Having already flagged he wants to cut #benefits, #JeremyHunt looks to be sugaring the pill by aiming those cuts on out-of-work benefits;
by increasing the sanctions on these who 'refuse' to look for work while on unemployment benefit, while also putting up the #minumumwage, today he'll be using a narrative of being on the #workers side rather than the 'shirkers' side.
Any one on minimum wage who thinks #JeremyHunt is on their side only needs to look around to see that's really not the case!
@55ab98d9
I think it tells us much about the lack of manoeuvrability within the institution of POTUS - what may seem like a position which would allow the individual to express/follow their own values actually sits in a system adept at 'explaining' to the incumbent why they need to do something different... some willingly go along with it, some not so much, but the ability to break out of the narrow confines is more difficult than observers presume, I suspect
I'm going to say/quote this again as it does seem to capture the UK right now....
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually & then suddenly"
And right now it feels like we are very swiftly pivoting from the former to the latter....
[quote from Ernest Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises]
You'll recall #RishiSunak's weakening of carbon targets lead to a collapse in the 'market' for carbon emissions offsets; the price is now half that within the EU (having previously been at rough parity).
So, the fact that the EU is about to bring in a #carbontax regime at the border that requires importers to pay the difference between their local offset price & the EU price, will both add costs to exporters into the EU & also mean the EU gets the tax not the UK!
Another Sunak own-goal!
h/t FT
As tributes pour in for #JimmyCarter's 99th birthday, I'm reminded of a remark I once heard (which I'll have to paraphrase):
Jimmy Carter may not have been the best President of the US, but he sure as hell was the best ex-president!
Which, I think is not too far wide of the mark
#BAESystems have now confirmed that they have won the #AUKUS contract worth nearly £4bn to develop a dedicated #submarine capacity... much of this work will come to #Cumbria.
This looks like pretty good news for #workers in #Barrow, but the bigger Q. is whether this is the sort of #investment the UK should be encouraging?
Given this looks a lot like 'military Keynesiansim' I reflected on this issue in a piece for @264363cdhttps://northwestbylines.co.uk/business/local-business/is-military-keynesianism-good-for-britain/
So how much does #Brexit cost?
In a letter to a Labour MP (seen by the FT), Cabinet Office minister Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe admits,
“It will depend greatly on how businesses adapt their business models & supply chains to integrate the new controls regimes. We estimate these new costs of the model at £330mn p.a [per annum] overall, across all EU imports,”
Did I miss the big bus with this on the side?
Oh that's right, all those warnings about the costs of Brexit were 'project fear'!
As Torsten Bell notes in today's Observer (not online yet), a key problem behind so many issues is a lack of #investment - from the #NHScrisis to #RAAC in #schools, from our #productivity problems, to the state of our #infrastructure; so much would be different if the UK invested at the rate more normal across #Europe.
But notably behind the UK's seeming short-termism is, to me, a wider problem:
in the UK we have just stopped believing in the future... with devastating effects across society!
@5c47d752
Yes, I had a lot at TM quite recently on someone's recommendation, and thought DG seemed superior... but that may be confirmation bias as I'm already a DG subscriber.
If, like me, sometime the relentless news cycle gets you down (notably in the coverage this weekend of the #Tory conference next week), let me recommend the #slownews magazine Delayed Gratification (I've been a subscriber for some years).
It does long-form reporting on the news but after an interval of three or more months... it also has absolutely brilliant data visualisations.
The journalism is great & offers views of issues often missing from the mainstream press.
https://www.slow-journalism.com
#artificialintelligence is being used to write #books that 'compete' with best-sellers on #Amazon's website... to be frank, #publishers have always run with many 'me too' tittles, but #AI has both made this process quicker, but also (as the story suggest) now a lot more sinister...
The Q. here is, of course, can Amazon disprove that it is colluding with these 'publishers' (with a big anti-trust case in the US, this may be more difficult than they might hope)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/30/authors-shocked-to-find-ai-ripoffs-of-their-books-being-sold-on-amazon
No-one will be surprised that #JeremyHunt is saying he might cut the #welfare budget to pay for #taxcuts... but the Q. must be whose benefits are going to be cut?
#RishiSunak is going to going into bat for the #pensioners.... but Hunt already has his eyes on the #longtermsick who he thinks need to be 'encouraged' back to work... so I'm guessing (yet) more constraints on unemployment benefits (more conditionality, longer delay after job loss)...
More toxicity from the #Tories
#GTTO
The #surveillancesociety is like a budget version of #orwell... run on excel spreadsheets & baking off when the threat of #lawyers is aired.
That the DfE is trying to silence then is no real surprise... but its still shocking that this (rather than engagement with the views/criticisms) is the strategy adopted.
Thought not named here I have at least one good friend (and active unionist) who I'm sure also has their own excel spreadsheet & file.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/30/it-felt-like-a-dictatorship-uk-teaching-experts-hit-out-at-government-bid-to-cancel-them
When I was young(er) small #music venues were the place to find new bands to follow, to see people trying out new ideas & generally to see #creativity in the raw [I'm of the age when #pubrock was a thing]... as a #politicaleconomist I'd also suggest they are part off a pipeline that allowed new talent to try out material & styles without masses of investment (or major record company interest).
So seeing the widening decimation of the small gig circuit is depressing!
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/30/small-uk-music-venues-struggle-to-stay-open-polar-bear-hull
@5c47d752 E
well Gibson & Strerling definitely one the down the alternative history route so I took that depiction with a pink of salt along with other real people who appeared... certainly not one of Gibson's better projects
@5c47d752
yes Ada Lovelace make a fleeting appearance as a gambling obsessed nutter... indeed all the #women are pretty lightly sketched in - but it was thirty years ago (I suppose)
This week I've been mainly reading, No. 94.
I've been rather disappointed by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine (1990/2011), which while presenting an immersive depiction of a world in which Babbage's 'computer' had become an equivalent of later computing (both influenced by early #SteamPunk fiction & going on to influence later books), sacrifices plot for atmosphere; the plot such as it is really not much & offers no real pay-off. Sadly, style over substance!
@b2e37e2e
@731c2efc has started a series of posts on the legalities of the #postoffice #HorizonIT scandal; the first includes an interesting observation.
In 1982 Sect.69 of PACE set out that: 'it was for the prosecution to show that the computer was operating correctly & not for the defendant to show that computer was not operating correctly'!
But, section 69 was repealed in 1999... but think how the PO case against #postmasters might have gone if hadn't been repealed?
https://davidallengreen.com/2023/09/computer-says-guilty-an-introduction-to-the-evidential-presumption-that-computers-are-operating-correctly/
@4ae9113e
Sure, sorry, I was meaning elective in the sense of only for 'cosmetic' reasons... even thought, of course, for some such reasons for surgery can be compelling...
@5c47d752
As someone who has always sought to avoid any medical intervention, unless absolutely necessary, people's appetite for medical procedures (for whatever reason) is a mystery to me
So if you wanted (another) example of what happens when regulatory oversight is reduced or removed from #healthcare, all you need to do is look at the 'wild west' of #cosmeticsurgery....
Of course, there is a perfectly professional & well-regulated segment of the market for such elective #surgery but there are vast areas where charlatans are taking advantage of the desperate or foolish....
And you thought #dentistry was bad?
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/30/regulating-cosmetic-surgery-uk-absolute-nightmare-top-surgeon
As #RishiSunak prepares to abolish the winter fuel allowance for #pensioners, taking our cue from #SteveBarclay, we should now al loudly accuse Rishi Sunak of withholding #heat from the elderly....
From Guardian letters this morning:
Max von Thun decries “more than a decade of disastrous government under the Conservatives”. Mr von Thun may not remember, but no one else should forget that five of those disastrous Tory years were enabled by the Lib Dems voting for & providing intellectual heft to George Osborne’s austerity budgets, the core reason for the social, economic and political disasters we have endured and continue to endure.
Alex Gallagher
Largs, Ayrshire
Absolutely right!!
If you wanted an example of the impact of a change of attribution has in the #artmarket, here's one for you.
In November 2022 a C17th pinging of Moses, then attributed to 'a follower of Guido Reni' was sold (against an estimate of 6,000 euros)... now reattributed to Guercno (a well-known Italian Baroque painter), its coming up for sale in #Paris with a price expected to be 'in the region' of 2m euros!
Same painting... different attribution leads to price rise of over 33,000%
h/t Art Newspaper
@5c47d752
Its a classic example of performative politics... Barclay thinks if he says it enough times it'll be true (or at least true to his audience at Conference)
The war of words around the #Doctors #strike reaches a new low with #SteveBarclay acusing striking consultants of withholding #cancer treatments;
But, as Dr Vishal Sharma (BMA) observes: it was “incredibly rich of the secretary of state to invoke time-critical procedures when his government has overseen a steep increase in waiting lists that saw them reach record levels even before any strike action took place”.
Its the #Tories that have caused the #NHScrisis not the doctors!
#supportourNHS
While #Wilko's unsecured creditors look likely to only get around 8% of their money, and the firm's company pension is suffering a likely £50m funding gap, its now clear that the family paid itself £9m in dividends since 2019... while profits halved.
Hmmm.... not enough to make up the shortfall, but a rather different end-game form the company's pensioners & their suppliers.
Invasion of the #BedBugs... its seems #Paris is suffering a city-wide bed bug infestation.
Across the city & the metro, bed bugs are everywhere, including GDG airport (so even transfer passengers are potentially exposed).
The fumigation firms are over-stretched & the bugs are increasingly resistant to chemical treatments.
Next year's #Olympics may be a bit of an icy affair...
So, if you were a betting person, you might take the number of #businesses exhibiting at party conference as one indicator (among many) of where to place your bet on the next election:
So, the news that more businesses are ar the #LabourParty conference than will be at the #Tories' conference.
Looks like gamblers might need to (further) shorten the odds on a Labour victory... but for those who think #KierStarmer is already listening to business too much, this will be more grist for the mill
@9d895273
Yes, I think the key to it all is the threshold... but that's how we deal with ensuring some level of progressiveness in income tax so there's no real issue about an IHT threshold, more about where exactly it might be....
@549838b7
Yes, I completely agree... I increasingly saw the results of this process in my classes at #university... some of my students had no real idea why thy were there, nor any clear ideas about what they might get out of it, which undermined their ability to make the most of the period at Uni... its a really sad state of affairs
To be clear: #InheritanceTax is a tax on unearned income coming to the recipients, not a tax on those who've died.
Lets start there & ask why people should be advantaged in life by the accident of having rich(er) but now dead parents?
You'll want to claim a 'right' to give things to your children, but given the law (except in particular circumstances) doesn't support contesting wills on the basis of a 'right' to inherit, why do we privilege the interests of the dead?
Just thinking aloud
The financial costs of #highereducation increasingly exact a #mentalhealth cost on #students...
It is a sobering comparison that rather than having three years of intellectual development & mental growth, #university students seem more likely to sink into #depression... no-one would expect university not to be challenging, but this should be empowering not debilitating....
There is something very wrong with how we treat university & we urgently need to fix it!
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/29/university-students-more-at-risk-of-depression-than-non-students-study
So much for the #Tories narrative of being a low-tax party...
by next year the proportion of national income taken by #taxation will have risen from 33% to 37% over four years... to be absolutely clear, I have no problem with such rates of UK #taxation, the bigger Q. is what it is being used for.
All Govt.s 'tax & spend'... so don't obsess about the #tax element lets obsess about the absolutely disastrous spending strategy undertaken by the #Tories...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/29/uk-households-face-tax-rise-of-3500-a-year-by-next-election-finds-ifs
New #ONS data suggests that White British people's mortality rate is above those from different ethnic backgrounds.
Partly this is about #class & wealth - deprived areas (often populated by white #workingclass) have higher mortality rates;
Partly this is an issue of the 'healthy migrant'; it seems that #migrants to UK often have better health than life-time residents.
Both, point to our dysfunctional #foodsystem that offers rubbish to the poor(er) sectors of society as a key factor
h/t FT
The danger off drawing conclusions from polling;
the example of the #inheritancetax debate.
A simple Q. produces one sort of response, a more nuanced Q. something a little different;
it comes down to whether the Q. is framed as a general issue of being able to pass on wealth to the following generation tax-free, or accepting that it will be taxed & asking by how much;
the former makes it seem people do not want #IHT, but the latter reveals a desire for fairness & taxation of inheritance.
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/111/146/888/052/306/165/original/b943194e6f086a9a.png
Its a strange world where the UK's Govt. is seeking to 'streamline' the planning process for the landing point of the world's longest subsea #electricity cable to underpin a 25 year deal to import #solar generated electricity from #Morocco, at the same time that it does little to ease the planning for #onshorewind & (through a lack of flexibility) undermines new #offshorewind projects...
That said, at this stage the project may never get going if the financing doesn't materialise!
The US Dept. of State says that #China 'employs a variety of deceptive & coercive methods as it attempts to influence the international information environment.. [which] will reshape the global information landscape, creating biases & gaps that could even lead nations to make decision that subordinate their economic and security interests to Beijing’s'!
I'm sure this is true as are the potential effects... but of curse other countries might say (& have said) this about the USA!
(I'm nine days late on this, but its still worth celebrating)
50 years ago #BillieJeanKing struck a blow that transformed #Tennis & #sport more generally - her playing & campaigning on #genderequality started the shift in #gender relations in tennis into the Open Era, and is still rippling today (not least in the recent surge in #womensfootball) - she was (and is) a revolutionary.
#feminism
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/111/146/792/933/462/296/original/c1795fc1c1e1d580.jpeg
Another week, another problem with #technology?
Is you #IPhone 15 overheating?
If so, you're not alone....
Already there's a certain amount of victim blaming go on... 'you've used cheap(er) charge cables'... or my favourite 'you gaming/downloading/stream excessively'...
#Apple seem to be staying quiet... so who now what they know?
As #universities grapple with how do make policy on #artificialintelligence & assessment, its well to be clear about one thing:
USING #AI TO WRITE YOUR ASSIGNMENT IS CHEATING!
But, of course the reason is it tempting is about the pressure for #students balancing study & work & the instrumentalism of education to be just about its end (the certificate).
Markers will never catch all the uses of AI, but students should understand the only person they're cheating is their future selves' knowledge
I have a confession... over the last year, #Impossible has become my weekday #lunchtime #guiltypleasure.... great show, Rick Edwards is a good host & the final round has (impossible) questions that catch me out every day...
Worth a watch if you've nothing on at lunchtime (which I accept if you're not #retired, may not be happening).
@4d168cdc
Its more the character of those interests that economists sometimes get wrong... they think all interest is priced in, whereas especially in national #energy markets, issues around national energy security 'distort' the market; this is, of course no surprise to political economists... it what we would expect... the free market ideologues get angry, however, that the market is not being allowed to 'work'!
@5c47d752
Ha ha... my wife was a knitting tutor for years & as such I've always thought everyone who knitted could knit anything... but hey, I'm with you on #outsourcing...
@7db1d990
Yes, I know that's the appeal of self-employment... but apart from the lucky few, the pressures are just from different organisations (banks, creditors, customers)... but, yes, there is at least some autonomy in being self-employed (even if in my view these benefits are largely over-sold)
@5c47d752@3c5c03f8@bcb5501b
actually, I find this a little creepy... like something that might happen when we find the Asteroid fragments that have been brought back to earth have an parasitic life-from that transforms humans into something else... or is my reading of The Expanse series finally having too much influence on my thought?
#scifi
@4d168cdc
It also represents a (perhaps misplaced) notion that national suppliers abroad, will always treat all market players equally... actually what we saw last winter was (not unsurprisingly) when reserves were low, national use was privileged over market contracting exports.... its free market ideology trumping strategic energy concerns (which now looks a little short sighted)
@650d1b98
Yes, I would agree... however, there is also a dystopian version of UBI (see Vonnegut's Player Piano for an fictional take on how it might play out badly)
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