Typical politician output. The first word is ‘I’ and the first sentence is a platitude. Repeat throughout.
bilbaoboy
A quick browse leads me to support Tim’s conclusion. The only question is, will I be able to afford the vaseline?
Spain is currently showing the way…
Jimmers
A very quick peruse, and they are still invoking Mrs Thatcher (pbuh). If that’s the level of dog-whistle Reeves is at, we are going to be fully and royally fucked.
Lockers
How odd. Just tried to download the pdf only to get the response ‘The document cannot be opened because it is corrupted and damaged’.
AI is coming on, innit?!
DiscoveredJoys
“The economists Raj Chetty, John Van Reenen and their colleagues have shown that children growing up in areas with less economic prosperity are far less likely to become inventors.20 Inventors and entrepreneurs are the engines of economic growth.”
Still not bringing back Grammars Schools though.
Steve
I don’t think it makes much difference, Tim. I’m sure Maria’s retardations are equally as enspasticated as “Eat Out to Help Out”, fracking ban, 20% VAT and a massive corporation tax rise at a time when the economy is looking less healthy than Diane Abbott.
The last time these cunts swapped the baton, the Red Team left a funny note in the Treasury saying “Sorry we spent it all” or something like that.
Needless to say, Rishi had the last laugh.
Bloke in North Dorset
Steve, don’t forget the Windfall taxes.
The reality is that whatever happens we’re fucked, the only argument is over the size, depth and speed of the instrument doing said fucking.
Ducky McDuckface
Hmm, curious document. Very, very brief scan, but is it Reeves looking to shaft Starmer?
TL;DR – woman totally skimps on her research, at best.
Bloke In Tejas
Hopper
It’s worse than that.
The moment you have invented a computer, and someone’s invented ‘more than one transistor in the chip’ (which is inevitable when you’ve invented a single transistor) then it takes a few moments only to see you can build a microprocessor. I know for a fact that absolutely no US state department funded the first ARM nor the very first UK microprocessor, the Ferranti F1600L.
Jim
“Yep, we’re fucked.”
Because all the other major parties have such superior policies that will get us out of our current malaise right?
Oh, no, I forgot, they’re all exactly the same policies wrapped up in different paper and with a different logo on.
Vote conservative, get clown world. Vote labour, get double clown world. Vote [non]liberal democrat, get triple clown world. Whoever you vote for, its still all clowns.
TBH
Mazzucato’s premise that all of this great technology came from the govt is tenuous at best. Yes, there was some funding from DARPA for some aspects, but private enterprise is almost solely responsible for advancement for the last 60 years.
Addolff
Jim @ 9.13, my thoughts exactly, but I will vote Labour (or whoever looks more likely to win) at the next election simply to get the Tories out and let these cunts know that we do, actually, have some power. They’ve had too long in office and need a few years in the wilderness to collect their thoughts. And atone for their sins.
Andrew C
Off topic but a wonderful example of how our oil embargo on Russia is actually panning out….
“Saudi Arabia is importing millions of barrels of diesel from Russia, despite having more than enough of its own.
The kingdom is the world’s top crude exporter and a significant seller of petroleum products. Yet it imported almost 2.5 million barrels of diesel-type fuel from Russia in the first 10 days of March, far more than at any other time in the last six years, according to Kpler data compiled by Bloomberg.
At the same time, vast amounts of the fuel continue to be sent from Saudi Arabia to Europe, which on paper looks like a potentially lucrative move…”
Tim Worstall
Sorta and maybe. The aim is to make the Russian economy suffer. So, if they’ve got to sell hte diesel cheap to Saudi, not expensive to Europe, that then works. The European disel price doesn’t change – not much at least. What’s really happening here is that Saudi is now getting a slice of what Russia used to get – that hurts Russia.
Steve
Tim, the Sanctions from Hell were supposed to do a lot more than inconvenience Russian oil exporters. They were supposed to bring down the Russian government and win the war.
Doesn’t look like it’s working out that way.
Tim Worstall
Politicians don’t understand markets or economics is a surprise to whom?
Jim
“The European diesel price doesn’t change ”
Have you been anywhere near a fuel station recently?
I was buying red diesel (so not distorted by tax as much) for about 45p/litre before the Russia embargo. That doubled to 90 odd pence/litre last year. Its currently at 66pp (I just bought some at that) so even now its still nearly 50% higher than it was.
You’re away with the f*cking fairies if you think the price of diesel is unaltered. Embargoing Russian diesel is crucifying Western European economies because diesel powers everything that matters, and feeds through into the price of everything. Hence why inflation is so high.
PJF
They were supposed to bring down the Russian government and win the war.
That’s certainly one way of saying sanctions aren’t working – just invent some shit and shout, “hey look, some shit isn’t happening!”
Sanctions, like everything else being applied and supplied, are one aspect of a wide front.
PJF
Embargoing Russian diesel is crucifying Western European economies . . .
As Trump warned, being reliant on Russian energy is what “crucified” European economies. One way or another it was going to become a lot more expensive, and not just financially. This is the cheaper way of it being more expensive.
john77
@ DiscoveredJoys
Left-wing intellectuals and most of the Labour Party cling to the enduring myth that intelligence is not to any degree whatever inherited while height, hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, cleft chins, susceptibility to various diseases … is inherited. How they square that with the universally accepted doctrine that homo sapiens *as a race* is more intelligent than chimpanzees has never been adequately explained to me.
Boganboy
This problem was solved in the proper way that Western civilisation always solves things – by cheating.
In other words, new tech ie fracking, allows us to produce all the oil and gas we need more cheaply than before. Certainly more cheaply than fighting some damn war in the Middle East or Ukraine.
But the damn Greens have succeeded in strangling the tech that’d solve our problems without us even noticing. Can’t decide whether the bastards are financed by OPEC, the Russians, the established oil companies or whatever.
My limited experience as a bureaucrat suggest sheer imbecility is the problem.
Yorkshire Terrifier
Couple nice bits in there at least.
“Our planning system is a dead hand on the tiller… Housebuilding, infrastructure, and business investment all grind to a halt… If Britain is to rebuild its industrial might, we must stop red tape from standing in the way of new industries and new jobs.”
Sounds almost like free market rhetoric. Can’t say it’s believable though.
Jason Lynch
Sanctions haven’t ever to my knowledge “brought down governments” – they’re one, useful but not enormously potent, means to have some impact (less money coming in to buy stuff or make leader & cronies rich, less easy / more expensive access to the stuff like thermal imagers and gas-turbine engines Russia can’t make for itself)
Recall that in 1914-1918 and 1939-45, we didn’t just “sanction” Germany, we went full-on all-out blockade on them: still took considerably more than a year (plus considerable additional warlike activity that AFAIK nobody in the UK is seriously planning for yet) for them to decide to stop fighting…
So who did publicly promise that sanctions on Russia would immediately get them out of Ukraine while causing Putin to fall to his death from a ground-floor window after a nice cup of polonium tea?
Rob Fisher
“all of this great technology came from the govt is tenuous at best”
Mazzucato has not even gotten as far as Bastiat. The technology that was not developed because of money taken in taxes is unseen.
bloke in spain
Left-wing intellectuals and most of the Labour Party cling to the enduring myth that intelligence is not to any degree whatever inherited
They seem to think their offspring are the the most fit people for upcoming politicians, public sector & quango appointments… not to mention Guardian columnists.
Steve
Jason – Sanctions have never been “useful” (except to murderous sociopaths who are concerned about there being too many Iraqi or Syrian children).
So who did publicly promise that sanctions on Russia would immediately get them out of Ukraine while causing Putin to fall to his death from a ground-floor window after a nice cup of polonium tea?
It’s easy to forget after however many petabytes have been wasted on bullshit since February 2022, but the worst sanctions in the history of sanctions (Russia is more sanctioned now than Nazi Germany ever was) were announced in a burst of righteous enthusiasm and much talk about destroying their currency, economy and ability to wage war.
So far, they haven’t destroyed the Russian economy, their currency, or their ability to wage war, but they have cost us over €1Tn (and counting).
This is the Net Zero of proxy wars tho. The bill keeps getting bigger and the “prize” isn’t worth it anyway, but we’ve gotta have Net Zero, for reasons.
Boganboy
Steve, I did think that Trump’s stopping the US taxpayer paying for food and other goodies for the Houthi occupied areas of Yemen might have worked. As it is, the US is supporting the official government and the Saudis and UAE who are supporting it, and also providing a huge part of the cash that allows the UN and NGO’s to feed about the population of Oz in Yemen. Indeed some of the charities have also complained about the protection money——oooooops taxes levied on their imports by the Houthis.
In other words, the US taxpayer is supporting both it’s allies and enemies in Yemen. A splendid recipe for a forever war. Of course Biden restored the cash after he seized power.
Jason Lynch
Steve,
I’ll politely call “bullshit” on “Russia is more sanctioned now than Nazi Germany ever was”.
The Royal Navy is not hunting ships bound to or from Russia with orders to “sink, burn, destroy, let nothing pass” as we were from September 1939, and we haven’t even started mining their ports and trade routes yet.
(More martial stuff would be thousand-bomber raids on their industrial centres, but you can’t have everything…)
Even in the glory days of the Great Patriotic War, it took Stalin three years to go from Barbarossa to Bagration despite the Allies isolating Germany, bombing their factories and oil refineries to rubble, and shipping the USSR massive quantities of aid and assistance: it’s a little unreasonable to ask Ukraine to do more, faster, from a worse position.
Steve
Jason – Economically. They cut Russian banks off from Swift. Even the Nazis weren’t cut out of international payments, as far as I know. Not sure the United States threatened secondary sanctions in them days either.
Boganboy – In other words, the US taxpayer is supporting both it’s allies and enemies in Yemen
It looks like incoherence, but it’s just domestic cash incentives working the way they do. It’s basically the plot to Cube (1997) with the president from Hot Shots: Part Deux.
Boganboy
Yeah Steve. I’ve always considered that bribes from the military-industrial complex are the most plausible reason that this nonsense continues. They certainly seem to be selling huge quantities of stuff to the Saudis.
Though the charities are no doubt raking off lots of dosh in salaries and expenses as well. Fun to consider that these supposed ‘enemies’ are working so nicely together.
PS. Thanks for mentioning Cube. You at least persuaded me to google the thing so I’ve now some idea of what you’re talking about.
Charles
@john77 – “Left-wing intellectuals and most of the Labour Party cling to the enduring myth that intelligence is not to any degree whatever inherited”
A lot of that is a reaction to right wing idiots who think that intelligence is almost entirely inherited to the point that it is reasonable to assume the level of a person’s intelligence based on their family or racial group. In reality, there is some inheritance, but not enough to be useful in avoiding having to measure anyone you’re interesed in.
“homo sapiens *as a race* is more intelligent than chimpanzees”
Homo sapiens is a species, not a race.
Chris Miller
A lot of that is a reaction to right wing idiots who think that intelligence is almost entirely inherited to the point that it is reasonable to assume the level of a person’s intelligence based on their family or racial group.
Straw man – who actually thinks you can assess someone’s intelligence solely from their relatives or the colour of their skin? There are plenty of smart people in Nigeria, it’s just that there are relatively fewer of them than the really dumb ones, because the IQs of sub-Saharan Africans are around one sigma lower than the global population.
Typical politician output. The first word is ‘I’ and the first sentence is a platitude. Repeat throughout.
A quick browse leads me to support Tim’s conclusion. The only question is, will I be able to afford the vaseline?
Spain is currently showing the way…
A very quick peruse, and they are still invoking Mrs Thatcher (pbuh). If that’s the level of dog-whistle Reeves is at, we are going to be fully and royally fucked.
How odd. Just tried to download the pdf only to get the response ‘The document cannot be opened because it is corrupted and damaged’.
AI is coming on, innit?!
“The economists Raj Chetty, John Van Reenen and their colleagues have shown that children growing up in areas with less economic prosperity are far less likely to become inventors.20 Inventors and entrepreneurs are the engines of economic growth.”
Still not bringing back Grammars Schools though.
I don’t think it makes much difference, Tim. I’m sure Maria’s retardations are equally as enspasticated as “Eat Out to Help Out”, fracking ban, 20% VAT and a massive corporation tax rise at a time when the economy is looking less healthy than Diane Abbott.
The last time these cunts swapped the baton, the Red Team left a funny note in the Treasury saying “Sorry we spent it all” or something like that.
Needless to say, Rishi had the last laugh.
Steve, don’t forget the Windfall taxes.
The reality is that whatever happens we’re fucked, the only argument is over the size, depth and speed of the instrument doing said fucking.
Hmm, curious document. Very, very brief scan, but is it Reeves looking to shaft Starmer?
While reluctant to toot my own horn – oh, who am I kidding? – I think there’s a perfectly good demolishment of Mazzucato here: https://hemiposterical.blogspot.com/2014/11/mazzucato-and-her-state-behind-iphone.html?m=1
TL;DR – woman totally skimps on her research, at best.
Hopper
It’s worse than that.
The moment you have invented a computer, and someone’s invented ‘more than one transistor in the chip’ (which is inevitable when you’ve invented a single transistor) then it takes a few moments only to see you can build a microprocessor. I know for a fact that absolutely no US state department funded the first ARM nor the very first UK microprocessor, the Ferranti F1600L.
“Yep, we’re fucked.”
Because all the other major parties have such superior policies that will get us out of our current malaise right?
Oh, no, I forgot, they’re all exactly the same policies wrapped up in different paper and with a different logo on.
Vote conservative, get clown world. Vote labour, get double clown world. Vote [non]liberal democrat, get triple clown world. Whoever you vote for, its still all clowns.
Mazzucato’s premise that all of this great technology came from the govt is tenuous at best. Yes, there was some funding from DARPA for some aspects, but private enterprise is almost solely responsible for advancement for the last 60 years.
Jim @ 9.13, my thoughts exactly, but I will vote Labour (or whoever looks more likely to win) at the next election simply to get the Tories out and let these cunts know that we do, actually, have some power. They’ve had too long in office and need a few years in the wilderness to collect their thoughts. And atone for their sins.
Off topic but a wonderful example of how our oil embargo on Russia is actually panning out….
“Saudi Arabia is importing millions of barrels of diesel from Russia, despite having more than enough of its own.
The kingdom is the world’s top crude exporter and a significant seller of petroleum products. Yet it imported almost 2.5 million barrels of diesel-type fuel from Russia in the first 10 days of March, far more than at any other time in the last six years, according to Kpler data compiled by Bloomberg.
At the same time, vast amounts of the fuel continue to be sent from Saudi Arabia to Europe, which on paper looks like a potentially lucrative move…”
Sorta and maybe. The aim is to make the Russian economy suffer. So, if they’ve got to sell hte diesel cheap to Saudi, not expensive to Europe, that then works. The European disel price doesn’t change – not much at least. What’s really happening here is that Saudi is now getting a slice of what Russia used to get – that hurts Russia.
Tim, the Sanctions from Hell were supposed to do a lot more than inconvenience Russian oil exporters. They were supposed to bring down the Russian government and win the war.
Doesn’t look like it’s working out that way.
Politicians don’t understand markets or economics is a surprise to whom?
“The European diesel price doesn’t change ”
Have you been anywhere near a fuel station recently?
I was buying red diesel (so not distorted by tax as much) for about 45p/litre before the Russia embargo. That doubled to 90 odd pence/litre last year. Its currently at 66pp (I just bought some at that) so even now its still nearly 50% higher than it was.
You’re away with the f*cking fairies if you think the price of diesel is unaltered. Embargoing Russian diesel is crucifying Western European economies because diesel powers everything that matters, and feeds through into the price of everything. Hence why inflation is so high.
They were supposed to bring down the Russian government and win the war.
That’s certainly one way of saying sanctions aren’t working – just invent some shit and shout, “hey look, some shit isn’t happening!”
Sanctions, like everything else being applied and supplied, are one aspect of a wide front.
Embargoing Russian diesel is crucifying Western European economies . . .
As Trump warned, being reliant on Russian energy is what “crucified” European economies. One way or another it was going to become a lot more expensive, and not just financially. This is the cheaper way of it being more expensive.
@ DiscoveredJoys
Left-wing intellectuals and most of the Labour Party cling to the enduring myth that intelligence is not to any degree whatever inherited while height, hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, cleft chins, susceptibility to various diseases … is inherited. How they square that with the universally accepted doctrine that homo sapiens *as a race* is more intelligent than chimpanzees has never been adequately explained to me.
This problem was solved in the proper way that Western civilisation always solves things – by cheating.
In other words, new tech ie fracking, allows us to produce all the oil and gas we need more cheaply than before. Certainly more cheaply than fighting some damn war in the Middle East or Ukraine.
But the damn Greens have succeeded in strangling the tech that’d solve our problems without us even noticing. Can’t decide whether the bastards are financed by OPEC, the Russians, the established oil companies or whatever.
My limited experience as a bureaucrat suggest sheer imbecility is the problem.
Couple nice bits in there at least.
“Our planning system is a dead hand on the tiller… Housebuilding, infrastructure, and business investment all grind to a halt… If Britain is to rebuild its industrial might, we must stop red tape from standing in the way of new industries and new jobs.”
Sounds almost like free market rhetoric. Can’t say it’s believable though.
Sanctions haven’t ever to my knowledge “brought down governments” – they’re one, useful but not enormously potent, means to have some impact (less money coming in to buy stuff or make leader & cronies rich, less easy / more expensive access to the stuff like thermal imagers and gas-turbine engines Russia can’t make for itself)
Recall that in 1914-1918 and 1939-45, we didn’t just “sanction” Germany, we went full-on all-out blockade on them: still took considerably more than a year (plus considerable additional warlike activity that AFAIK nobody in the UK is seriously planning for yet) for them to decide to stop fighting…
So who did publicly promise that sanctions on Russia would immediately get them out of Ukraine while causing Putin to fall to his death from a ground-floor window after a nice cup of polonium tea?
“all of this great technology came from the govt is tenuous at best”
Mazzucato has not even gotten as far as Bastiat. The technology that was not developed because of money taken in taxes is unseen.
Left-wing intellectuals and most of the Labour Party cling to the enduring myth that intelligence is not to any degree whatever inherited
They seem to think their offspring are the the most fit people for upcoming politicians, public sector & quango appointments… not to mention Guardian columnists.
Jason – Sanctions have never been “useful” (except to murderous sociopaths who are concerned about there being too many Iraqi or Syrian children).
So who did publicly promise that sanctions on Russia would immediately get them out of Ukraine while causing Putin to fall to his death from a ground-floor window after a nice cup of polonium tea?
It’s easy to forget after however many petabytes have been wasted on bullshit since February 2022, but the worst sanctions in the history of sanctions (Russia is more sanctioned now than Nazi Germany ever was) were announced in a burst of righteous enthusiasm and much talk about destroying their currency, economy and ability to wage war.
So far, they haven’t destroyed the Russian economy, their currency, or their ability to wage war, but they have cost us over €1Tn (and counting).
This is the Net Zero of proxy wars tho. The bill keeps getting bigger and the “prize” isn’t worth it anyway, but we’ve gotta have Net Zero, for reasons.
Steve, I did think that Trump’s stopping the US taxpayer paying for food and other goodies for the Houthi occupied areas of Yemen might have worked. As it is, the US is supporting the official government and the Saudis and UAE who are supporting it, and also providing a huge part of the cash that allows the UN and NGO’s to feed about the population of Oz in Yemen. Indeed some of the charities have also complained about the protection money——oooooops taxes levied on their imports by the Houthis.
In other words, the US taxpayer is supporting both it’s allies and enemies in Yemen. A splendid recipe for a forever war. Of course Biden restored the cash after he seized power.
Steve,
I’ll politely call “bullshit” on “Russia is more sanctioned now than Nazi Germany ever was”.
The Royal Navy is not hunting ships bound to or from Russia with orders to “sink, burn, destroy, let nothing pass” as we were from September 1939, and we haven’t even started mining their ports and trade routes yet.
(More martial stuff would be thousand-bomber raids on their industrial centres, but you can’t have everything…)
Even in the glory days of the Great Patriotic War, it took Stalin three years to go from Barbarossa to Bagration despite the Allies isolating Germany, bombing their factories and oil refineries to rubble, and shipping the USSR massive quantities of aid and assistance: it’s a little unreasonable to ask Ukraine to do more, faster, from a worse position.
Jason – Economically. They cut Russian banks off from Swift. Even the Nazis weren’t cut out of international payments, as far as I know. Not sure the United States threatened secondary sanctions in them days either.
Boganboy – In other words, the US taxpayer is supporting both it’s allies and enemies in Yemen
It looks like incoherence, but it’s just domestic cash incentives working the way they do. It’s basically the plot to Cube (1997) with the president from Hot Shots: Part Deux.
Yeah Steve. I’ve always considered that bribes from the military-industrial complex are the most plausible reason that this nonsense continues. They certainly seem to be selling huge quantities of stuff to the Saudis.
Though the charities are no doubt raking off lots of dosh in salaries and expenses as well. Fun to consider that these supposed ‘enemies’ are working so nicely together.
PS. Thanks for mentioning Cube. You at least persuaded me to google the thing so I’ve now some idea of what you’re talking about.
@john77 – “Left-wing intellectuals and most of the Labour Party cling to the enduring myth that intelligence is not to any degree whatever inherited”
A lot of that is a reaction to right wing idiots who think that intelligence is almost entirely inherited to the point that it is reasonable to assume the level of a person’s intelligence based on their family or racial group. In reality, there is some inheritance, but not enough to be useful in avoiding having to measure anyone you’re interesed in.
“homo sapiens *as a race* is more intelligent than chimpanzees”
Homo sapiens is a species, not a race.
A lot of that is a reaction to right wing idiots who think that intelligence is almost entirely inherited to the point that it is reasonable to assume the level of a person’s intelligence based on their family or racial group.
Straw man – who actually thinks you can assess someone’s intelligence solely from their relatives or the colour of their skin? There are plenty of smart people in Nigeria, it’s just that there are relatively fewer of them than the really dumb ones, because the IQs of sub-Saharan Africans are around one sigma lower than the global population.