Mjb

u/Mjb@feddit.uk
1 posts · 53 comments

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You don't just convert and sleep though. You convert and prune. You slowly rework parts post-conversion to use more sensible approaches/libraries. It's not a one-and-done operation, it's an ongoing thing that they judge the cost of investing in now is less than the long term maintaining C Ubuntu.

There's some incredible double-think involved in politicians making promises they know will fail but doing it anyway because the good optics now minus the bad optics then is a net positive by just being in the media saying nice things.

Sunak knew he'd not stop the boats, but he said it anyway.

Boris Johnson knew he'd not build 40 new hospitals but he said it anyway.

Burnham knows he won't get all rough sleepers off the streets in five months, but he said it anyway.

We're perpetually governed by people who calculate that lying for good press now and being caught in that lie later is worth more than not lying in the first place.

We have shitload of unemployed people.

In part because we've made employing and training people prohibitively expensive/risky, and not working increasingly worthwhile.

We have showrooms full of tractors and diggers sitting doing nothing

Private companies have showrooms full of tractors and diggers. The UK would have to borrow more money (seen the yields lately?) or tax people more to buy them and employ people to actually use them.

(As an aside, he's how to tell when ANY prime minister is going to fail a housing target: always. Why? The UK government doesn't own a housebuilding company. You don't own the asset, you don't decide how it's used without £££.)

We have supermarkets full of food and houses sitting empty.

Private companies have supermarkets full of food, and private owners have houses sitting empty. Both cost money, which as above, the UK government would have to borrow more of and/or raise taxes to pay for. To really labour the point, how to tell when ANY prime minister will fail on bringing down the cost of asylum: always. Why? The UK government doesn't own enough dwellings to house them. You don't own the asset, you don't decide how it's used without £££.


Long story short. Government broke as fuck. People who don't understand economics will now tell me that government debt is not like household debt, and as long as they don't look at rising bond yields, rising and increasingly unsustainable debt interest payments, and rising government debt as a percentage of GDP they can pretend their world view is accurate.

Rates are not going back to sub-2% for a long time

I disagree quite strongly.

Economies limping along at ~1% GDP growth per year and little or no GDP per capita growth can't handle larger base rates for long. It's a self-correcting cycle - if base rates remain elevated for too long discretionary spending will collapse and many, many businesses/loans/credit with it.

Rishi promised to half inflation not because he's a financial genius with a secret trick, but because he knows two things: 1) what I said above, 2) inflation is often given as a YoY measure, so by December 2023 we're measuring inflation above the 10% inflation of December last year, and the country can't afford 10% inflation per year for long either.

It is proposing a new licence condition to “ensure electricity generators don’t take advantage of existing rules to make excessive profits”

Why? If you want an energy market you shouldn't be surprised when it does what it can to grow profits, including withholding supply to sell later at higher prices.

This is typical of the past 10-15 years. Plasters on gaping wounds. Energy providers should be competing to sell us their energy generation capabilities. Competition drives down prices in the long run, not intervention. Of course, the lack of an energy strategy or any investment into one for a decade does leave us a bit... well, fucked.