pete hegseth firing everyone but his tailor

April fools day and we have Trump and Rubio talking about this lasting 3 more weeks - 2 months total (if that actually happens). What's to say the markets don't finally wake up to this fully and brent goes way above 120$ today?

Richer families use more petrol. Some 40% of the poorest households don't even have access to a car (www.gov.uk/government/s...). Governments should absolutely not intervene on the price of petrol or diesel.

German real wages saw the sharpest decline since WWII in the 2022 energy crisis & still haven’t recovered. The new energy shock will make things worse. But the German government is once more calling on people to tighten their belts. This is paving the way for the far right.

One of my favourite things is people complaining about "sample size", as if more people automatically makes more better. Really shows the titans of maths we have in this world.

Odd lots having guest after guest in different markets go "hey i dont want to worry anyone but its looking pretty fucked" and then the general markets people are like "probably will fade it"

Asian market opening tomorrow might not be very pleasant www.ft.com/content/2160...

This does not look like excellent news....

While I understand the emotional feeling, and even intellectual arguement, behing the 'X and Reform are the same' thing from Labour... ... its a terrible line and has never really worked. Because, ultimately, people can very evidently see it isnt true.

When economic historians write about “the 2020s” in a few decades time, a lot of them will lump together the pandemic, Russia/Ukraine, tariffs and Iran as a series of shocks in a short space of time. Six years feels like an age when you live through it, but it’s a blink in historical terms.

I'd stick another 1% on that inflation figure lads www.ft.com/content/d4cb...

Weekly road fuel prices are out, not looking ideal tbh

UK STIRs now pricing in almost 4 rate hikes by year end at 95bps currently:

I've done some basic month on month calculations of based on CPIH and you can easily see how inflation gets up to between 8 and 11% by next March.

The world energy shock is coming — it will deepen inequality in ways we've seen before. Our new @newstatesman1913.bsky.social piece argues that without urgent government action, the Strait of Hormuz crisis will ripple through our economies and rip apart our societies. Here's why. 1/

Once again I come back to the complete shock and panic we're going to get next week if this carries on and the consequences sink in. The British public is nowhere near prepped or aware. This is still 'stupid conflict a long way away'

Aka 1967-1980

Since graduating: 1. GFC 2. Austerity 3. Brexit 4. Covid-19 5. War in Europe 6. Oil/gas crisis 7. Global trade war 8. War in the Middle East 9. Another oil/gas crisis

What we also need to factor in is the inevitable climate related crop problems which will compound this from May to September, as we've experienced somewhere in the world every summer for 15 years...

Europeans & Americans are discovering thread that I wrote 2 weeks ago when the magnitude of the Hormuz shock became clear to energy experts & asian countries. Please read stunning @isabellamweber.bsky.social essay for what must be done www.newstatesman.com/internationa... bsky.app/profile/70sb....

Everyone I know with practically any knowledge of global supply chains be like:

Just had this flagged with me. This is disgusting. If Kemi Badenoch had one ounce of leadership in her, she would condemn this. I don’t want any faux sadness from her or Nick Timothy when one of us is hurt or worse. This is how low the Conservative Party have sunk.

My husband is a software engineer and has been told his performance review will now include a measure of whether or not he has used AI extensively enough. With a target of 80% of time spent on tasks using AI. Meanwhile my world is trying to work out how to stop AI use.

Considering unprecedented times continue, are we really ruling out a Chinese blockade of Taiwan in the next year. Especially if the US divert resources to a land operation in Hormuz and move on Cuba?

Interesting note from Bank of England today how much AI usage might be affecting employment:

Leaders of men Just a minor operation To force a final ultimatum youtu.be/iQjGHxQ2nn4?...

Sadly for too many people the answer is the West Wing

The film 'Contagion' was fairly influential on me in deciding to study biomed.

So a week later, this seems to have had a nice reception. I was remiss to not refer to @andrew-yang.bsky.social in the original piece, among many others. So, when I find some time I'm going to deep dive into some of the economic data and look at how AI might be shaping the UK economy.

It does seem as though the Tories had 2 weeks of trying to be less weird-Reformy, talking about taxes etc and then suddenly went 'nah'

If I wanted lower inflation and interest rate cuts I simply would not cause an energy crisis

Surprised more people arent talking about 1990. Payrolls contracted in the month before the surge in oil prices, which tipped the economy more forcefully into recession. Fed couldn't respond sufficiently, delaying its cutting cycle for 6 months, until energy prices came down

I quite liked the previous one, and this is a decent development of it. Very meaty. Good to see approach to AI isn't all rose-tinted, but sceptical about Gov skills programs based on previous. AI Econ Institute is very intriguing for labour market monitoring.

This is very good...

The masked singer really has a last days of Rome quality to it

Eye catching chart from Anthropic. The blue area shows job tasks that LLMs could theoretically do, and the red bit shows what they are doing. White collar roles such as legal, finance, computing are most at risk of automation. Bartenders and cooks can’t be automated! cdn.sanity.io/files/4zrzov...

I have finally published my first Substack post, on the political and economic consequences of AI. What is the current state of play in AI and what could this mean for jobs. A short overview of how the government might respond to some scenarios. rsbarnett.substack.com/p/ai-and-the...

'!f you want to create the conditions for a chaotic and unpredictable reordering of our party system, “the governing party is in office during a sharp price shock that the opposition loudly supported the causes of” feels like a pretty good way to do that.' 👏 @stephenkb.bsky.social

Highly recommended reading here

🎥IRAN WAR PRIMER Six days on from the start of this war, what have we learnt about the economic consequences? Here's our latest primer. 10 mins. Longer than usual. But a lot to cover in this one 👇 youtu.be/Mv7n3gqOWyI?...

LOLOL

I wonder whether today at the Spring Statement, or at the budget Rachel Reeves will signal drop or tweak the unfreezing of fuel duty if the rise in oil prices continues?

Silly silly, very silly

I've been saying this, pick your poison from Europe: France, Germany or Italy. goodallandgoodluck.substack.com/p/starmer-wa...

obviously today is a huge embarrassment for Matt Goodwin and for Reform, which is something that we absolutely ought to celebrate, but we must also remember it's a huge embarrassment for Morgan McSweeney and Maurice Glasman and all the Blue Labour weirdos, and that's important to celebrate too :)

there’s always loads of jokes after by-elections where people are like “this by-election proves everything i already thought” problem is this one actually definitely does for me, total vindication for my personal views, i am floating on a cloud of “told you so”, I’m insufferable

Heartbreaking: Morgan McSweeney just prepared a lengthy briefing on why this means Labour should move to the right, before remembering he no longer gets to deliver it.

If Labour campaigners and leadership keep belittling the Green Party as a movement and underestimating the skills of Green leaders then Labour is heading straight to electoral oblivion. Stop refighting past factional wars within your own party and start adapting to new realities.

why does Jeremy Corbyn, a man who clearly does not enjoy leading political parties, keep running political parties