Update: I have setup an election prediction spreadsheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G0yXTla4CeODihcyvV1VLL_DPlSxckd-MCZBmZNjKB4/edit?usp=sharing
Didn’t add Lib Dems ‘cos…democracy.
If anyone fancies a hand at predicting seats… we can see who gets closest in Dec..
Tim’ll give you a book or something. The unsigned copies are worth more.
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Hello,
This is a post testing the new site.
Testing why the post formatting isnt pushed through…
Owen Jones wants us all to know that Britain is suffering nuder a wave of homophobia. That one of the nation’s leading columnists is about to have the ink triangle sewn on and off the camps he goes. That this is a less than true portrayal of reality is obvious enough. But Owen gives us the numbers:
We live in a society in which one in five LGBTQ people report suffering a hate crime in the past year.
We do have to warn that our information source here is more than only slightly partial. But it does hang together, does make sense. Further, it does so in a manner that an independent number which is publicly known accords with the analysis.
So, how does a government get to buy lots of votes without pissing off the World Bank, IMF and so on, the people who are largely paying the government’s bills? The answer being to do the spending to buy the votes then not pay the bills for the spending.…
See MoreOr more accurately, German speaking Swiss in French speaking cantons are more entrepreneurial than French speaking Swiss in German speaking cantons. Which is an odd thing really. None of us tending to think that the Swiss of any type are go getting entrepreneurs.
The real point of this paper though, the lesson to take away, is how there really are the numbers and statistics out there to test all sorts of hyoptheses. Here the result might not be all that much.…
See MoreThat the United States – arguably – imprisons too many people could be true. It isn’t that the places are chock full of non-violent drug offenders tho’. Most are indeed there for violence. The country’s just a violent place perhaps. This does not excuse The Guardian’s latest worry though, the rising number of deaths in the American prison system.
Why are so many people dying in US prisons and jails?
Hmm, yes, well, why? The subhead is:
The number of Americans dying while incarcerated has surged while the US prison population has increased by 500% over the last 40 years
It’s not why it’s because.…
See MoreWhether and or when the Federal Reserve is going to change its monetary stance is one of those questions we’d like an answer to. The Fed even tell us what it is they’re looking at which will guide their decision. Therefore we can go look at the same things and make up our own minds about that evidence. And, of course, hope like hell that we’re drawing the same conclusions as the Fed:
Food and energy are always more volatile in price than the rest of the economy.
That pro-Europeans are tossers* and socialists are idiots** is well known. Logic therefore dictates that pro-European socialists are idiot tossers and nothing about this proposal for a European minimum wage will persuade anyone otherwise. Because it’s not going to be a minimum wage and it’s not even going to be European. Worse, for the logic of the thing, it’s actually agreeing with the idea that there shouldn’t be a minimum wage at all – for it’s agreeing that there are differences in the minimum wage that should be paid.…
See MoreThis isn’t how mercantilists hope things will work out of course. But it would appear that a trade war can actually increase the trade deficit. Something not greatly desired by said mercantilists, given that they institute trade wars in order to reduce the trade deficit.
But we’ve been having Donald Trump’s attempts at a trade war with China for some time now. And the US trade deficit is rising. So, well done there Donnie:
Feeds exports – that could be some part of the trade war effect.
From Freddie Starr’s obituary:
Three years later, now solo, he appeared in the Royal Variety Show, giving a hilarious impression of Mick Jagger that brought the house down; he claimed that afterwards the Queen Mother told him: “You have done a good job.”
It is a good job too:
And as I hadn’t known:
By the age of 20 Starr was appearing with the Beatles and other Liverpool bands in the appropriately named Star Club on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.