FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Afternoon then !

The Guardian view on an AI bubble: capitalism still hasn’t evolved to protect itself
Editorial

I noticed yesterday that a completely French AI company has just got in more investment to a total of €11.7 billion , and yes it is three ! alumni of one of our elite business schools

" Mr Altman warned that AI startups with “three people and an idea” are raising vast sums, adding “that’s not rational behaviour. Someone’s gonna get burned.” He’s right. The point isn’t to scold risk-takers, but to build capitalism that can handle – and survive – their excesses. "

Well, never too late to learn, so now I know some of what Hiram Minsky was on about --

" Minsky’s insight into capitalism was that it runs on belief. Firms invest today because they expect others to invest tomorrow, while lenders need high asset prices – and move to shore them up. This confidence loop keeps the economy humming until doubt creeps in, valuations slip and an inevitable and abrupt market crash looms. To avert this needed radical change. His plan advocated a “big government” not to prop up share prices, but to prop up society when share prices fall.

Backing this was a “big bank”, a monetary authority that would make it harder to buy risky assets on credit. Minsky thought cash should be guided toward productive uses, not asset inflation. He didn’t want to stifle innovation but to make it safe for democracy.

It’s a warning worth hearing today. This summer, OpenAI’s Sam Altman called some tech valuations “insane”. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says we’re in a bubble. The AI boom looks alarmingly like Minsky’s Ponzi endgame – with prices sustained purely by expectations of rising valuations and easy refinancing. Startups with no product raise billions; index funds become dominated by juiced up stocks; capital chases fads rather than earnings. "

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ect-itself

Some of the response in Portland, to ICE being there, gives you hope.

Gosh, it's nearly twenty years since the GFC --

I remember having a good impression then of Gillian Tett's analysis and reporting, so was rather surprised to hear her interviewed a few days ago by the bbc, when she was rabbiting on about Keynes' "animal spirits" and the deadly danger to 'growth' of driving away the "wealth creators" by taxing the poor dears a tiny bit more ...

For a reminder of where we are on 'wealth' , Richard Murphy --

" @peterchauncy il y a 6 heures
Twenty minutes well spent, thank you Richard.
If only we'd heard a bit more like this from the podium at the recent Labour party conference "

To save even twenty minutes, here are the chapters --

00:00 The false claim of falling inequality
00:45 Why inequality motivates me
01:30 The Gini coefficient myth
02:15 What Gini fails to measure
03:00 Hidden wealth and ignored gains
03:40 The real lived experience of inequality
04:20 Inflation hits the poor hardest
05:10 Rising essentials and stagnant wealth costs
06:00 Debt as survival for low-income families
06:45 The burden of high-interest lending
07:25 How the poor subsidise the rich
08:00 The £4.4 billion energy debt crisis
08:40 Mortgage and rent pressures rising
09:30 Falling real household incomes
10:00 Wealth concentration and its impact
10:45 A nation divided by assets
11:15 Inequality fuels anger and populism
12:00 The economy as an inequality machine
12:45 How the rich keep getting richer
13:15 The blindness of official data
13:50 Fixing the data and measuring truth
14:30 Taxing wealth and closing loopholes
15:15 Equalising capital gains and income tax
16:00 Tackling debt injustice and unfair lending
16:45 Creating fair credit and energy tariffs
17:30 Investing in housing and insulation
18:10 Measuring inflation by income group
18:50 Telling real stories, not statistical myths
19:25 The moral cost of inequality
20:00 Building a fair and just society
21:00 Are we living in an unfair country?
21:40 Final reflections and call to action
--------------------------------------------------------------

This is a hell of an campaign advert

I was astonished recently to hear Pete Buttigege (sp) spouting untruths on the 7thOctober Hamas attack . Thought he was one of the relatively good Dems, but it seems checking facts just does not apply to anything Israel.

Hamdani is not immune there either .

Back in 2006 Walt and Mearsheimer stirred up the US Jewish lobby , quite bloody rightly too . I had weeks of debate on that bugger .

Parted company with M on Ukraine tho .

On this he is doing SIMPLE factchecking with Katie and Palestinian-American writer and activist Susan Abulhawa --

Hamas Did NOT Kill 1200 Civilians on Oct. 7th


The very next day I knew for a fact that the IDF had definitely killed some of their own in Kibbutz Be'eri , because there were two survivors of their 'efforts' (one Yasmin Porat was interviewed live then) and a dozen dead in just one house. Then you have those helicopters and the large numbers of destroyed cars ....

Propaganda is as old as war, example the Germans bayoneting babies in 1914..

The inflatable animals are multiplying

Come on Starmer , what are you waiting for ?

European far right follows Trump in calling for antifa to be declared terrorists

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... terrorists

I was a bit surprised when Yusuf and Tice imported antifa, but only because I hadn't been keeping up with their International Front

Neat !

Whoops

Been away up there again. It was my turn to choose our wandering destinations so...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duddo_Five_Stones



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edin%27s_Hall_Broch

The eagle eyed amongst you may notice there are only 4 stones in my picture of the Duddo 5 stones. This is because one is obscured because some hippie dickhead was there hugging the stones and refused to get out of the way when I was trying to take pictures. I tried asking him nicely and he totally ignored me so I eventually lost my rag and ended up calling him a daft cunt in front of my Dad who found the whole thing hilarious. So he and the stone he was vigorously fondling are behind the one to the right in the foreground. He never said a word, seemed completely oblivious. Maybe he was tripping. Or deaf.

I was actually up there again so soon because my Dad asked me to be there for a consultation with the palliative care nurse who's responsible for my Mum. During it she admitted she'd technically had my Mum on the 'wrong' medication for months which had come to light when my mother stopped breathing and paramedics were called. This wasn't incompetence, she knew what she was doing and knew from experience it was all she could do to give my mother (and my Dad, brother and I) a more peaceful end to her life. My mother however had other ideas and has refused to shuffle off this mortal coil and the nurse made it clear we were well within our rights to make a formal complaint against her.

We assured her we weren't going to do any such thing. I won't go into the gruesome details but my mother was visibly suffering and nobody in the regular NHS offered any help, because what can you do for someone with advanced dementia? Nothing, besides alleviate that suffering, as hospital doctors told us their hands were well and truly tied. All they offered was intravenous paracetamol. Then along comes this nurse and almost magically my mother goes from writhing in apparent agony to being tranquil. Because, as she admitted, she extended a doctor's prescription for months longer than it was valid for.

The paramedics knew she did it, so they had to report it to the doctor who issued the prescription, but all involved have agreed it was up to us if we wanted to make a fuss. Which we don't.