Georgie L

Londoner, dancer, public health techie, generalist & aspiring polymath. Reading suggestions welcome (currently Classics, Maths, Philosophy) | RT ≠ 👍

[Ed Lawrence @ed_lawrence_]

As everyone's been saying, the problem with Britain is that not enough wealth is concentrated in property, the housing market is too fluid, the Treasury has too much revenue, and we need to shift more wealth to London and the south east

[ꪝe @_wej01]

Someone asked if there are actually any perks of having kids and I have one: Tonight at dinner I told my kids the story of my high school ex boyfriend who got in a car accident and then stopped wearing a seat belt afterwards because it "left a rug burn across his chest" and my kids laughed at how dumb he was for that. Like imagine creating three brand new humans who think Jake is stupid, it's very beautiful.

[kb @ojvhteuhyhes]

my uncontroversial opinion is that no one is in the wrong here. it IS annoying living w/ someone who always has guests over, but it’s also reasonable to want to have your partner stay over. its mostly just a sad symptom of a society where grown adults can’t afford to live alone x

[Xavier MacDuff @xvrmdf]

A growing feature of the UK economy/society is this "dual-price" structure, where working people pay a full list price, but retirees and those on benefits receive a (taxpayer-subsidised) discount.

It makes benefits/pensions much more valuable than their headline rates.

[max tempers @maxtempers]

The Tories have managed to stumble upon the absolute worst way to abolish inheritance tax. Taxing everything else but exempting family homes just incentivises old people to pile more of their wealth into housing and never downsize. Lunacy in an already gummed-up housing market.

[Un Étrange En Terre Étrange @LoinDuTribu]

This is the bit of Right to Buy discourse that really gets on my tits, because I know loads of people who did it. My grandparents bought their council house after living there for decades. My mum did it at one point. Of course they did. If the state says, “Do you want to buy the house you already live in at a massive discount and actually own something?”, most working-class people are going to say yes. Why the fuck wouldn’t they?

And that is why Right to Buy was such brilliant politics. It was genuinely empowering for the people who benefited from it. You went from being a council tenant to owning an asset, having something to leave your kids, being less dependent on the state. I completely understand why that appealed.

It also fits Thatcher almost perfectly. I don’t think her philosophy was simply “fuck everyone, you’re on your own”, which is how “there’s no such thing as society” often gets remembered. It was more this belief that responsibility starts with the individual and the family, then the neighbours, the church, the voluntary group, the local community. Her father was exactly that kind of civic-minded greengrocer who got involved in everything, and I sometimes wonder how much of Thatcherism boils down to WHY CAN’T EVERYBODY JUST BE LIKE MY DAD?

And, well, because they fucking aren’t.

HERE COMES THE GOBLIN.

What happens when Derek doesn’t help his neighbour?

What happens when Derek is skint?

What happens when Derek is 84?

What happens when Derek has three kids, two jobs and absolutely no fucking time?

What happens when Derek assumes Sandra will do it, Sandra assumes the church will do it, the church assumes the charity will do it, and the charity has lost its funding?

You have rediscovered WHY INSTITUTIONS EXIST.

“People should step up” is a perfectly decent moral sentiment.

IT IS NOT A FUCKING DELIVERY MECHANISM.

You cannot organise healthcare, housing, education, social care and poverty relief around SOME DECENT BLOKE WILL PROBABLY SORT IT OUT.

That is literally why we build systems. Human beings are inconsistent. Some people are incredibly generous. Some are selfish. Most have their own shit going on. A functioning society cannot make essential things depend on whether an unusually conscientious greengrocer happens to live three doors down.

And Right to Buy is almost the perfect example.

For one family, fantastic. You buy your council house. You pay it off. You have security. Your children inherit something. Brilliant.

Then another family does it.

Then another.

Then another.

House 100,000: sold.

House 500,000: sold.

House 1,000,000: sold.

At some point some 25-year-old cleaner turns up and asks:

“LOVELY. WHERE’S MINE?”

And suddenly everybody gets very interested in personal responsibility.

That is the bit that annoys me about using someone’s mum buying her council house as proof that Right to Buy worked. OF COURSE IT WORKED FOR YOUR MUM. THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT.

The question is whether it worked as a housing system over generations.

Because if Brenda the cleaner could buy her council house in 1987, but Chloe the cleaner in 2026 is now paying private rent on Brenda’s old council house and needs two incomes, a massive deposit and preferably some conveniently deceased grandparents before she can buy anything herself, then you solved Brenda’s housing problem.

YOU DID NOT CRACK HOUSING.

You sold the chair and then told the next generation they should have got there sooner.

[Hugo Gye @HugoGye]

'Gingerbread men with chocolate trousers incur value-added tax (VAT) worth 20%, but no tax is charged on those with chocolate only for their eyes.'

Britain's taxes aren't unusually high - but they are freakishly complex, @TheEconomist says: https://t.co/MkY6eP3SYO

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

Pensioners have the lowest poverty rate in the entire United Kingdom.

[Oli Dugmore @OliDugmore]

FYI Michael Gove said yday he will campaign for Labour if Burnham abandoned the triple lock…

[Rt Hon. Will || Portfolio for Sarcasm (parody) @colder_sarcasm]

😂😂😂

[Georgie L @courgettegeorge]

@orangesarenot Sounds like every cheer mix I've ever heard low-key

[Karen McGee @karenmotherof2]

You just don’t get days like these off of this app. Like yeah like 95% of the time this app is a hellscape but you don’t see the lesbian bar story transform into “ethnically Irish people are the only people who should be drinking milk” in real time anywhere else

[gianmarco @GianmarcoSoresi]

Thrilled to discover someone from the covid-conscious lesbian bar story follows me on instagram

[Georgie L @courgettegeorge]

@BrandyZadrozny Learnt the word chyron today because of this tweet

[leyla @leylaaa31]

You guys are missing the best part of the lesbian bar story which is that they were only planning on allowing people in without kn95s one day a week

[uk politics reaction video @ukpolreact]

rory stewart turning to intensely stare at ailbhe rea bbc newsnight

[Ronke Lawal @ronkelawal]

They're charging £3k per month for a one bedroom flat in Elephant and Castle.

That's the strongest birth control possible.

[Sels @suh_less]

Shut him tf up 🫪

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

You can say what you want about Iran but they're definitely pretty unique in their communication: never seen a country threaten another with a math equation before 😅

For those who didn't get it: there is a famous monetary policy formula used by the Fed called the "Taylor rule" that says a central bank's policy rate (i) should equal the neutral real rate (r*) plus target inflation (π*), plus 1.5 times the inflation gap and 0.5 times the output gap (the "i = r* + π* + 1.5(π−π*) + 0.5(y−y*)" part of Ghalibaf's formula).

Ghalibaf adds α(SOH−SOH*) and β(BEM−BEM*): SOH referring to the Strait Of Hormuz and BEM to Bab El-Mandeb. Both have positive coefficient, meaning the more those chokepoints are choked, the higher the rate the Fed would have to set to fight the resulting inflation.

In a nutshell this is Ghalibaf trolling the Fed, telling them that Iran is - in a very real way - setting American monetary policy.

[Georgie L @courgettegeorge]

@jzux Those 30 minutes are always like a hundred degrees in the plane as well