Its the 8th of November. Seems like imaginary people are cancelling Christmas earlier and earlier. When I were a lad, "they" didn't cancel Christmas until well into December. I blame woke.

Tesla has suddenly become more like a blank-check company than an EV maker. (via Bloomberg Opinion)

Every day I look at my screen and think "that's it, that's the quote that sums up this mad era." And then the next day there's another one. www.axios.com/2025/11/06/o...

You know how ChatGPT 5 is meant to fix stupid mistakes in maths? Not so much. Even when asked about stupid mistakes in maths.

Just picturing all the business interests trying to set up calls with City Hall and Lina Khan being all “well hello boys”

Anyway, we need some joy, so here's the Egyptian foreign minister being given a Lego Pyramid by the Danish foreign minister.

One in twenty Reform councillors elected in May 2025 has left by the Autumn - half expelled/suspended - a quarter resigned from council - some defected An "unusual rate" of attrition in 6 months, says Tony Travers www.politicshome.com/news/article...

@tracyalloway.bsky.social one slight flaw in your example: neither memory foam in mattresses (separate category btw) nor beds are quality adjusted!

I'm no fan of excessive gilt but I'm amazed that a 1942 (remodel) building is so defended by architects/historians.

This Reeves rental license breach is such a perfect example of bad regulation that she's supposed to be dedicated to getting rid of, and so easy to do.

AWS and Azure both going down within a week shows once again we don't have a single point of failure in the system, but multiple single points of failure, each of which is serious.

Great line in today's WSJ oped (after pointing out that Trump's wrong to claim Reagan liked tariffs) www.wsj.com/opinion/reag...

Administrators looking forward to taking it apart, brick by brick

That's not the only catch

I feel like buy/sell/hold doesn't cut it any more and analysts need to add "to the moon 🚀" and "Screaming sell" to their recommendations

Does any other country do a regular report on currency manipulation by trade partners, as the US does? Really looking forward to them slamming US manipulation of the argentine peso

In every bubble the bulls come up with new valuation tools to justify wild overpricing (remember the price-to-click ratio?). So it bothers me that gold is now being justified by comparing it to stocks, house prices and even US household income. These are bad comparisons.

Idea: NYSE and Nasdaq put up the money for BLS to produce data during shutdown, recouped from temporary rise in fees. Traders have data to trade that more than males up for extra fees, no need for Congress to function, and everyone's happy

wp.me/pDsIG-1ap I'm really not a natural fiscal hawk, as this earlier piece shows. But going after the OBR or Bank is displacement. Here is my piece on Tooze's call for the Bank to go a bit nuts

Streetwise: Gold is in the grip of exactly the sort of speculative excess that creates bubbles in other parts of the financial system.

Are there any films with more Cure songs than Starter For Ten? I count 5, plus Smiths (but slight let down: no Joy Division)

On Maccabi Tel Aviv, this reporting from DW (crucially from *before* Amsterdam) suggests it has a hooligan problem with its violent racist "ultras", but they're a minority of supporters, unlike another club www.dw.com/en/violent-p...

Given ICC warrant for Putin, how will he get to Budapest? Poss flight routes go over: Belarus-Poland Sea-Germany-Czech Republic Sea-Romania Sea-Bulgaria-Serbia Hungary, Belarus and Serbia definitely won't arrest him, probably not Czechs, but the others?

If this headline is true it's the most important tech development for a long time www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

@philipcoggan.bsky.social on the middle class squeeze notes: "Long-term data shows that the income, after housing costs, of the middle classes [earnings from top 10 per cent to median], has kept pace with that of the richest 10 per cent between 2002-3 and 2023-24."

Waller's hopes for Agentic AI including using it to save time "paying bills". Even the backward US financial system can already do autopay, though it doesn't have the protections of the UK's direct debits.

London robotaxis is going to be a great test for non-grid city. Take a left, right, left, not that left, no stay in the middle lane, and watch the cyclist. And the other cyclist. And the loon in the ancient Rover 216, the one behind the moped overtaking illegally in the bike lane

I wonder if Barclays prompted ChatGPT to get this Star Wars title on its latest note? "AI investment: Overestimating the force: A new hope, too soon"

Podcast with Fed whisperer @nicktimiraos.bsky.social , Alex Frangos and Chelsey Dulaney: Suggestions for a name please! I like More Money Than Pod myself.... www.wsj.com/podcasts/tak...

Political street protest can take unexpected forms in France - attached to a random wall

Gold vs bonds: Two markets, two completely different stories www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

New fave description of JPM, via BBC: Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: "As one of Dorset's biggest private sector employers, JP Morgan Chase expanding their Bournemouth campus is fantastic news for the local economy and people who live here."

😭 help . I planted a beefsteak tomato thinking it was going to grow bits of cattle flesh but it was just tomato. I'm so confused, the EU parliament needs to help me. I've been tricked and mislead

So gold might be a trade about inflation/debasement. Bitcoin might be a trade about inflation/debasement. But they can't *both* be, at least this year, given they didn't move in any way together. Even with two axes there's just no link between how they've moved: (daily correlation ~0)

Worth remembering if Badenoch's stamp duty abolition policy appeals that the last Tory govt raised top rate of stamp duty from 4% to 12%

Investors think the Pixies were singing about Japan youtu.be/PVyS9JwtFoQ?...

How did France become ungovernable? Gradually, then suddenly

Truss a la Francaise?

@katie0martin.ft.com re: US institutional resilience - surely you remember 2011? SEC probing S&P’s US downgrade - on.ft.com/48Nu5wE via @FT

Sarah Mullally has really broken the stained glass ceiling.

Anthropic's Claude 4.5 is disarmingly human: Can spell Goddessship correctly but to start with miscounts numbers of Ss in it.

@chrisgiles.ft.com Council tax is local, so surely any revaluation would mean transfers only *within* a local authority? If, eg, all homes are up 10% in an area, council tax per home in £ should be unchanged to raise same amount of tax

TrumpRx is the state centralizing drug buying to get volume discounts: a chunk of what the NHS does in the UK. Next up, TrumpCare to centralize running hospitals, as NHS does? And TrumpDoc, to centralize negotiations with family doctors, as the NHS does?

"We're on the wave now, and we've just got to keep riding it." Strong Chuck Prince 2007 vibes end this great piece on data centre costs www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-b...

If I had the wealth of Saudi to spend on a whim I would absolutely buy EA to force it to develop a new Command & Conquer: Red Alert www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/b...

There's a lot to be said for parties, cinema, theatre, music. But the joy of curling up on the sofa with a good book, a cat and a glass of port...

Some facts generally missing from debate. Uk % change income after tax from 1999-2023 (latest): Poorest 1%: +64% Middle (50th percentile): +51% Richest (99th percentile, highest measured): +49% Argue about the stats (after housing, benefits) but stop just claiming rich did better than the poor

J-MACK: “.. The price of 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities should be about 10% higher if yields drop to meet Miran’s estimate. If.” @wsj.com @jmackin2.bsky.social www.wsj.com/economy/cent...