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!
'Let workers use their pensions to buy a house - It's the best way out of Britain's housing crisis'
✍️ @timleunig for LBC Opinion
https://t.co/LCQXkvlbnW
Dude beside me at the restaurant just told his wife that he cheated on her and she is crying loudly, over at my table it’s miller time though. #millertime
Apocalyptic bird nest.
A Russian glide bomb knocks down a tree in Donbas. From the shattered branches rolls out a tiny bird’s nest.
Made of drone fiber-optic cable.
Source: Oleg Malchenko
There are complaints about a savings glut but simultaneously it's getting more and more difficult to actually deploy physical capital in the real world (energy, housing, data centers)
The key finding of the report is that energy transition alone will not suffice.
We need to combine it with "sufficiency" to stay within 2 degrees. This includes labour hour reductions, growth caps in rich countries, less material consumption, and changes in food habits.
Wikipedia's page "list of last words" is one of my favourites. Some genuinely haunting stuff on there mad then things like "I'll just put my whole head in there then. - Dig Dogby, Australian prime minister, seconds before his violent death by crocodile bite"
I do think there is something to be said about fully adopting parish councils London wide and allowing them to seize district level powers if they wish.
Canary Wharf is sort of a mini council; owns all of its land, has its only roads, waste system, private security, etc…
Three ways to improve high streets by *raising* business rates:
1. Higher rates on long-empty shops, to force realistic rents
2. End exemption for charity shops.
3. Make landlords pay when candy/vape shops vanish with unpaid rates. They'll ensure rates are paid up-front.
1. In the long run, business rates depress rents. A business rate cut will increase rent. The benefit will go to landlords.
2. A business rate cut for small business is bad policy. It distorts decisions, will incentivise small businesses to stay small, and -> avoidance/evasion
I had no idea there was a British Isles-equivalent of Northern France's Mont Saint Michel. I'm very surprised it's both a near-shore semi-island and using the English version of the name. Very interesting.
@edmundharbord One weird aspect of online discourse is Americans take things weirdly seriously and so the whole debate gets coloured with genuinely extreme yank oddness, rather than the boring tedium of sensible British practices.
Calling all YIMBYs.
We need you.
Please respond to the East West Rail Consultation (link in next post).
If you don't respond to it, you don't get to complain about things not happening.
OK, I admit complete defeat here.
I tried to invent the most ridiculous possible version of anti-AI purity politics: ban copy-paste and retype citations by hand. But apparently every reductio of academic gatekeeping is just someone's preferred pedagogy lol.