Swansea Snapper

Mostly just me bitching about football with occasional photographic showing off. If you're into that, pull up a chair. RT's not necessarily endorsements.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

Andrew Cotter is rapidly becoming the BBC's new Barry Davies. They can basically drop him in to commentate on absolutely anything and he knocks it out of the park.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@ClasiHistorica Because the other three seem to think that he deserves to be there. I'll take their opinion to be honest.

[Andy @PositivFuturist]

When your entire worldview is based not on knowledge, but on what others think - the only possible rebuttal is a performance.

[Æthelstan @TheHauskarl]

@Glinner It's not even mean to wonder how someone this stupid got into politics. It's just an objective observation.

If you have less of something, it becomes more expensive. Literally rocket science to her.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@Kadswan @SwansLounge Stamenic is attracting interest too.

I'm expecting both him and Galbraith to start next season elsewhere.

[David Rattigan @davidmrattigan]

buying this and then dying immediately and forcing my descendants to finish building it over the next 100 years

[SO3 Clausewitz @SO3_Clausewitz]

My short list of British figures that should appear on British bank notes.

1. You and me, Darling, obviously
2. Field Marshal Haig
3. Field Marshal Haig’s wife
4. All Field Marshal Haig’s wife’s friends
5. Their families
6. Their families’ servants
7. Their families’ servants’ tennis partners
8. Some chap I bumped into the mess the other day called Bernard

[Growing Up Retro @GrowingUpRetro]

The A-Team saves the day.

[Ross McCafferty @RossMcCaff]

being so serious when I say they should do an Omaze style raffle for this. Tenner a ticket.

[Sunday Sport @thesundaysport]

I for one am shocked that these Mandy messages seem to have exposed Torsten Bell as a sneaky, greasy, little shit

[Old Gassy @OldGassy1984]

Nicola Sturgeon finds herself struggling to log in to a website...

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@jimdwan @SCFC_Jamess Sacked by Brondby after scoring fewer goals than any other team in the top five but conceding less than any team bar the Champions.

Regardless of what he may claim, pragmatic football has followed him around too much to be a coincidence.

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

The framing of the bond markets we get from politicians is totally mad. And shows how little they understand about the mechanics of how the nation finances its deficits.

They seem to think that the bond markets are essentially a small group of evil billionaires sat in a room scheming to influence public policy.

This is bullshit.

In reality, they’re made up of people and institutions the government are asking to lend them money… pension funds, insurers, your gran’s retirement pot, the Bank of England, overseas central banks holding sterling, and so on. A lot of people are involved in these markets.

When politicians say they’re “in hock” to the bond markets. What they’re referring to is the fact that they borrow money from the market and have to pay bond holders back with interest. The participants in the market will buy bonds when the yield on the bonds adequately covers the perceived risk of holding the bonds, and provides a modest expected return to make it worthwhile.

They’re not scheming, they’re just pricing inflation and interest rate risk. Our debt carries a higher risk premium than other core economies like Germany, because of specific structural problems and a credibility deficit on spending.

And a lot of that demand isn’t even a choice. Pension funds and insurers are required to hold gilts to match their liabilities. So your gran’s retirement pot is quietly propping up the very market these politicians claim to be fighting.

The supposed alternative is to balance the budget so you don’t need to borrow. If you don’t want to be “in hock” to the bond markets, don’t borrow money from them. Except even that wouldn’t free us, because we still have to roll over the existing debt as it matures. Escaping the market entirely would mean running surpluses for decades, which would take spending cuts or growth we haven’t got. So the government borrows.

And here’s the tell... a lot of politicians half admit it. They’ll say, as Polanski does here, the markets “just want to know there’s a plan.” Yeah, absolutely. So the problem was never the market. It’s that our politicians haven’t got a credible plan.

So when you hear politicians complaining about the bond markets, what they’re really complaining about is the fact that they can’t borrow endlessly to fund all the mad shit they want to do.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@SCFC_Jamess @jimdwan We'd never have got near the playoffs in either season without Ayew the way he had us playing.

Tedious tournament football for the most part. Keep it tight and try to nick a goal. Like Arsenal last night. Ok over six or seven games. Tedious over 46.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

Best side won.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

Deserved to miss with that run up.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

Arsenal have been too passive. You're not going to be able to defend for 90+ minutes against this PSG side.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@jackjiffy @JoeBurgess6 I just can't imagine not wanting to stay to the end and soak all that up, even if the second half had been a 0-0 borefest.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@jackjiffy @JoeBurgess6 I hope you've disowned the pair of them.

[Swansea Snapper @JCJJMB]

@britpopcyclist @Lawallover63 Exactly this.

Most "working" bands just aren't making money from record sales or streaming any more. They have to do it from ticket sales or merch.

[John Smith @UrbanExplorer00]

@FarleyWrites UEFA and the foreign leagues killed competition, not the PL. Reality is Serie A and La Liga were light years ahead of the PL 20-30 years ago. The big clubs in those leagues hoarded all of the wealth and destroyed the depth of their leagues. England shared it and kept growing.