The Economy

[Son of Mathonwy]

In Starmer and Reeves' desperation for growth (since that's the only way they can dream of increasing state revenue - the markets tying their hands over borrowing, and their own political leanings preventing them from taxing the rich), they are weakening the Competition and Markets Authority (or should I say, making it more 'pro-growth'), by replacing the chair with the former head of Amazon UK. Great way to make it tough on monopolistic power. Reeves doesn't understand what this regulator is for - it keep the markets cleaner, more level, more open to new entrants, improves competition and lowers prices, and the opposite will happen if it kowtows to monopolistic tech firms. Reeves needs to stop listening to lobbyists.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-horribly

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... tervention

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... f-thin-air

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/growth-l ... 2Fhg%3D%3D

[Son of Mathonwy]

More monopoly-friendly, sorry I mean 'pro-growth', approach to competition regulation:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... rowth-push

[Son of Mathonwy]

This is pretty much what I think:



Both will fail to reduce inequality*. Trump will obviously ramp it up massively and Starmer will not change it much, but both will disappoint the ordinary voters who wanted change, and an improvement in their difficult lives. This kind of failure will not matter for Trump if he effectively ends democracy. Starmer won't do that, he will just hand the country to Farage unless he takes a different course**.

* Neither sees inequality as the problem. For Trump it's immigrants, foreign countries and wokeness/non straight white males. For Starmer it's a lack of growth.

** This isn't impossible, since all he wants is status - he has no convictions. Hence he could do the right thing if it seemed like the best course to bring him personal success. Unfortunately he's surrounded by centre-right types and so is unlikely do this (even though it is sketched out in the 10 pledges he made then dropped after winning the Labour leadership).

[Puja]

This is pretty much what I think:



Both will fail to reduce inequality*. Trump will obviously ramp it up massively and Starmer will not change it much, but both will disappoint the ordinary voters who wanted change, and an improvement in their difficult lives. This kind of failure will not matter for Trump if he effectively ends democracy. Starmer won't do that, he will just hand the country to Farage unless he takes a different course**.

* Neither sees inequality as the problem. For Trump it's immigrants, foreign countries and wokeness/non straight white males. For Starmer it's a lack of growth.

** This isn't impossible, since all he wants is status - he has no convictions. Hence he could do the right thing if it seemed like the best course to bring him personal success. Unfortunately he's surrounded by centre-right types and so is unlikely do this (even though it is sketched out in the 10 pledges he made then dropped after winning the Labour leadership).

My hope is that Trump/Musk do enough damage to everyday people's lives and crash the economy so hard that they turn the Republican brand poisonous for decades to come (and that there is enough democracy left for that to matter). They are on the verge of it - Musk being allowed to play with the fusebox and pull out any wires that he doesn't like/understand means that pensions, veterans services, medicaid, schools are all at risk, as well as the chance of rampant inflation from food prices, all of which are real tangible things that are hard to lie away. If investors lose confidence in the US, it could lead to a crash unlike anything that's ever been seen before and that could ward off Faragism as the UK gets to see where it leads.

However, I worry that the USA will be too big to fail and that the same flood of market forces that brought down Liz Truss's crackpot ideas won't happen just because there's too much investment tied up for any investment to be taken out, and they'll be able to limp on, blaming their economic sabotage on the wokes and deep state.

Puja

[paddy no 11]

This is pretty much what I think:



Both will fail to reduce inequality*. Trump will obviously ramp it up massively and Starmer will not change it much, but both will disappoint the ordinary voters who wanted change, and an improvement in their difficult lives. This kind of failure will not matter for Trump if he effectively ends democracy. Starmer won't do that, he will just hand the country to Farage unless he takes a different course**.

* Neither sees inequality as the problem. For Trump it's immigrants, foreign countries and wokeness/non straight white males. For Starmer it's a lack of growth.

** This isn't impossible, since all he wants is status - he has no convictions. Hence he could do the right thing if it seemed like the best course to bring him personal success. Unfortunately he's surrounded by centre-right types and so is unlikely do this (even though it is sketched out in the 10 pledges he made then dropped after winning the Labour leadership).

My hope is that Trump/Musk do enough damage to everyday people's lives and crash the economy so hard that they turn the Republican brand poisonous for decades to come (and that there is enough democracy left for that to matter). They are on the verge of it - Musk being allowed to play with the fusebox and pull out any wires that he doesn't like/understand means that pensions, veterans services, medicaid, schools are all at risk, as well as the chance of rampant inflation from food prices, all of which are real tangible things that are hard to lie away. If investors lose confidence in the US, it could lead to a crash unlike anything that's ever been seen before and that could ward off Faragism as the UK gets to see where it leads.

However, I worry that the USA will be too big to fail and that the same flood of market forces that brought down Liz Truss's crackpot ideas won't happen just because there's too much investment tied up for any investment to be taken out, and they'll be able to limp on, blaming their economic sabotage on the wokes and deep state.

Puja

Read today that inflation is up a further 3% since his election and minnesota has a bird flu emergency with massive culls. Price of eggs going to rocket past 5 bucks a dozen soon

[Sandydragon]

This is pretty much what I think:



Both will fail to reduce inequality*. Trump will obviously ramp it up massively and Starmer will not change it much, but both will disappoint the ordinary voters who wanted change, and an improvement in their difficult lives. This kind of failure will not matter for Trump if he effectively ends democracy. Starmer won't do that, he will just hand the country to Farage unless he takes a different course**.

* Neither sees inequality as the problem. For Trump it's immigrants, foreign countries and wokeness/non straight white males. For Starmer it's a lack of growth.

** This isn't impossible, since all he wants is status - he has no convictions. Hence he could do the right thing if it seemed like the best course to bring him personal success. Unfortunately he's surrounded by centre-right types and so is unlikely do this (even though it is sketched out in the 10 pledges he made then dropped after winning the Labour leadership).

My hope is that Trump/Musk do enough damage to everyday people's lives and crash the economy so hard that they turn the Republican brand poisonous for decades to come (and that there is enough democracy left for that to matter). They are on the verge of it - Musk being allowed to play with the fusebox and pull out any wires that he doesn't like/understand means that pensions, veterans services, medicaid, schools are all at risk, as well as the chance of rampant inflation from food prices, all of which are real tangible things that are hard to lie away. If investors lose confidence in the US, it could lead to a crash unlike anything that's ever been seen before and that could ward off Faragism as the UK gets to see where it leads.

However, I worry that the USA will be too big to fail and that the same flood of market forces that brought down Liz Truss's crackpot ideas won't happen just because there's too much investment tied up for any investment to be taken out, and they'll be able to limp on, blaming their economic sabotage on the wokes and deep state.

Puja

I understand the sentiment, but I’m not keen on the American economy crashing too hard since it will inevitably hurt us too.

The one benefit of trumps foreign policy is that it seems to be pushing us closer to Europe.

[Sandydragon]

This is pretty much what I think:



Both will fail to reduce inequality*. Trump will obviously ramp it up massively and Starmer will not change it much, but both will disappoint the ordinary voters who wanted change, and an improvement in their difficult lives. This kind of failure will not matter for Trump if he effectively ends democracy. Starmer won't do that, he will just hand the country to Farage unless he takes a different course**.

* Neither sees inequality as the problem. For Trump it's immigrants, foreign countries and wokeness/non straight white males. For Starmer it's a lack of growth.

** This isn't impossible, since all he wants is status - he has no convictions. Hence he could do the right thing if it seemed like the best course to bring him personal success. Unfortunately he's surrounded by centre-right types and so is unlikely do this (even though it is sketched out in the 10 pledges he made then dropped after winning the Labour leadership).

My hope is that Trump/Musk do enough damage to everyday people's lives and crash the economy so hard that they turn the Republican brand poisonous for decades to come (and that there is enough democracy left for that to matter). They are on the verge of it - Musk being allowed to play with the fusebox and pull out any wires that he doesn't like/understand means that pensions, veterans services, medicaid, schools are all at risk, as well as the chance of rampant inflation from food prices, all of which are real tangible things that are hard to lie away. If investors lose confidence in the US, it could lead to a crash unlike anything that's ever been seen before and that could ward off Faragism as the UK gets to see where it leads.

However, I worry that the USA will be too big to fail and that the same flood of market forces that brought down Liz Truss's crackpot ideas won't happen just because there's too much investment tied up for any investment to be taken out, and they'll be able to limp on, blaming their economic sabotage on the wokes and deep state.

Puja

Read today that inflation is up a further 3% since his election and minnesota has a bird flu emergency with massive culls. Price of eggs going to rocket past 5 bucks a dozen soon

Plus a number of instances of diseases making a comeback due to a lack of immunisation, which will only get worse with RFK.

[morepork]

This is pretty much what I think:



Both will fail to reduce inequality*. Trump will obviously ramp it up massively and Starmer will not change it much, but both will disappoint the ordinary voters who wanted change, and an improvement in their difficult lives. This kind of failure will not matter for Trump if he effectively ends democracy. Starmer won't do that, he will just hand the country to Farage unless he takes a different course**.

* Neither sees inequality as the problem. For Trump it's immigrants, foreign countries and wokeness/non straight white males. For Starmer it's a lack of growth.

** This isn't impossible, since all he wants is status - he has no convictions. Hence he could do the right thing if it seemed like the best course to bring him personal success. Unfortunately he's surrounded by centre-right types and so is unlikely do this (even though it is sketched out in the 10 pledges he made then dropped after winning the Labour leadership).

My hope is that Trump/Musk do enough damage to everyday people's lives and crash the economy so hard that they turn the Republican brand poisonous for decades to come (and that there is enough democracy left for that to matter). They are on the verge of it - Musk being allowed to play with the fusebox and pull out any wires that he doesn't like/understand means that pensions, veterans services, medicaid, schools are all at risk, as well as the chance of rampant inflation from food prices, all of which are real tangible things that are hard to lie away. If investors lose confidence in the US, it could lead to a crash unlike anything that's ever been seen before and that could ward off Faragism as the UK gets to see where it leads.

However, I worry that the USA will be too big to fail and that the same flood of market forces that brought down Liz Truss's crackpot ideas won't happen just because there's too much investment tied up for any investment to be taken out, and they'll be able to limp on, blaming their economic sabotage on the wokes and deep state.

Puja

Read today that inflation is up a further 3% since his election and minnesota has a bird flu emergency with massive culls. Price of eggs going to rocket past 5 bucks a dozen soon

Eggs are hard to get at the moment unless you are down with irradiated mutant battery hens. Public Universities, including Medical Schools are about to be given a good hard jobbing. Clinical development is about to be stalled by a non-existent culture war. It's Bond Villain Comicon here at the moment and we are one public health emergency from total collapse. Forget market forces, it's infrastructure that is at acute risk of letting down the working and middle classes. Rome is falling, and Tech Bros are at the gate.

[paddy no 11]

Ukraine is falling too, 1 authoritarian world order going replace the post world war II world order

[Son of Mathonwy]

Sensible ways to pay for increased defence (and other things) without more borrowing or going deeper into austerity:



Clue: for the most part it's making the wealthy pay more (because only they can afford to do so) but it's politically smart ie it's removing tax advantages used by the wealthy rather than actually increasing the rate of income tax.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Sensible ways to pay for increased defence (and other things) without more borrowing or going deeper into austerity:



Clue: for the most part it's making the wealthy pay more (because only they can afford to do so) but it's politically smart ie it's removing tax advantages used by the wealthy rather than actually increasing the rate of income tax.

Nah, Starmer chose to shaft the poorest people in the world - 40% cut in foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP - very Trump/Musk of him.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-spending

[Son of Mathonwy]

Sensible ways to pay for increased defence (and other things) without more borrowing or going deeper into austerity:

Clue: for the most part it's making the wealthy pay more (because only they can afford to do so) but it's politically smart ie it's removing tax advantages used by the wealthy rather than actually increasing the rate of income tax.

Nah, Starmer chose to shaft the poorest people in the world - 40% cut in foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP - very Trump/Musk of him.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-spending

And since 1/3 of current 'foreign aid' is actually spent housing asylum seekers (and so is difficult to cut) this probably means a 60% drop in aid that is spent outside the UK.

On top of the destruction of USAID this is catastrophic.

And China will enjoy stepping into the space we leave.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I think this is an important video - a moderately apocalyptic reframing of the story of growing inequality in our societies:



He doesn't talk too much about the politics of it, but I would add that at later stages of 'The Squeeze Out', while democracy still exists, fascism becomes more likely (since non-fascist parties no longer offer any solutions to the growing poverty of ordinary people, to counter fascism's snake-oil solutions), which then accelerates the process of impoverishment of the majority & government and of course ends democracy.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I'm genuinely surprised at the US-EU trade deal. On the news it seemed like the EU had got the bad end of it but I assumed there was some more subtle stuff below the headlines that meant it wasn't so bad. But it does seem pretty bad. What happened to the EU's tough trade negotiators? They are a bigger trading block that the US, what the hell are they doing caving in?

They should have hit him back, sanction for sanction. Yes, they'd have had to endure a few bad months till he folded but he would have folded. This is just weak.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... n-scotland

[paddy no 11]

Germany rules

[Son of Mathonwy]

Some nice graphs showing widening wealth inequality in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/ ... eport-says

Something needs to be done about this but only the Greens and YP are interested.

[Puja]

Some nice graphs showing widening wealth inequality in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/ ... eport-says

Something needs to be done about this but only the Greens and YP are interested.

To be fair, Reform are also very interested in doing something about widening wealth inequality in the UK - it's what pretty much all their statements and policies are about.

Granted, their interest is in doing things to increase it, but you can't say they're not interested.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Some nice graphs showing widening wealth inequality in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/ ... eport-says

Something needs to be done about this but only the Greens and YP are interested.

To be fair, Reform are also very interested in doing something about widening wealth inequality in the UK - it's what pretty much all their statements and policies are about.

Granted, their interest is in doing things to increase it, but you can't say they're not interested.

Puja

True, they will certainly have an impact on the situation.

And the Tories are looking to slash public spending, so they also have aspirations.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I think this $1TN pay package for Musk will go down in history as one of those legendary pre-crash signs of insanity - 75% of shareholders voting for this because they know there is nothing but hype and con man bullshit holding their share price so far above what it should be for a car manufacturer, so there's nothing left but to go all in on the biggest bullshitter of them all.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -elon-musk

[Stom]

The fact that the guy from the Big Short, Burry, is currently holding shorts against the big AI players says all you need to know...

[Son of Mathonwy]

Shock: Reeves hasn't cocked-up too badly on Budget day (she's done enough of that over the last few weeks). No huge changes, the bond market has taken it well - yields have fallen a bit - the 2 child benefit limit is gone (albeit 16 months later than a real Labour government would have done it), stealth tax on all income has come in (ie freezing the tax bands).

Reeves's primary concern - her continued existence as Chancellor - has been defended, at least for a couple of weeks, but nothing much will change because nothing much changed in the budget. It's not radical enough to have any impact on most people's lives. It won't bring the change they voted for (other than those on benefits with more than 2 children, which has to be welcomed). In particular the stealth income tax rise is not targeted at the wealthy. Some reduction in the ridiculous ISA allowance is good, but it's still too high at 12k for cash, 20k for shares (anything above a couple of k is indefensible IMO . . . just a tax break for the wealthy).

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hel-reeves

[Puja]

Shock: Reeves hasn't cocked-up too badly on Budget day (she's done enough of that over the last few weeks). No huge changes, the bond market has taken it well - yields have fallen a bit - the 2 child benefit limit is gone (albeit 16 months later than a real Labour government would have done it), stealth tax on all income has come in (ie freezing the tax bands).

Reeves's primary concern - her continued existence as Chancellor - has been defended, at least for a couple of weeks, but nothing much will change because nothing much changed in the budget. It's not radical enough to have any impact on most people's lives. It won't bring the change they voted for (other than those on benefits with more than 2 children, which has to be welcomed). In particular the stealth income tax rise is not targeted at the wealthy. Some reduction in the ridiculous ISA allowance is good, but it's still too high at 12k for cash, 20k for shares (anything above a couple of k is indefensible IMO . . . just a tax break for the wealthy).

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hel-reeves

There's a few half-decent things in there - minimum wage increases, freezing of train fares, increase in basic pension, restrictions to salary sacrifice pension tax-dodges, increased council tax on houses worth £2m+ - but you're not wrong that it's unambitious. Typical Starmer-government fare, tbh - no risks, no ambition to actually make changes, just basic and boring with the hope of being inoffensive.

Having said that, given how much they've been fighting Reform by agreeing with them on everything of late, we should thank all the gods for a slightly left-wing-tinged inoffensive budget! Although I did note that Reeves did slip in one bit of pandering to the fascists by pledging to change Motability to exclude "premium brands" like Mercedes, BMW, and Audi. Utter bollocks policy change - the right are fervid about "giving away free luxury cars to benefit scroungers" which is nonsense cause Motability doesn't give cars to anyone; it's about allowing disabled people the ability to take a car on lease or hire/purchase, as finance companies tend not to want to lend to people on benefits. So if someone's getting a posh car through it, they're also paying for said car - nobody's getting anything for free! Plus, there are some situations where a BMW is the correct brand for someone with a particular disability because that model gives the best frame for their needed accomodations. But nooo, we have to indulge the Reform conspiracy theory and ban disabled people from buying posh cars on credit, cause we all know it's impossible to be "properly" disabled and enjoy anything about life.

Puja

[Danno]

'Disabled people should get help of course, but they shouldn't have it as good as a "normal" person'

[Mikey Brown]

I still can’t believe I was even slightly taken in by Starmer’s bullshit. Who is ever going to vote for these cunts again?