Fred de Fossard
8.1K posts
Fred de Fossard
@defossardf
British Prosperity | @prosperity_inst | 🦁 🇬🇧 🏹 | Views own, naturally
England Katılım Nisan 2024
722 Takip Edilen5.4K Takipçiler
Fred de Fossard retweetledi
In the 1930s, Britain did fiscal austerity. Nick Crafts and Terence Mills found that it pretty much worked (with some nuances). But one thing that must be noted (and that Mills and Crafts also noted) is that the construction sector was immensely active.
A new article (second image) in the Economic History Review by Antonius Samy goes into details of that housing boom. The simple answer is that it was largely supply-led.
Between you, me and the flies on the wall -- this illustrates an underappreciated point in Alberto Alesina's (with Favero and Giavazzi) work on Austerity (image 3): austerity measures work when the supply-side of the economy is not shackled. The more supply-side restrictions exist, the likelier it is that fiscal consolidation will lead to economic contraction in the short-run (regardless of whether it happens via tax hikes or spending cuts).
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RT @matt_dathan: France & UK have failed to reach an agreement to renew the three-year deal for French migrant patrols, which expires tonig…
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I hope they also wipe the historic data associated with them and ensure they never appear on DBS checks etc again.
This was such a simple and sensible move, it shames the Conservatives that they did not do it.
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Police time will no longer be wasted investigating legal social media posts, freeing up officers to patrol the streets and tackle real crime. By scrapping Non‑Crime Hate Incidents, we are balancing the protection of vulnerable communities while respecting free speech.
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
“You provide some of the most competitive, low-profit and useful services in society. How dare you.”
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It's right wing and somehow slightly deviant to favour reliable and dispatchable energy sources now. Interesting as ever.
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This is the best thing i've read on *why* the British right are still so hung up on oil and gas, despite the North Sea's increasingly diminishing returns. There is something about fossil fuels that is inherently more amenable to nationalist imaginaries break-down.org/return-to-trea…
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
This is really odd.
The government changed the law so that wind farms no longer have to provide expensive and time consuming like for like compensation for the birds they kill.
But when it comes to nuclear power, the government is refusing to change the law - despite the
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@thegolem1982 @t848m0 Without the Reformation we would have never conquered the world
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@defossardf @t848m0 The DotM destroyed centuries of knowledge, likely things relating to the 'Dark Ages' that would have shed brilliant light.
Round II would involve shredding 40,000 degree certificates in Decolonising Nail Technology and opening up masses of housing in middling towns.
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Britain is able to increase its trade with the EU and the rest of the world without having to pay into the EU's budgets or have EU rules imposed on us. Fancy that.
x.com/cricketwyvern/…
David Paton@cricketwyvern
... Total exports (EU & non-EU) have risen faster than GDP growth, whether you measure it from 2015, 2016, 2019 or 2020. So has total UK trade. In the context of sluggish economic growth, UK trade post-Brexit is a real success story.
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There is absolutely no reason to do the EU Reset. Our trading relationship with both the EU and the rest of the world is doing just fine.
David Paton@cricketwyvern
ONS has just updated trade figures & we now have the EU/non-EU breakdown for 2025. In 2025, UK total (goods & services) exports to the EU were: · 18.9%⬆️on 2015 (pre-referendum). · 3.8%⬆️on 2019 (before leaving EU). · 3.2%⬆️on 2024. (all in real terms) …
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
ONS has just updated trade figures & we now have the EU/non-EU breakdown for 2025.
In 2025, UK total (goods & services) exports to the EU were:
· 18.9%⬆️on 2015 (pre-referendum).
· 3.8%⬆️on 2019 (before leaving EU).
· 3.2%⬆️on 2024.
(all in real terms)
…
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Unsurprisingly there is little sense of urgency here. This call to evidence seems to amount to "how's it going in those ....[checks notes] refineries, guys?" Without refineries we don't really have an economy.
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It is interesting to read this government document from February on the future of our refineries sector in light of the recent crisis. Britain's refineries produce around a third of our jet fuel.
share.google/70yCP9NGQrOFt4…
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
🏹 Our paper The Death of the Fiduciary Duty by @jamesd_graham including a foreword by @desireefixler was covered by the @Daily_Express:
"A new report calls for pension providers to prioritise financial performance unless savers choose otherwise."
👇
express.co.uk/finance/person…
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
Last year I attended a community police event in Clapham.
They laughed at the suggestion of arresting youths for ‘minor’ shoplifting..
They wouldn’t bother arresting someone smoking cannabis.
Why would they care about such ‘small’ crimes?
This is the inevitable outcome 👇
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
I wrote some words on why the most common arguments against domestic oil & gas production in Britain are wrong. We sit on a wealth of natural resources waiting to be extracted which would contribute to energy security and economic prosperity.
dailysceptic.org/2026/03/31/nor…
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High capital intensive farming like dairy will do very well with automation. I expect simpler crops like potatoes and carrots will too.
As @dampierguy said to me last week, any crop which American consumers are keen to pay high prices for will benefit from automation and R&D, so I am sure we'll see sophisticated machines for picking strawberries soon, but probably not for the humble leek.
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Who would have thought!
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The New York Times recently published a column about a dairy farmer who deployed robots after immigration authorities arrested one of his workers. The farm now produces three times more milk per worker, while employees earn more, work shorter hours, and do less grueling work.
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
A debt-financed fiscal stimulus was the big policy mistake of the Covid era. When you are hit by a global supply shock, as we are once again today, the last thing you would want is to simulate demand. This is a crisis that will hit us unfiltered. In Europe especially.
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Fred de Fossard retweetledi
To this point … I’m told by a senior oil broker most tanker owners won’t transit the strait at this point, even with a Navy escort.
Confidence is predicated on a diplomatic resolution or (probably to a lesser extent) complete defeat of the Iranian regime.
Regardless, timeline
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