounts if it is not already.
It's amazing what I learn from tutoring 18 year olds for A-Levels.
Interesting counterpoint.
Allow me to counter it, partially: most people won't do that. It's a pain. And there's also the chance that if you charge for something, give over the details, you may then find the payment gets subsequently cancelled. Hand over a physical disc and receive a tenner and that won't happen.
I do agree that'll happen, to an extent. Unless devices themselves start getting linked to specific accounts.
Which will presumably happen in the nearish future. Something something cybersecurity. And whilst some teenagers will undoubtedly work around these systems, I'd rather not rely on teenagers thank you.
All commercial activlity is on a spectrum from making a product for the joy of making, through making a product to make a profit, to making a profit without all the hassle of making a product. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but the ability to profit from someone else's historical endeavours probably causes a lot of our problems.
A lot of great work comes from people free to enjoy the joy of making. Many musical stars, artists, directors and actors do their best work when they have enough in the bank to never have to worry over money. They are freed from the tyranny of having to pay the rent in order to be truly innovative.
Perhaps less true outside the cultural industries, but not completely absent. For example the healthy retired are some of the most useful members of society in terms of child care, running voluntary organisations whether charities or political parties etc.
Money isn't the main motivator for many of us, provided that we have enough to live on. After that non-monetary rewards take over, whether personal satisfaction or simply a competitive personality desiring status.
Your no secondhand market point is toss because people can and do buy and sell Steam accounts (even though it's against Valve's ToS) on G2G (other scammy online marketplaces are available). So for AAA titles that are going have a consistent resale value people set up a dedicated Steam account with just that game in it so it's easy to resell. If you can be arsed you can share the game account's library with your main account so you don't even need to log,in and out of different Steam IDs. Something similar will happen with PS accounts if it is not already.
It's amazing what I learn from tutoring 18 year olds for A-Levels.
Interesting counterpoint.
Allow me to counter it, partially: most people won't do that. It's a pain. And there's also the chance that if you charge for something, give over the details, you may then find the payment gets subsequently cancelled. Hand over a physical disc and receive a tenner and that won't happen.
I do agree that'll happen, to an extent. Unless devices themselves start getting linked to specific accounts.
Which will presumably happen in the nearish future. Something something cybersecurity. And whilst some teenagers will undoubtedly work around these systems, I'd rather not rely on teenagers thank you.
All commercial activlity is on a spectrum from making a product for the joy of making, through making a product to make a profit, to making a profit without all the hassle of making a product. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but the ability to profit from someone else's historical endeavours probably causes a lot of our problems.
This is nothing to do with marriage, it’s all about the couples versus single rates of Universal Credit. Which itself is based on the premise that a couple can live cheaper than two single people.
Ironically, the Centre for Social Justice was set up by none other than the architect of UC Iain Duncan Smith
And the possible solutions are:
1) a massive increase in benefit spending as couples are given the same allowance as two singles. Millions of households would be brought into the UC threshold for the first time. 2) a massive increase in child poverty as single parents see their allowance cut. It’s these households that make up the bulk of the non-working UC and poverty caseloads.
Yesterday's discussion was about using the Tax system as a signally mechanism. Tax land. Less tax on work etc. The Benefits system is simply a mirror image.
If you reward being single, then the economic rationale is to have more single families (though uncle Rob does stay over a few nights ...). Then there is a raft of DWP checks that single people are indeed single. So if coupling makes more economic sense at the national level then change the economics of the benefits system to reflect this. If you reward partnerships more than single families, people will partner up or reflect their real life situations to the DWP with related savings from less bedroom snooping. And if you want more children born in the UK, get rid of the two child limit and allow for more child friendly employment policies.
So if you intend to tax economic 'sins', then reward benefits virtues.
One issue with this is that you do not want the benefit system to trap people in abusive relationships. It's difficult enough for people to escape domestic abuse. It would be unconscionable for the benefit system to make that harder.
This is, in part, the problem that Brown's "Gulags for slags" was intended to help address. Co-living arrangements for single parents would give them some of the benefits of living in a couple, without tying them into a relationship with an abusive partner.
And the power just went off for a few minutes. Wonderful.
Are you close enough to be affected by anything TRU related? I'm about a mile from the centre of Huddersfield, and not particularly close to any track, but each major blockade has been bookended by a short power cut within about 48 hours of the start/conclusion of work.
EDIT: Probably not, work is in Greater Manchester next few weekends. However, my whinge stands.
This is nothing to do with marriage, it’s all about the couples versus single rates of Universal Credit. Which itself is based on the premise that a couple can live cheaper than two single people.
Ironically, the Centre for Social Justice was set up by none other than the architect of UC Iain Duncan Smith
And the possible solutions are:
1) a massive increase in benefit spending as couples are given the same allowance as two singles. Millions of households would be brought into the UC threshold for the first time. 2) a massive increase in child poverty as single parents see their allowance cut. It’s these households that make up the bulk of the non-working UC and poverty caseloads.
Yesterday's discussion was about using the Tax system as a signally mechanism. Tax land. Less tax on work etc. The Benefits system is simply a mirror image.
If you reward being single, then the economic rationale is to have more single families (though uncle Rob does stay over a few nights ...). Then there is a raft of DWP checks that single people are indeed single. So if coupling makes more economic sense at the national level then change the economics of the benefits system to reflect this. If you reward partnerships more than single families, people will partner up or reflect their real life situations to the DWP with related savings from less bedroom snooping. And if you want more children born in the UK, get rid of the two child limit and allow for more child friendly employment policies.
So if you intend to tax economic 'sins', then reward benefits virtues.
Trouble is, there are three limting points on the 'benefits solution' diagram.
1 Pay some people less than the minimum to keep body and soul sort-of together. Social ouch. 2 Pay some people more than the minimum to keep body and soul sort-of together. Political ouch, I fear. 3 Pay everyone the exact minimum to keep body and soul sort-of together. Brutal clawbacks when people do the right things (like working more or coupling.)
Option 3 is the one that minimises cost in the short term but stops problems being solved in the medium term. So of course it's the one the UK goes for.
Would agree the UK is in phase #3 and everything gets kicked into the long grass for the next lot to solve. But assuming benefits claimants are not as economically rational as a business owner is a mistake. Economics pervades every aspect of life but politicians prefer to demonise scroungers, landlords, tax avoiders etc rather than sit down and take some time to work out the effects.
Cameron's Behavioural Insights Team (aka the Nudge Unit) was a start but that was dumped when it was just showing fruit.
So not particularly rational at all? You're right, but I think it can be overstated to an extent. Simple habit, path dependency, sunk cost fallacies, information assymetry etc etc are all very powerful too. DWP think billions in benefits is not being claimed, mainly because not everyone is a spreadsheet wanker like me.
Benefit claimants have spreadsheet wankers that do it for them too.
This is nothing to do with marriage, it’s all about the couples versus single rates of Universal Credit. Which itself is based on the premise that a couple can live cheaper than two single people.
Ironically, the Centre for Social Justice was set up by none other than the architect of UC Iain Duncan Smith
I recall 40 odd years ago the ratio was that 2 could live as cheaply as 1.47.
I always found this kind of thing interesting but it was sadly ineffective as a chat up line. People are funny that way.
So when people referring to their Oyher Half, they should really refer to their other Just Under a Third.
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
There's a further potential irony here. If Mayor Andy's vision of devolution is to work (and we have to hope it will), it will change the nature of PM Andy's job. It will mean giving away the bits of government that he seems to enjoy/be good at/be motivated by (public services, planning, economic development) whilst keeping the bits that he has shown little interest in (macroeconomics and foreign relations).
It's a sensible split, and would probably benefit all of us. And there's that trope that the best leaders are the ones who make themselves redundant. But it is going to require an awful lot of personal honour to go through with it, rather than just going from Mayor of GM to Mayor of England.
He also really needs to make a difference really quickly as he’s only got three years before the next election and he will need more than that to make a difference and implement his changes.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
There's a further potential irony here. If Mayor Andy's vision of devolution is to work (and we have to hope it will), it will change the nature of PM Andy's job. It will mean giving away the bits of government that he seems to enjoy/be good at/be motivated by (public services, planning, economic development) whilst keeping the bits that he has shown little interest in (macroeconomics and foreign relations).
It's a sensible split, and would probably benefit all of us. And there's that trope that the best leaders are the ones who make themselves redundant. But it is going to require an awful lot of personal honour to go through with it, rather than just going from Mayor of GM to Mayor of England.
'Mr Burnham’s post-Makerfield honeymoon helps him to the top of the ‘best PM’ ratings, on 38 per cent, with Ms Badenoch on 20 per cent and Mr Farage on 17 per cent.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Yet we are borrowing huge amounts every year and all your leader offers is tax cuts and cuts to stamp duty.
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
As chance would have it I was musing about similar thoughts yesterday after borrowing a book from the library. If we didn't already have libraries the opposition to creating them would be immense.
I think that what your describe - companies being more effective in extracting money from people for the same amount of utility - is one of the reasons people are so unhappy, and why they feel worse off even though the statistics show an increase in real wages.
A bit of regulation of digital markets, so that people had full ownership of digital goods, and of commerce more generally, so that people were less effectively fleeced by companies, would I think achieve quite a lot for improving voters' economic wellbeing.
There's been a lot of discussion on this board of this sort of thing recently. Renewing Sky subscriptions, for example.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Yet we are borrowing huge amounts every year and all your leader offers is tax cuts and cuts to stamp duty.
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
And what does your beloved Lib Dem leader want.
More cash, billions. For undeserving causes like the WASPI women among others.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Yet we are borrowing huge amounts every year and all your leader offers is tax cuts and cuts to stamp duty.
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
This is surely the worst refereeing we've seen so far during this competition.
Up until now the refereeing has been pretty good. Most of the problems have been with VAR and even they haven't been too bad. Ilgiz Tantashev was however completely crooked. It will be interesting to see if he is sent home. If he is not, you can expect to see a few more bent officials plying their trade in the remaining fixtures.
Since he was favoring a South American side I fear the worst for England against Mexico in the Azteca. Head of Referees, Pierluigi Collina, is a hero and has done much to stamp out bias and corruption amongst referees in International football but there's little he can do against a determined attempt to fix the game. Qatar wasn't too bad, but there were one or two shockers, notably France v England which was handled by a cheating little Brazilian.
FIFA don't like us so any ref leaning the other way can generally rely on high level support, though not I think from Senor Collina. My advice tonight is lay England and go to bed early.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Yet we are borrowing huge amounts every year and all your leader offers is tax cuts and cuts to stamp duty.
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
O/T I keep seeing adverts online for self-contained ’air conditioning’ units that break the laws of physics by generating cold without dumping the extracted heat anywhere. Does the Advertising Standards Authority’s remit not include online adverts?
How may gullible people are being duped by these scammers I wonder?
The hot-dealing hub has some of these for its kitchen. The units out has work by using freezer packs in a water bath and blowing air over this top produce cooler air.
So, they do work and the effect is to time-shift the heat from when you use the unit to the night, when your freezer refreezes the ice pack.
I think these are a variety of what is known as an "evaporative cooler" or "swamp cooler", which work by using room heat to evaporate the water (cold water means it absorbs more heat). That is "latent heat of evaporation" and so on as we all remember from Physics at school.
The downside is that they increase humidity, and so do not work so well in high humidity countries like the UK - unlike in say Texas.
Freezer packs mean that the freezer has put out heat to cool those down, so relative efficiency applies too.
This is surely the worst refereeing we've seen so far during this competition.
Up until now the refereeing has been pretty good. Most of the problems have been with VAR and even they haven't been too bad. Ilgiz Tantashev was however completely crooked. It will be interesting to see if he is sent home. If he is not, you can expect to see a few more bent officials plying their trade in the remaining fixtures.
Since he was favoring a South American side I fear the worst for England against Mexico in the Azteca. Head of Referees, Pierluigi Collina, is a hero and has done much to stamp out bias and corruption amongst referees in International football but there's little he can do against a determined attempt to fix the game. Qatar wasn't too bad, but there were one or two shockers, notably France v England which was handled by a cheating little Brazilian.
FIFA don't like us so any ref leaning the other way can generally rely on high level support, though not I think from Senor Collina. My advice tonight is lay England and go to bed early.
Does anyone have a tongue twister about F*ckin' Flapping FIFA Officials Fleecing France?
O/T I keep seeing adverts online for self-contained ’air conditioning’ units that break the laws of physics by generating cold without dumping the extracted heat anywhere. Does the Advertising Standards Authority’s remit not include online adverts?
How may gullible people are being duped by these scammers I wonder?
The hot-dealing hub has some of these for its kitchen. The units out has work by using freezer packs in a water bath and blowing air over this top produce cooler air.
So, they do work and the effect is to time-shift the heat from when you use the unit to the night, when your freezer refreezes the ice pack.
I think these are a variety of what is known as an "evaporative cooler" or "swamp cooler", which work by using room heat to evaporate the water (cold water means it absorbs more heat). That is "latent heat of evaporation" and so on as we all remember from Physics at school.
The downside is that they increase humidity, and so do not work so well in high humidity countries like the UK - unlike in say Texas.
Freezer packs mean that the freezer has put out heat to cool those down, so relative efficiency applies too.
Point being that they do work, as long as you understand they are principally shifting heat in time (when the freezer cooled the packs), rather than in space (out of the house as with a refrigerating air conditioner unit).
And you don't need to buy a box to do this for you. Just wrap a freezer pack in a tea towel and stick it in front of a fan.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Yet we are borrowing huge amounts every year and all your leader offers is tax cuts and cuts to stamp duty.
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
And what does your beloved Lib Dem leader want.
More cash, billions. For undeserving causes like the WASPI women among others.
When it comes to this administration, the Lib Dems are Santa's little helper.
O/T I keep seeing adverts online for self-contained ’air conditioning’ units that break the laws of physics by generating cold without dumping the extracted heat anywhere. Does the Advertising Standards Authority’s remit not include online adverts?
How may gullible people are being duped by these scammers I wonder?
The hot-dealing hub has some of these for its kitchen. The units out has work by using freezer packs in a water bath and blowing air over this top produce cooler air.
So, they do work and the effect is to time-shift the heat from when you use the unit to the night, when your freezer refreezes the ice pack.
I think these are a variety of what is known as an "evaporative cooler" or "swamp cooler", which work by using room heat to evaporate the water (cold water means it absorbs more heat). That is "latent heat of evaporation" and so on as we all remember from Physics at school.
The downside is that they increase humidity, and so do not work so well in high humidity countries like the UK - unlike in say Texas.
Freezer packs mean that the freezer has put out heat to cool those down, so relative efficiency applies too.
Point being that they do work, as long as you understand they are principally shifting heat in time (when the freezer cooled the packs), rather than in space (out of the house as with a refrigerating air conditioner unit).
And you don't need to buy a box to do this for you. Just wrap a freezer pack in a tea towel and stick it in front of a fan.
Though the box may have some controls to switch it off at temperature X - presumably Kemi thinks these are an assault on personal freedom, as it is when you put a control dial on a bathroom towel rail !
Yes - and the evaporation rate rolls off, as it is related to the difference in water concentration at the water's surface and water concentration in atmosphere into which it is evaporating. It stops cooling when humidity reaches 100% ie the air is saturated, and condensation equals evaporation.
'Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Yet we are borrowing huge amounts every year and all your leader offers is tax cuts and cuts to stamp duty.
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
And what does your beloved Lib Dem leader want.
More cash, billions. For undeserving causes like the WASPI women among others.
When it comes to this administration, the Lib Dems are Santa's little helper.
Comments
All commercial activlity is on a spectrum from making a product for the joy of making, through making a product to make a profit, to making a profit without all the hassle of making a product. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but the ability to profit from someone else's historical endeavours probably causes a lot of our problems.
https://bsky.app/profile/theatlantic.com/post/3mpubhgsbjr2o
I take the {number ten in the North] idea extremely seriously as an indicator of who Mr Burnham is and what kind of leader he aspires to be. Success as mayor of Greater Manchester was the remaking of Mr Burnham after two failed attempts to become leader of his party.
In his first substantial speech as prime minister presumptive, there was authentic passion when he expressed the belief that our country needs a radical reset of how power is wielded. Team Andy insists he means it when he declares that “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain” and the “conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”. That would create a power centre in its own right and one that sees the world from a very different perspective to politicians and civil servants operating in the capital city, or near it.
Authentic decentralisation would mean giving councils and mayors much greater latitude over how they spend, and equipping them with substantial scope to raise local taxes – or to cut them. This will meet serious resistance. One Labour veteran who knows the place inside out remarks that the choice facing the incoming prime minister is between “smashing up the Treasury” or using it as “a battering ram to bash all this through.” He will need a chancellor who genuinely shares his philosophy if the future is not to be a bitter saga of triangular clashes over cash and control between the Treasury, Downing Street and No 10 North.
We will also discover how tolerant he is of other points of view. True devolution will require a willingness to allow local voters and leaders to make choices different from those he’d make himself. Andy Burnham will be an unusual prime minister if he gives power away. Doing this properly will mean handing it to some people he thoroughly dislikes.
If rental supply falls and renting demand doesn’t by the same proportion then prices will go up. Hence the current demands for legalised rent caps by the backers of the Renters Rights Act.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/711842/250-years-say-founders-disappointed.aspx
Well, a sort of pseudo-Marxist.
‘Here are my principles. If Donald doesn’t like them, I have others.’
So, they do work and the effect is to time-shift the heat from when you use the unit to the night, when your freezer refreezes the ice pack.
It's a sensible split, and would probably benefit all of us. And there's that trope that the best leaders are the ones who make themselves redundant. But it is going to require an awful lot of personal honour to go through with it, rather than just going from Mayor of GM to Mayor of England.
Perhaps less true outside the cultural industries, but not completely absent. For example the healthy retired are some of the most useful members of society in terms of child care, running voluntary organisations whether charities or political parties etc.
Money isn't the main motivator for many of us, provided that we have enough to live on. After that non-monetary rewards take over, whether personal satisfaction or simply a competitive personality desiring status.
This is, in part, the problem that Brown's "Gulags for slags" was intended to help address. Co-living arrangements for single parents would give them some of the benefits of living in a couple, without tying them into a relationship with an abusive partner.
EDIT: Probably not, work is in Greater Manchester next few weekends. However, my whinge stands.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15953425/Burnham-plots-homes-tax-raid-middle-clas.html
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xzfNEF0e-y4&pp=ygUgeWVzIG1pbmlzdGVyIHJlZ2lvbmFsIGdvdmVybm1lbnQ=&ra=m
It is clear that voters expect high taxes from a Burnham government, with 41 per cent believing he is more Left wing than Sir Keir, and just 21 per cent disagreeing.'
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15953349/Voters-Andy-Burnham-call-snap-election-mandate-govern.html
NEW THREAD
I know she may believe (perhaps rightly) cutting taxes will lead to economic growth but in the short term, with the additional commitments of defence and debt interest to cover, she needs to spell out what cuts she would make, to what and how much rather than sounding almost like Jeremy Corbyn in her devotion to the Magic Money Tree.
I know promising nice things to your voter base wins elections but it's legitimate to ask how this largesse will be funded.
I think that what your describe - companies being more effective in extracting money from people for the same amount of utility - is one of the reasons people are so unhappy, and why they feel worse off even though the statistics show an increase in real wages.
A bit of regulation of digital markets, so that people had full ownership of digital goods, and of commerce more generally, so that people were less effectively fleeced by companies, would I think achieve quite a lot for improving voters' economic wellbeing.
There's been a lot of discussion on this board of this sort of thing recently. Renewing Sky subscriptions, for example.
More cash, billions. For undeserving causes like the WASPI women among others.
Since he was favoring a South American side I fear the worst for England against Mexico in the Azteca. Head of Referees, Pierluigi Collina, is a hero and has done much to stamp out bias and corruption amongst referees in International football but there's little he can do against a determined attempt to fix the game. Qatar wasn't too bad, but there were one or two shockers, notably France v England which was handled by a cheating little Brazilian.
FIFA don't like us so any ref leaning the other way can generally rely on high level support, though not I think from Senor Collina. My advice tonight is lay England and go to bed early.
The downside is that they increase humidity, and so do not work so well in high humidity countries like the UK - unlike in say Texas.
Freezer packs mean that the freezer has put out heat to cool those down, so relative efficiency applies too.
And you don't need to buy a box to do this for you. Just wrap a freezer pack in a tea towel and stick it in front of a fan.
Yes - and the evaporation rate rolls off, as it is related to the difference in water concentration at the water's surface and water concentration in atmosphere into which it is evaporating. It stops cooling when humidity reaches 100% ie the air is saturated, and condensation equals evaporation.