Paul butcher

Any sufficiently achieved magic is indistinguishable from technology

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

#ChristmasParties with MPs or peers unexpectedly in attendance alongside foreign businesses or charities could lead to multiple crimes in future years ... #christmasfuture

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

An @HSFlegal briefing on the concerns touched on in @pmdfoster's article is now available online. This is not about denying the reality or seriousness of malign activities by foreign governments 1/https://t.co/2Ff17USkWd

[alexmassie @alexmassie]

As is always the case when travelling to Deep England I am struck by how much space there is for new housing. Here we are just 16 minutes away from Paddington. Build here!

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

UK tax has gone up significantly over the last 25 years

But the tax paid by the average UK worker has not

This apparent miracle was achieved by taxing “other people”: higher earners, capital, property, banks, etc

The strategy has run out of road

A 🧵 on what happens next.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

@CuriousPejjy (Or you think SpaceX will broadly double in price too?)

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

@CuriousPejjy So you don’t think it will be a merger of equals?

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

A big recent change of mind for me has been realising how much local governments can function like private companies under the right conditions, with fewer of the problems that larger-scale govts face and many advantages in capturing and creating positive externalities.

[Michael Wiebe @michael_wiebe]

Using the evidence from Auckland's upzoning, we infer that a 1% increase in housing stock reduces rents by 3.6%.

Rents fell by 21.6% and the housing stock increased by 6.9%, so the elasticity of rents to housing stock is ln(1-0.216)/ln(1+0.069) = -3.6.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

@Lang__Leon @Im_IrushiK @GaryMarcus

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

@ciphergoth @TheZvi Nobody expects it

[Timothy Gowers @wtgowers @wtgowers]

If you are a mathematician, then you may want to make sure you are sitting down before reading further.

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

This is an *excellent* piece that deserves a wide audience, about how Manchester has completely revitalised itself over the past forty years.

Fascinating both as a case study of a city and for an evenhanded account of Andy Burnham’s (limited but not zero) role in all of it.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

“Affordable housing” requirements are simply a tax on housing. Cutting the supply of housing and so making housing less affordable for everyone. If government wants more affordable housing it should build it as additional housing to increase supply- not implement the policy in a way which simply restricts supply further

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

Nice explanation of why building market-rate homes is good for people who can't afford the specific homes being built.

I would add that affordable housing mandates, as taxes on new building, tend to reduce the overall amount of homes that get built, defeating their own aims.

[Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu]

Southwark’s Planning Chair opposed a 860+ home development because locals couldn’t afford the new homes.

It’s a common misconception. So I’ve decided to explain the evidence showing how luxury flats can make housing more affordable on the Old Kent Road.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

@squawksquare @scorpiotiger77 Echostar seems to be the purest proxy unless/ until you can buy SpaceX direct at or after the IPO?

[Ian Leslie @mrianleslie]

Interviewers/journalists: remember when we said Truss or Starmer should have been put under more scrutiny? Apply scrutiny now please. That means interrogating candidates on policy not just politics, and knowing as much or more about it than they do.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

Yes this has happened around the world. What it hasn’t done though is destroyed the normal functioning of supply and demand. The fact that the U.K. is short by about 5 million homes is relevant … and if there was extra supply then prices would fall. As has happened recently in New Zealand and Texas.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

@TiraDeUrgue @moving_charlie Yes - but that doesn’t mean that more supply would not lower costs (as it has done in other countries with analogous interest rate backdrop). I’m trying to find out if there is something *different* about the U.K. why he thinks supply and demand do not apply.

[Andy Masley @AndyMasley]

There are so many insane wildly misleading stories coming out about data centers almost every day now that I'm mostly having to give up on commenting on them to focus on actually getting blog posts out, but it feels like a tsunami. I'll share one from just today as an example.

[Paul butcher @UKPolicyButcher]

“when you deal with an exponential your choices are too early or too late”

[Zvi Mowshowitz @TheZvi]

https://t.co/BvBwGpetuW