Tuesday 3rd May 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[notnowsonny]

Nice to see Johnson man-spreading on GMB in sympathy with Angela Rayner - or is he showing her how to do it?

Bit of a car crash in my opinion.

[notnowsonny]

Fine performance from Susanna Reid, with Johnson demonstrating why he doesn't go for too many interviews.

[gilsey]

During the first quarter bp generated surplus cash flow of $4.1bn and intends to execute a $2.5bn share buyback prior to announcing its second quarter results.

But a windfall tax would discourage investment.

Italy has shown it can be done. Yesterday, Mario Draghi’s government unveiled a €14bn package of support for vulnerable families and businesses facing surging commodity prices following the war in Ukraine.

It will be partly funded by a 25% tax on energy groups windfall profits, up from the 10% first planned.

Quotes from the G business blog.

[gilsey]

Seen a clip of the Reid interview, very good.

[Willow904]

From the G liveblog:

Johnson signalled that he was opposed to using benefit rises to help people with the cost of living because it could be inflationary. There was a risk of an “inflationary spiral”, he said. When Susanna Reid put it to him that inflation could reach 10%, he replied: “Correct”. But he appeared to rule out bringing forward benefit increases to help. He said:

We have a short-term hit caused by the spike in energy prices across the world. If we respond by driving up prices and costs across the board in this country, responding by the government stepping in and driving up inflation, that will hit everybody and that will mean that people’s interest rates on their mortgages go up, the cost of borrowing goes up, and we face an even worse problem ...

So poor people have to become poorer so interest rates can remain historically low in order for property prices to remain artificially high?

I think that's about the gist of it.

Oh and he's also completely wrong about a "short-term hit", of course. Even if inflation returns to 2% tomorrow, that big hike in prices won't go down again, it just won't keep growing as quickly, so unless wages catch up we'll all be permanently poorer. And the government is clear they don't want incomes - wages or benefits - catching up fast so they actively want us all to be poorer, unless, of course, we are part of the asset rich rentier class.

[PorFavor]

@Willow904

Yesterday, you asked about the £150 Council Tax rebate. I don't know anyone who has received it yet and, apparently, it's possible that it could take until September to come through. So tough luck for those living on a financial knife-edge.

[PorFavor]

Good morfternoon.

[gilsey]

So poor people have to become poorer so interest rates can remain historically low in order for property prices to remain artificially high?

Pretty much.

Johnson knows sfa about economics, although he did PPE at Oxford I expect you could fit what he remembers on a postage stamp. He can only parrot the prescribed line and is totally unable to explain the logic*. Most interviewers take that for granted which is tragic in itself.

Sadly Starmer's not much better, hasn't ever studied it and has had to have lessons from Miliband and, god help us, Reeves.


* I haven't seen anyone be able to explain the logic, Bailey at the BoE's no better, even Adam Posen was following roughly the same line without being able to provide a genuine economic justification.

[gilsey]

Correction, he read classics. Point stands.

[Willow904]

@gilsey @Porfavor

Thanks for the responses regarding the £150 council tax rebate. Despite extensive googling I've found very little on it which I've been finding disproportionately annoying for some reason. I really want to know how many people got it within the original timescale, which was definitely by the end of April no matter what they're trying to claim now. It seems remarkably complacent to promise people a rebate like this right before the local elections without making sure they could actually deliver it.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Seen a clip of the Reid interview, very good.

It probably wouldn't have made much actual difference if A Neil had grilled him before the GE, but would still very likely have been quite therapeutic to watch.

[tinyclanger2]

Russian Doll:

Embarrassing - just thought this;

Mindkilla - Gang Gang Dance


might have been Nina Hagen. (to be fair it was only a small fragment)

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Wow, Gang Gang Dance. I'd forgotten all about them. They played at a dance/trance/electro thing on Woodhouse Moor in Leeds, my brain was telling me it was relatively recently but it turns out it was over a decade ago. Shit I'm getting old. As far as I recall they were good but my recollection of the event is evidently unreliable.

Edit: Upon further reflection I remember a girl there thought I had an Irish accent and went round telling everyone I was Irish. If only that were true. I'd have had an escape route from brexitland. She also shoplifted wine from the nearby off licence. She was great.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Sadly Starmer's not much better, hasn't ever studied it and has had to have lessons from Miliband and, god help us, Reeves.

If there is only one thing to be said in favour of Reeves, it is that she has a good understanding of economics.

Its her political instincts that are at times deficient.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Correction, he read classics. Point stands.

There's two types of Classics, Johnson did Classical Studies which is mainly language, literature, art, with a smattering of history and philosophy. I did Classical Civilisations, which is mainly history, politics and philosophy with a smattering of literature and art (and in my case no languages).

From what I can see of the Oxford curriculum it's very old fashioned and focused almost entirely on language and texts, which is fine if you want to spend all your time learning dead languages and translating some Horace or Plutarch, but it leaves you with only a superficial understanding of why they were writing the stuff you're studying. Imagine someone 2000 years from now reading say...Noam Chomsky with barely any knowledge of the events and politics of the world around him. It would be a purely academic excercise, and in my opinion utterly pointless.

Which is why most universities these days offer alternatives so thick working class dunces like me can avoid having to learn Latin and ancient Greek while studying their politics and history. I did a module on Romans in film with a lecturer from Bedlington. She was wonderful and exactly the kind of person Johnson and his Oxford chums would have mocked and despised.

Anyway what I'm saying is he did a humanities degree and got a 2:1, while I did an ancient PPE degree and got the same.

It really is annoying that the fat arsed useless fuck studied something similar to me so I keep being triggered by this kind of thing.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

The idea that the U.S could become a country where women have no control over their own bodies is unthinkable.