Liam Durrant

@MarkGladman5 @DuncanStott All sounds like things that could disincetivise business... and its a tricky one cos you don't want to stunt AI and robotics use by making it expensive/ difficult but have to protect people/ society/ economy. You're right its not business fault but they will have to contribute.

@SpacemanLMD @DuncanStott So, new taxation policy is required. Or, new employment laws. Or, new transition plans. It's govts job to be ahead of the curve. But it's not businesses fault. The govt are responsible for the environment.

The biggest operating cost of a bus network is its drivers' wages. Self-driving buses would be transformative to the economics of expanding bus service reach and frequency. I'm far more excited about this than self-driving cars.

@MarkGladman5 @DuncanStott The current business incentive is to replace people with automation to boost profits. This will increase welfare needs whether you incentivise business further or not. There is only so much selling coffee to each other for a living we can all do.

@SpacemanLMD @DuncanStott You're advocating disincentivising businesses, what the exact opposite is required. Reduce welfare and the state. Reduce debt. Then create incentives for the private sector.

@BooneW @drydenwtbrown Depends why they're on welfare but some will. My mate was unemployed for a while and he volunteered at a charity while he looked for jobs, lots of pensioners do voluntary work, parents may support other parents.

@SpacemanLMD @drydenwtbrown Ah yes, that is what most people on welfare do 👍🏼

GenX / Boomers, right and left, are so deeply spellbound by Economic Materialism that they cannot see what’s right in front of them. UBI is inevitable. Question the assumption that economic productivity is required for humans to have meaning. It’s an absurd premise of which oldtroons cannot disabuse themselves.

@patchyhistory @sallonsax For sure, but mainly profit driven, when govt support could also be used to support fuel independence for individuals which will also put more money into local economies.

@SpacemanLMD @sallonsax Having renewable energy that’s invested in by multinationals is still beneficial to local people and businesses

Green Party Councillor rightly says that energy infrastructure in the UK should be owned the British people and the profits should go to those people. And the Labour Party hate this? Hmm, I wonder how much money torsten has taken for foreign energy companies.

@BooneW @drydenwtbrown Could be as simple as joining a litter pick or donating blood, could be creating art, working on an innovative idea, helping people that need extra support, doing science. Just read about volunteers who have helped nearly eradicate a parasitic infection that affected millions.

@SpacemanLMD @drydenwtbrown What does actually making society better look like?

@BooneW @drydenwtbrown Change the paradigm of a meaningful contribution from being churning out mass produced slop to actually making society better.

@drydenwtbrown Status is required for humans to have meaning, and AI x Robots will render many if not most people unable to contribute meaningfully to the world and earn status This will cause intense problems

@MarkGladman5 @DuncanStott Maybe. I think its more about what does the economy look like and how society is structured if we carry on low taxes on profits and wealth, reducing job market but keep the same benefits system I just can't see it working. So many of us will want fewer full time jobs.

@SpacemanLMD @DuncanStott All businesses to be taxed per computer and robot? Or per click....?

@bscholl Thats technological and scientific emdeavour not capitalism.

AI and robotics will make everything cheaper, making all of us wealthier in real terms. This is the entire story of capitalism: today everyday people can afford 4k TVs, cars, cell phones—things that Louis XIV could not buy despite having all the money.

@RedNortheast @Jordan_W_Taylor Rather than invested in business growth and development it will be put into stocks, bonds and property.

@SpacemanLMD @Jordan_W_Taylor What do you mean, stored in assets and not invested?

There's been a lot of discussion this week about comically low salaries in Britain, and much cope and sour grapes as Brits try to save face in front of the yanks. The UK is poorer than all fifty US states on paper, so it’s a valid discussion. Let's have it! Firstly it's true, so let's not pretend it isn't. By averages, medians or the great state of Mississippi, the Americans get paid more. I work in US multinationals in Ireland so I get to see first hand the difference in cost rates and it's real, there's no point stressing about it: Either get a work visa or don't. I'm British, so I've seen both sides of the divide and know that comparing ourselves to America is silly, because it's on a completely different planet. But Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, among many others, also do more with what they have than us, so what gives? Firstly, let's shoot down the obvious nonsense: British people aren't lacking in spirit or vigour, or animal instincts or innovation. It's not a nation of losers or a giant crab bucket of bitter malcontents… no more than anywhere else, anyway. There's probably an extra frisson of class-based snobbishness, but people are people everywhere and Brits are more of the same, so the country's underperformance isn't some kind of divine judgement on our character. Secondly let's stop thinking about Britain as a monolith, because in reality it's two economies, not one. This island has other islands inside it, which outperform much of the world: London, Cambridge, Oxford and half a dozen others casually take in globally-leading research, finance, engineering and practically all of Formula 1. Then there's oil, jet engines, pharmaceuticals, fusion and AI. There's stuff going on in the UK that flies vanguard for the entire world. But then there's the other Britain, which I was born into. This is the vast hinterland that spreads outside the islands of wealth and sees echoes of itself in the dingy flats and drawn faces of Britain's very successful, and deeply depressing, soap operas. Thirdly, it's not all bad and it's not all about the money. Manchester is a lot poorer than similarly-sized Dublin or Minneapolis but it's also a lot more vibrant and fun. There are a hundred reasons a Brit might want to stay put instead of shipping out to Boston: Culture, community, football or just not wanting your kids to get weird accents. All good reasons, but we're still not doing as well as we should be. What gives? We need to face reality, fellow Brits. We're not the richest kids on the block or anywhere close to it: Our woodwork is decaying, our lawn is ragged, our car is old and we're keeping up appearances with fresh coats of paint. Nevermind comparing ourselves to the USA, because Poland will probably overtake us soon. There's no point coping about it online, pretending that 'Our NHS' makes up for it or lambasting immigrants, because that won't help either. What will? Britain's already good at flashy stuff. It grows more unicorns than anywhere else in Europe, it has cutting edge science and technology, a gigantic financial centre and is getting more proficient at linking University R&D into the commercial sphere. It's got the stable rule of law and all the tricky bits sorted, but struggles with the basic stuff… Britain doesn't build. Decades of not building infrastructure or housing doesn't kill you immediately, but over the decades it paralyses a country, and that's what we're seeing. A discretionary over-centralised planning system whose prime commandment is “Thou Shalt Not!” paralyses private building just as much as endless legal challenges hamstring new national infrastructure. So the moral of this story? We've got the hard bits right, but the basics wrong. That's not the worst position to be in, because it means it's fixable. On the one hand, the only thing standing in our way is ourselves. But on the other hand, we've only got ourselves to blame.

@RedNortheast @Jordan_W_Taylor US capital investment is heavily fuelled by government spending because the trend is for wealth to be stored in assets not investment.

@SpacemanLMD @Jordan_W_Taylor The wealthy do put their money to use, most find better uses that investing in the UK. Capital goes where it is well treated.

@EnglishByGrace @SerCliffedge @_BoldPolitics Really? That sounds more like something you read on the Internet...

@SpacemanLMD @SerCliffedge @_BoldPolitics Sounds like a threat to me.

Julia, can't imagine you're a regular listener to the show but this is a clip from a discussion about whether we should invite racists to the village fayre... lol

@predict_addict @Jordan_W_Taylor There are way more innovators in the UK then you can imagine. Unfortunately the capital in the UK is hoarded safely and isn't used to scale up so other countries, particularly the US capital scoops it up.

You’re wrong on this one. There are serious, deep-rooted issues here, and Brits are not the same as Americans. No amount of rallying around the flag or optimistic cheerleading is going to fix them. These problems are latent and structural — they can’t be easily resolved. Moreover, even the standout unicorns you’re referring to, such as Revolut and XTX Markets, were not built by native British founders

@Gianpattention @Jordan_W_Taylor Most immigrants don't get welfare until they have some sort of right to remain. Most have to pay up front in case they have to use the NHS. A significant amount pay over the odds for education subsidising our own. Its not immigrants.

@Jordan_W_Taylor taking in immigrants on welfare does , actually, significantly make things worse for previous residents.. It should be a basic rule that if you are not citizen and you qualify for welfare, that's actually being qualified for deportation. That would improve things significantly.

@imPenny2x What people don't see in the UHI/ UBI system is it opens possibilities for capitalism to flourish for everyone, not just the wealthy. If you don't have to worry about survival you can create, build, and innovate. And if you want to be lazy you'll still be left behind but not die!

When someone calls AI and robotic enabled Universal High Income the same thing as socialism/communism, I always want to laugh. It signals that they don’t understand any better than the silly collectivists themselves why the two later systems create inferior incentives for high skill or high value producers and were doomed to fail from the start. Robotic labor doesn’t operate under the same incentives as humans, and never before has any system whatsoever seen a production or automation boom that even remotely resembles what we will see over the next few years. There is no compounding labor in socialism. All the rules change when the entire game changes. Think ahead. Can you see the difference?

@CenGinLondon @sallonsax Yeah its rubbish they'll subsidise large capital financing to build renewables but barely support individuals that would want to use renewables to be energy independent..

@SpacemanLMD @sallonsax What garbage

@julianHjessop If you add wealthy non-collection plus corporation its around 50%, a lot is also from small businesses and some of that will be wealthy people too using business schemes to reduce their tax. What we can say is there is very little tax avoidance from working people.

FYI, the Green Party's claim that HMRC has not collected £500bn in tax since 2010 "mostly from the richest people in society" is simply wrong. As the actual figures show, the tax gap from "wealthy individuals" accounts for just 5% of the shortfall... 👇 gov.uk/government/sta…

@TheGoLiver @GoodAMLiberty I got my plan. Have you?

@SpacemanLMD @GoodAMLiberty

Elon Musk on economics: