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April 2019

One for Ken perhaps

As the one person who reads here occasionally who also knows their way around the economic statistics.

So, UK capital share is about 20% of GP. Good part of that is depreciation etc. Actual payouts and returns to capital are more like about 10%. Well, an accurate figure there would be nice.

But what portion of that capital return, rather than capital share, is returns to pensions savings? There’s a trillion or two in pension pots, isn’t there? Meaning that we are getting to some appreciable percentage of GDP in those annual returns to them, no?

We know what that was

“This is a difficult time for everyone,” she said. “Passions are running high on all sides of the argument. But we can and must find the compromises to deliver what the British people voted for.”

Leaving last Friday would have fitted that bill, no?

As to the larger stuff, what’s going to be the end deal? Dunno. Never did think any of this would be simple, in that the political classes just didn’t want to do it therefore they’re gyre and gimbal not to.

We, of course, get a chance to tell them what we think of that next election. Which, no doubt, we will.

Not how it works, no

UK-grown cabbages, potatoes and onions all fell prey to bad growing conditions last year, triggering higher costs and less choice on supermarket shelves for consumers, according to figures gathered by the British Retail Consortium.

With fewer vegetables to sell thanks to low yields, producers have charged more.

With fewer to buy consumers have been willing to pay more….

Think it through. Any supplier is always willing to charge more. What is it that lets him?

Poor kids get free school meals

Children in low-income families suffer social exclusion and a sense of shame because they do not have enough food to eat, according to research published by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

Many do not qualify for free school meals;

As the statement is that these kids don’t get free school meals then we must conclude that “low income” means something other than “poor”.

Astonishing how education works

Lauren Singer is a zero-waste blogger based in New York City. She has produced so little landfill rubbish in four years that it isn’t even worth throwing away. Instead, she proudly displays it in a glass jar. She says one of the most common questions that people ask her is: “How do you have sex?” Are there condoms in the jar, they wonder. Or are zero-wasters too busy for sex, what with all that recycling and making their own toothpaste? On the contrary, Singer tells me. “Environmentalists are horny right now.”

Decades of teaching kiddies that they shouldn’t have casual unprotected sex – quite probably entirely reasonably – has led to them thinking you can’t have sex without barrier protection.

Which really, really, isn’t how it all works.

They won’t do it of course

Michel Barnier has said a no-deal Brexit is becoming more likely by the day after the Commons rejected all the alternative solutions to Theresa May’s deal.

Speaking in Brussels, the EU’s chief negotiator said there had to be a “positive vote” by MPs in order to avoid a cliff-edge Brexit on 12 April.

But wouldn’t it be Huzzah if they did?

So here’s a question

Sperm whale found dead in Sardinia was pregnant and had 22 kilos of plastic in stomach

As we’re told plastic pollution of the oceans is at terrible levels.

We’ve also seen in recent decades and explosion of the number of cetaceans. Obvs, partly because they’re no longer hunted.

But, then, plastics in the ocean can’t be killing off the whales, can it? Can kill some, sure, anything can kill some but….

Dunno really

Rocket suits could be worn by Royal Navy sailors to ambush rival ships, the Defence Secretary has suggested.

Gavin Williamson enthused about the potential of jetpack-propelled marine units after seeing a flying demonstration at a base in Portsmouth, where he unveiled a £75 million fund for new technology.

Ship to ship encounters tend to take place over the horizon from each other what with missiles etc. Be a heck of a jet pack which manages that.

Telegraph numbers….

The number of diagnoses of type 2 diabetes has fallen in an ‘encouraging’ sign, the charity Diabetes UK has said. Although three people are still being diagnosed every three minutes the equivalent of 552 cases per day, it is 27 cases fewer each day than in 2016 when there were 579 every 24 hours, nearly one person every two minutes.

That’ll be one person every three minutes then, not three.

So which is the April Fool?

This seems an obvious contender:

British April Fool’s jokes have been banned this year under an archaic parliamentary order, amid warnings the public can no longer tell the difference between reality and farce.

The statute from 1653 states that the issuing of false reports is strictly prohibited and punishable by the splitting of an offender’s ribs.

Officials in the Cabinet Office have taken the unusual step of asking media outlets to refrain from publishing the traditional stories on April 1 in case they trigger panic buying or spark riots.

The original statute was imposed by Oliver Cromwell when he became convinced that the public’s mocking of his warts was undermining attempts to crush royalists after the civil war.

The Daily Mash would have written that up rather better I fear.