gilesyb.bsky.social
Former politico, comment writer, spread betting dealer, editor, now think tanker, consultant, baker of overly dense loaves.
I run five times a week so does that make me a Running Punk?
3,147 posts
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Agreed
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V good point
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Gonna tax you for some policy solutions, Andrew. Glad you liked it!
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according to some googling, at one point a much more swingeing tax cost them 12,000 millionaires a year, with a stock of 2.8m of them. At that rate, they would lose all of them in a couple of centuries.
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I'm not saying some millionaire exodus is impossible, but it feels like one of those urban myths - you don't know one yourself, but your mate's mate does.
Same with swans breaking someone's arm. Never happened. But a lot of mates' mates have suffered this www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-abou...
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v true. I think I have opined somewhere else that "When you take power, you think the point is to have smart ideas. When you leave, all your praise is for the rare officials who just know how to get things done" and that is still the thing. Enough with the ideas already!
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very kind.
Am in the market for solutions, in particular from old timers
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I wish I had a good answer to it - was going to mine your book a bit, but I know you haven't been so glib as to suggest that is easy. But I guess there is some value in pointing at the problem correctly?
Glad you liked it
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Thankfully, I do think this government also has a philosophy of getting on with things. I was encouraged by today's Sizewell C announcement, for example. But they need to keep the pressure on.
Anyway, here it is. www.productivity.ac.uk/news/low-acc... 6/6
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Most of my time in government I thought things were hard for a reason. You don't want Spads with free rein to translate whatever they just heard straight into policy. The need to assess, allow challenge and so on are good.
But some things take way too long to decide, for self-imposed reasons 5/
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In particular, I think it daft to blame HMT for decisions, when it is a very politically-led department. See @instituteforgovernment.org.uk on The Treasury Orthodoxy. www.productivity.ac.uk/news/low-acc...
But ultimately, the frustration you feel AFTER government is of things being hard to do 4/
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My concern here: these are very familiar complaints, and I do hope that what Labour brings to the table is more than just a promise of a return to stolid, rule-bound, institution-led decisionmaking. That stuff is important, but it is difficult to pin a giant productivity problem on that 3/
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The standard take from such people - particularly when asking what went wrong this last 15 years - is to suggest the problem has been the opposite of these virtues. Political decision-making that ignores evidence. Institutions TRAMPLED on. And also (in slight contradiction) Treasury Control! Boo! 2/
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Btw I don't know enough to fully agree on SMRs, because I don't think any of us know what price they'll settle at. Are you confident?
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In other words, what's the opportunity cost of us having to wait so many more years for this or that asset? Because the net result of an economy-wide tendency to worry more about returns is visible in that dismal business investment chart
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My puzzled take: I understand the need for HMT to consider vfm, and opportunity cost: when I was in there, decisions simply to press ahead with nuclear or HS2 were balanced against what else COULDN'T be funded as a result. But I never detected where the element of *time* sat in the HMT calculus...
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Frustrating it's taken six years?
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very much not the point my appalling pun was trying to make, but a sincere thanks for dragging this thread back towards the politics....
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... in that it's not possible for kids today to buy property at the bottom of the Lawson bust and enjoy two decades of falling mortgage rates. One generation can't take apart in another generation's bull market)
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To be honest, Trump is so rarely in the media that I easily lose track of his various behaviours and proclivities
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It's because they're creating reality on the fly. As far as the model is concerned, what it told you is the most probable truth, and it's quite hard to force a reset mid conversation. It has no concept of reality other than the one it has hallucinated.
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A little more coverage of the party with 72 seats might be nice
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I think that they vulgarity may help make him relatable?