Alistair

Lee Kuan Yew on avoiding the mistakes of socialist Britain:

My former student Jacob Hall has a piece out in the European Review of Economic History where he measures travel speeds in Medieval Europe using "itinerant kings" who moved around with their courts. The TLDR is that they travelled at roughly 15 miles per day -- insanely slow. There was huge variance but globally pretty slow.

There’s lots of talk about this 10 to one piece scale idea, but I don’t seen any attempts to refuse it beyond calling people economically illiterate. I think the clearest explanation is: there are some jobs which are (way) more than 10 times productive than other jobs; because these jobs are very difficult or demanding they need to be compensated more or less in line with their productivity in order for people to choose to do them. If we limited top pay scales to 10 times the lowest paid person, you would still have CEOs, bankers and lawyers, etc., but they would all work less hard, and the quality of their decision-making would fall and thus the effectiveness and productivity of the economy would decline, to everyone’s detriment. E.g. the supermarket CEO who is paid seven figures to spends every waking hour thinking about how best to bring quality products to the shelves at the lowest price, won’t do that for just £200-£300k. Sure they’ll do it from 9 to 5, but the business will miss opportunities, makes decisions more slowly, and not think about them so deeply. As a result, its effectiveness and competitiveness will fall - and the price of food on shelves will go up.

Interesting point is 77% of Labour support it vs. ‘only’ 75% of Greens - there is going to be a bloodbath on the left in next election…!

@IanStockport @sjarichards @LoftusSteve Oh. So who is making data centre sized SMRs?

@Hankey_Chief @sjarichards @LoftusSteve The Rolls Royce desig is too large for data centers. They make the maximise size that is possible to transport in many parts rather then the smallest economics size.

This is often presented as a silver bullet - but it’s an illusion. The link is the reality of a majority renewables system. Our civilisation depends on us having electricity every minute, of every hour, of every day. And for that you always need to have sufficient firm capacity -gas - to cover days, weeks, of no wind and no sun. One way or another, this has to be paid for. The real way you break the link? A clean power source that doesn’t require gas backup: nuclear.

@IanStockport @sjarichards @LoftusSteve Yes that would be extremely groovy. Let’s go Rolls Royce!!

@Hankey_Chief @sjarichards @LoftusSteve I hope the demand for SMR to power USA data centers will change economics.

@IanStockport @sjarichards @LoftusSteve Sure, but we have to work within the constraints of what we have. I doubt power demand is high enough to warrant enough nuclear plants to generate the scale needed to really lower costs. Maybe SMRs will do this but that remains to be seen

@Hankey_Chief @sjarichards @LoftusSteve That because we premit people who hate nuclear power to increase the cost of building nuclear power stations and we have a planning system the rewards creating paperwork.

@IanStockport @sjarichards @LoftusSteve Sure, but the nuclear power itself is frightfully expensive right now

@Hankey_Chief @sjarichards @LoftusSteve With Nuclear you only need about 12hr storage.

@forallcurious This is the correct flight path

Delicious

@clashreport Sorry to burst your bubble, but he knew it wasn’t a real Bible verse: x.com/efischberger/s…

Pete Hegseth quoted a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction during a Pentagon sermon.

@SingleTicket371 @Person012345 People people are against fracking

@Person012345 Yeah that’s already been explained to me in the replies… however, why can’t we produce our own natural gas in the UK??…

The UK produces pork and chicken and salad vegetables, what’s Iran got to do with it???!!!

“we should probably link pensions to wages” … be still my beating heart!

@essdeewickett A call for gothic perpendicular skyscrapers?

Dubaification of what was once the most beautiful nation on earth.

@DarrenBar88 If you think that’s good pay for a CEO, why dint you go and pitch to Tesco your skills? They can save several million on their wage bill which you could then use to reduce food prices!

People crying because a CEO would only get paid £140 an hour. £140 an hour!! An hour!!!

I guess a lot of people don’t understand that someone’s productivity can be over 10x higher than someone else’s, and that the work is such that it won’t be done without a proportionate incentive.

Remember that the UK Govt is reportedly considering introducing a requirement that architects be hired to submit any planning application? This is some nice revealed preference evidence of how much people *don't* want to live under such requirements.

@EllroyLove @Brewgaloo_ I think he’s actually encouraging you to report them in the second paragraph. He just doesn’t want to make the implication himself that they’re a criminal activity.

“Actually, I’m struggling to see the issue with Kurdish criminals operating in my town, what do you mean?”

Women bus and train drivers in Boston earn less than men, even in a unionized work place where conditions are all identical. It is difficult to think of this as being due to anything other than different preferences. Equalizing wages would make us worse off. 1/