@ironeconomist.bsky.social
Reposted
If you think that “the slow vanishing of employee benefits” is a better trade politically than “the other lot saying you broke your promise on income tax”, you are out of your tree: www.ft.com/content/1160...
November 11, 2025 at 12:16 AM
If you think that “the slow vanishing of employee benefits” is a better trade politically than “the other lot saying you broke your promise on income tax”, you are out of your tree: www.ft.com/content/1160...
I mean this is another punishment beating for people between 100k and 125k who’s the salary sacrifice to get the free child care and avoid stupidly high marginal tax rates. Complete nonsense of a policy.
If you think that “the slow vanishing of employee benefits” is a better trade politically than “the other lot saying you broke your promise on income tax”, you are out of your tree: www.ft.com/content/1160...
November 11, 2025 at 7:51 AM
I mean this is another punishment beating for people between 100k and 125k who’s the salary sacrifice to get the free child care and avoid stupidly high marginal tax rates. Complete nonsense of a policy.
Reposted
Good write up. Honestly as someone who reviewed housing elements at HCD, I found that time and again local planners and consultants used sneaky tactics to reduce the feasibility of multifamily housing. I find the insistence on local bottom-up reform to solve the housing crisis hopelessly naive.
I wrote about state-level ADU reform and the differences between @strongtowns.org and YIMBYism. www.maxdubler.com/blog/2025/11...
On The Tension Between YIMBYism and Strong Towns — Max Dubler
Special thanks to those who gave their thoughtful feedback on this piece. The past couple of months have seen quite a bit of Discourse about the differences between Strong Towns and YIMB...
www.maxdubler.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Good write up. Honestly as someone who reviewed housing elements at HCD, I found that time and again local planners and consultants used sneaky tactics to reduce the feasibility of multifamily housing. I find the insistence on local bottom-up reform to solve the housing crisis hopelessly naive.
‘Our priorities are growth and climate’
Oh rly???
Oh rly???
Govt scraps all electrification investment. Midland Main Line to stay forever diesel Leicester Nottingham Derby Sheffield. Hugely embarrassing and inexplicable
www.ft.com/content/5ecd...
www.ft.com/content/5ecd...
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable right now’
Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2
www.ft.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:27 AM
‘Our priorities are growth and climate’
Oh rly???
Oh rly???
2000 years ago scripture told us ‘what does profit a man to gain the whole world if he has not love?’ and I guess The Almighty has decided it’s time for an object reminder.
The ability to convince capital markets to hand you a trillion dollars on the strength of obvious bullshit paired with the inability to get a single human to sincerely and spontaneously say they love you is some real punishment of the gods shit.
Elon has never experienced this and neither have his biggest fans but now they can create these visuals with the help of a computermachine
November 8, 2025 at 6:59 PM
2000 years ago scripture told us ‘what does profit a man to gain the whole world if he has not love?’ and I guess The Almighty has decided it’s time for an object reminder.
Reposted
I can totally see a scenario in which Reeves argues there's such a national emergency that she needs to break her tax pledges... thirty seconds before announcing she's freezing fuel duty again.
November 8, 2025 at 1:09 PM
I can totally see a scenario in which Reeves argues there's such a national emergency that she needs to break her tax pledges... thirty seconds before announcing she's freezing fuel duty again.
The small inefficient taxes are always going to be subject to the risk of behaviour change. For example, what if people decide that the next government might unpick the pension changes so just let the money pile up in bank accounts for a few years. Few are really constrained by the 60k/year limit.
There’s nothing wrong with it as a policy, other than it just raises much, *much* less money than just raising income tax. And Labour needs to be one and done with tax rises. The way they’re doing this…won’t raise enough.
I’m with Vince.
And 2p on income tax plus 2p off NICS to raise £6bn feels like being hung for half a lamb.
www.ft.com/content/9e56...
And 2p on income tax plus 2p off NICS to raise £6bn feels like being hung for half a lamb.
www.ft.com/content/9e56...
November 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM
The small inefficient taxes are always going to be subject to the risk of behaviour change. For example, what if people decide that the next government might unpick the pension changes so just let the money pile up in bank accounts for a few years. Few are really constrained by the 60k/year limit.
It’s all just so pathetic. We need to add 2p to the higher rate and 4p to the basic rate and then unpick a bunch of the tiny demented tax incentives that crap like this has created and instead they are gonna do more of the crap and still get hung for breaking their promises. Incredible scenes.
Reeves should be aiming to get off two cycles: “every budget is an ordeal, every minor fluctuation in the forecast is a nightmare“ and “we did some small tax tweaks to raise £2bn and whoopsydaisy, something has fallen over unexpectedly/inflation is higher”.
I’m with Vince.
And 2p on income tax plus 2p off NICS to raise £6bn feels like being hung for half a lamb.
www.ft.com/content/9e56...
And 2p on income tax plus 2p off NICS to raise £6bn feels like being hung for half a lamb.
www.ft.com/content/9e56...
November 8, 2025 at 12:58 PM
It’s all just so pathetic. We need to add 2p to the higher rate and 4p to the basic rate and then unpick a bunch of the tiny demented tax incentives that crap like this has created and instead they are gonna do more of the crap and still get hung for breaking their promises. Incredible scenes.
The resolution foundation is completely right about this. We should retire NI - both parts of it over time and raise income taxes. For one thing it’s silly to have two different kinds of income tax!
Why should we switch 2p of tax from National Insurance to Income Tax? ⤵️
Income Tax raises more money and spreads the burden more fairly. The switch would raise £6 billion, and leave the vast majority of payslips unaffected.
Income Tax raises more money and spreads the burden more fairly. The switch would raise £6 billion, and leave the vast majority of payslips unaffected.
November 7, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The resolution foundation is completely right about this. We should retire NI - both parts of it over time and raise income taxes. For one thing it’s silly to have two different kinds of income tax!
Do you know what’s extremely energy hungry and that you turn on and off? Direct sequestration of carbon dioxide from the air and doing reverse osmosis to turn salt water into fresh water.
The economics are pretty crazy and very different from what we're used to. Electricity won't be "free", delivering it will still be expensive, but they'll be so much more of it than we can use most of the time. Except sometimes there will be a lot less of it than we want, too
We are going to live in a world where the the marginal cost of electricity is very close to zero
November 6, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Do you know what’s extremely energy hungry and that you turn on and off? Direct sequestration of carbon dioxide from the air and doing reverse osmosis to turn salt water into fresh water.
Never trust anyone who doesn’t attach a timeline to a prediction of a risk of government default. Or who doesn’t quantify ‘a serious risk’. There is a premium of maybe 0.5%/year in gilts across the curve due to the fiscal situation not being ideal.
i mean, gilt yields are pretty well behaved for a situation where apparently everyone in the City thinks we're gonna default
on.ft.com/43eNFhX
on.ft.com/43eNFhX
November 6, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Never trust anyone who doesn’t attach a timeline to a prediction of a risk of government default. Or who doesn’t quantify ‘a serious risk’. There is a premium of maybe 0.5%/year in gilts across the curve due to the fiscal situation not being ideal.
One thing that was interesting in the reeves presser was her insistence that no decisions have yet been made. And I can’t help thinking that the journalists should have pressed her on this. We are two weeks from probably the defining fiscal event of this government, and no decisions have been made?
November 6, 2025 at 10:03 AM
One thing that was interesting in the reeves presser was her insistence that no decisions have yet been made. And I can’t help thinking that the journalists should have pressed her on this. We are two weeks from probably the defining fiscal event of this government, and no decisions have been made?
This is a stupid comparison. Bush read History at Yale where he had a GPA of 77 which is AIUI slightly above average for Yale students and then did a MBA at Harvard business school. Trump failed to graduate on the honours list from Wharton. These are not the same.
People used to try to convince me that GW Bush was secretly smart and now they try to convince me that Trump is secretly smart.
Nope. They're dumb. Our system elevated dumb men all the way to the top, that's what we have to reckon with.
Nope. They're dumb. Our system elevated dumb men all the way to the top, that's what we have to reckon with.
November 6, 2025 at 12:42 AM
This is a stupid comparison. Bush read History at Yale where he had a GPA of 77 which is AIUI slightly above average for Yale students and then did a MBA at Harvard business school. Trump failed to graduate on the honours list from Wharton. These are not the same.
Just had a brief skim but I think it misses an essential point. Since wealth tends to compound it should be the case that older age groups are much wealthier except that if incomes are growing younger people have much higher real wages than the prior cohorts.
Research showing rising US wealth inequality across age groups: the wealth of households aged 75 and over increased from 5 percent above the overall average in 1983 to 16 percent above it in 2007, then continued to rise to 55 percent above by 2022.
www.nber.org/papers/w34131
www.nber.org/papers/w34131
The Extraordinary Rise in the Wealth of Older American Households
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
November 4, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Just had a brief skim but I think it misses an essential point. Since wealth tends to compound it should be the case that older age groups are much wealthier except that if incomes are growing younger people have much higher real wages than the prior cohorts.
Hundreds of likes and quote tweets except I would like to question the use of the word ‘just’.
November 4, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Hundreds of likes and quote tweets except I would like to question the use of the word ‘just’.
Reposted
FYI, I've fleshed out some recent comments on Tesco bashing into a blog... 🤔✍️
julianhjessop.substack.com/p/its-time-t...
julianhjessop.substack.com/p/its-time-t...
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
FYI, I've fleshed out some recent comments on Tesco bashing into a blog... 🤔✍️
julianhjessop.substack.com/p/its-time-t...
julianhjessop.substack.com/p/its-time-t...
So eh how long before Nvidia investors get worried about this? www.livescience.com/technology/c...
China solves 'century-old problem' with new analog chip that is 1,000 times faster than high-end Nvidia GPUs
Researchers from Peking University say their resistive random-access memory chip may be capable of speeds 1,000 faster than the Nvidia H100 and AMD Vega 20 GPUs.
www.livescience.com
November 1, 2025 at 12:27 PM
So eh how long before Nvidia investors get worried about this? www.livescience.com/technology/c...
Reposted
Academics’ and planners’ single-minded focus on making *brand new* homes affordable to the poorest people has been a disaster for poor people’s’ ability to afford housing.
Real grim stuff from a nonprofit staff attorney and former UCSD urban studies lecturer
October 31, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Academics’ and planners’ single-minded focus on making *brand new* homes affordable to the poorest people has been a disaster for poor people’s’ ability to afford housing.
I had no idea how many people on blue sky are open borders advocates. Complete madness to think a country should have no control of immigration numbers.
October 31, 2025 at 7:35 PM
I had no idea how many people on blue sky are open borders advocates. Complete madness to think a country should have no control of immigration numbers.
One for @stephenkb.bsky.social
Once called ‘the most right wing man on Bluesky’
October 31, 2025 at 1:36 PM
One for @stephenkb.bsky.social
Reposted
Niche blog post #1: what stamp duty statistics say about how many home purchases are for "additional" dwellings rather than primary homes jamesjgleeson.wordpress.com/2025/10/19/a...
Additional property purchases and ‘surplus’ housing
The Green Alliance recently hosted a webinar on whether it’s possible to build to build 1.5 million homes (the UK government target for this parliament) without accelerating the climate crisi…
jamesjgleeson.wordpress.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Niche blog post #1: what stamp duty statistics say about how many home purchases are for "additional" dwellings rather than primary homes jamesjgleeson.wordpress.com/2025/10/19/a...
Reposted
1980:
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 5.1%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 5%
2024:
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 10.9%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 2.2%
This is such a common applause line, but it’s also total bullshit.
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 5.1%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 5%
2024:
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 10.9%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 2.2%
This is such a common applause line, but it’s also total bullshit.
There is always money for war, never for the poor.
Every penny spent on bombs, tanks and missiles is stolen from our homes, schools and hospitals.
We are not going to take it anymore.
Every penny spent on bombs, tanks and missiles is stolen from our homes, schools and hospitals.
We are not going to take it anymore.
October 28, 2025 at 10:38 AM
1980:
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 5.1%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 5%
2024:
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 10.9%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 2.2%
This is such a common applause line, but it’s also total bullshit.
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 5.1%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 5%
2024:
NHS spending as a % of GDP: 10.9%
Defence spending as a % of GDP: 2.2%
This is such a common applause line, but it’s also total bullshit.
Ok if I was to be serious for a second. There is mechanically a set of relationships between equity levels, credit, equity vol and rate vol, and according to those relationships (equity high, equity and rate vol low) it makes sense for credit spreads to be at all time tights….but…
Today in credit debates - WTF is happening with the OAS and Swap spread wedge in US IG corporates. The Tl;dr is that OAS, which measures the additional yield you get on corporate debt over a similar duration government bond, is much lower than the yield pick-up over a floating-rate curve (swaps).
October 30, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Ok if I was to be serious for a second. There is mechanically a set of relationships between equity levels, credit, equity vol and rate vol, and according to those relationships (equity high, equity and rate vol low) it makes sense for credit spreads to be at all time tights….but…
Reposted
Polls show that only 33% of Americans blame Democrats for the shutdown. But at this Atlantic staff Zoom meeting, that percentage feels much higher.
October 30, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Polls show that only 33% of Americans blame Democrats for the shutdown. But at this Atlantic staff Zoom meeting, that percentage feels much higher.
@nearlylegal.co.uk if I look on Southwark web page it appears that the council has designated every ward for selective license. Do you think thats lawful given the statutory requirements? www.southwark.gov.uk/housing/priv...
October 30, 2025 at 7:31 PM
@nearlylegal.co.uk if I look on Southwark web page it appears that the council has designated every ward for selective license. Do you think thats lawful given the statutory requirements? www.southwark.gov.uk/housing/priv...