Not to be contrary but I think that's the same America or at least the same Disney. They were eager to jump in the direction they thought power was going 2019-23 in order to make profit and now in 2025 they think power is going the other way, they jump the other way. There was never a spine there.

We have reached the stage of the housing crisis where investment bankers live in one bedroom flats in brixton. www.ft.com/content/a0bd...

85% of pensioner households are net fiscal drags on the government finance. Does not seem remotely sane to me that pensioner households on incomes far beyond the average are net recipients of benefits but that is the system we have constructed.

So there is actual scope for someone to do a hilarious thing. Buying a few sweets for foreign dignitaries is presumably a business expense for the foreign office and thus they could go down buy a few sweets for the Trump delegation and then ask for a VAT receipt. Great Banter!

Deliveroo is just the upmarket version of microwave meals and is popular with richer parents for all of the same reasons.

Everyone who got bulled up on the terminal rate for this cutting cycle being lower and Powell being dovish is getting run over.

It’s funny that bbg is leading with a headline on the fed’s ‘dovish tilt’ while the soft futures in like u7-h8 region are like 10 basis points higher on the day. Stuff like 1y1y is getting completely destroyed because Powell was actually pretty clear he is also worried about inflation.

Markets summarised

Feels like everyone is extremely sanguine about the possibility of a us government shutdown on October 1st. I’m at about 30% probability on this but I have seen almost no one in finance world flagging this as a major risk event. What do you think Hive Mind?

It was actually Scotland that colonised England through the act of union and anyone who doesn’t believe this is no true Scotsman.

This just….isnt true. Raising the additional rate by 5% raises 0.75bn. And that’s assuming you don’t have any dynamic losses! The basic rate covers about 70% of all earned income, and a goodly chunk of the rest is covered by the personal allowance.

Yeah and to some extent it was ever thus (at least since universal suffrage) but growth bails politicians out of the worst parts of the trade offs.

What’s harder to accept is that most of them enjoy popular support: Xi, Putin and Trump all either did win the popular vote or unquestionably would.

Everytime I see a version of this take I just think we need to normalise larger age gaps in marriage. Ah a 23 year old women wants a serious minded man with an established career ready to commit? I call that an average 33 year old man.

Let me get this straight: Pulte‘s family committed mortgage fraud but Cook didn’t? And his family only got caught because Pulte falsely accused Cook? The writers have outdone themselves this season.

The current French parliament in meme form.

People keep writing a lot of words but fundamentally a successful PM needs a political project that is supported by at least one of his party or the public.With the PLP onside you can ignore the polls, with the polls onside you can bludgeon the PLP with a version of ‘this is what winning looks like’

Steve reeds rhetoric at least is quite positive. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is honestly incredible. ‘Trump is our Hitler and this is just the patsy we need for a crack down on democrats’.

Ahahaha. I do not think they have properly considered the implications of this analogy. Or maybe they have! Who can say!

The population of the U.S. under the age of 50 is 5% larger than it was in 2001. The population aged 50 and older is 56% larger. www.pbump.net/o/the-fading...

I am shocked, shocked, to discover that hypnoboobs might not be the best flag carrier for your message.

This is bad though. Owner occupied tends to be less occupied so in a supply constrained world this means more renters squeezed into fewer flats. And with more people per flat that means rents can rise far in excess of inflation.

@robfordmancs.bsky.social since you are getting mad about planning did you see this one for Cambridge takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/build-stev...

If a Labour government with 400 seats which has nailed its colours to the masts of planning reform and the green transition can't steam roller people like this and their ridiculous selfish BS objections, then what on earth is the point of it?

<getting up, checking the blue sky, seeing the deranged Epstein messages> It is a great comfort to know that these people cannot escape judgement and an eternity of hellfire awaits most of them.

The funniest thing about this is that actual gdp growth is running well ahead of the OBR 2025 forecast and their model basically seems to assume a glide back to trend so there is a material chance that 2025 and 2026 growth forecasts are updated enough that there just isn’t any black hole at all!

A depressing set of stats from the HBF. The new Government has been trying to reform planning so why is this happening? - New Planning Bill hasn't passed yet, nor have the new higher housing targets come into effect in most areas - Housing market isn't strong - Viability on small sites collapsing

Can we just get rid of the building safety regulator? It was a bad Tory idea that has achieved nothing positive and has only managed to result in a number of fully built blocks of flats standing empty as the BSR takes years to decide whether or not they are safe!

I'll just leave this here. insidecroydon.com/2021/04/03/m...

First entry from Steve reed on NIMBY Myth Bingo. I’ll give it a week until he mentions land banking. The dream of Labour actually fixing the housing problem is dead :(

I see Steve Reed has become the Housing Secretary.

Was this trump telling us they will be delayed for one year???? 🤣

Oh rly?

It’s very funny being pseudonymous on social media. Today I learned that I was between -1 and 9 years old when I joined Twitter.

As I'm shooting holy cows with bazookas here's data on "it was all Hong Kong and Ukraine." 31% of 2022 visas were Ukraine and Hong Kong (+ other refugees). +60k from Ukraine over the next two years. Important contributor but not a major driver (you can tell because there aren't many Ukrainians here)

I've gone to get some data because this is a common and its wrong. Migration did more than make up for lost ground vs trend. Green, the 2012-2019 net average (251k) The bars are decomposed into - the average (in purple) - yellow (the deviation +/-) commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

We're recreating the US media environment and nobody cares

Council tax is terrible. I don’t like this exact proposal but am in general in support of replacing stamp duty and council tax with a property tax. Bizarre to have any proposal for a property tax that doesn’t remove stamp duty, the worst of all taxes. However, this doesn’t really cover how bad CT is

Saw this tweet and think the Norway SWF is a great example of how a good national and political culture is a super power. Agree with the general sentiment that if the uk had a trillion in the bank either Labour would spend it on welfare or the tories would spend it on the state pension.

Another dishonest post from the greens. No one cut NHS funding - it has had real term funding increases (ie rises above inflation) from every government since the 60s. If you think NHS funding was cut you fundamentally do not understand what is happening.

It’s always nice to learn there are levels to online discourse that are opaque to me. That I have not yet given over so much of my mind body and soul to The Discourse that this tweet and the tweets it links to make sense.

This is the poll tax redux.

Ok wait @danneidle.bsky.social if they make rental income subject to NI does that mean that pensioner landlords won’t pay it? Is that the proposal?

The replies to this tweet illustrate extremely clearly why ‘local control’ will never solve the Uk housing crisis and we need to move control up above local councils to regional governments like metro mayors.

This country will do literally anything to avoid building more homes www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

People on blue sky are very willing to believe people are misled by propaganda on immigration and people should ‘look at the data’ but very unwilling to believe they have been misled by guardian propaganda on the rich.

It’s not well enough understood just how much taxes have gone up on the very highly paid in the uk. Here is the resolution foundation analysis. 2010-2019 saw a 5 percentage point increase in taxes for the top 1%. 2019-2024 is a bit tricky to generalise given its spiky but was another material rise.