Advertising copywriter living in Singapore Inc. Opinions my own. Whose did you expect? #COYI 🇺🇦 🇮🇱
Joined May 2012
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Nicholas Cocks retweeted
Sir John Cowperthwaite ran Hong Kong's finances from 1961 to 1971 and treated regulation like a tax on discovery. Nobody in government can know which business will work, so he refused to pick, plan, or protect.
Whitehall sent officials to Hong Kong to push for economic statistics, and he sent them home. When Milton Friedman asked in 1963 why he collected so little data, Cowperthwaite answered: "If I let them compute those statistics, they'll want to use them for planning." Numbers give planners a reason to act, and every plan arrives as a rule that tells entrepreneurs what they may not try. Asked what poor countries should do to grow, he said they should abolish the office of national statistics.
He rebuffed tariffs, opposed corporate subsidies, and refused London's push to raise taxes. When a legislator proposed that the government back promising industries, he asked how the government could possibly know which ones those were.
The results arrived without a plan. During his decade as Financial Secretary, real wages rose 50% and the share of residents in acute poverty fell from 50% to 15%. When he took the job, the average Hong Kong resident earned about a quarter of what a Briton earned. By the early 1990s, Hong Kongers out-earned Britons. Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, planned its economy with ministries full of statisticians and fell behind a rock with no resources except a harbor.
Every regulation assumes a regulator who knows which experiments to allow. That regulator does not exist, so each gate he builds blocks the ideas nobody in the room could have predicted. Hong Kong's most valuable policy was the absence of a gatekeeper.
As far as civil servants go, this guy is the GOAT.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
Whas happened in the South from Virginia to S Carolina to Texas . LBJ knew he'd lost the south by supporting the Civil Rights Act and Voting Act - it's taken 60 years for that to go into reverse - and a glorious thing that it has. In Georgia, a black Governor...
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
Republicans have lost South Carolina Senate race and are about to lose Texas Senate seat too.
The loss of Texas is entirely down to Trump. Texas had an incumbent Republican Senator who would have been re-elected. But he did not kowtow enough to Trump.
So Trump had him replaced as the Republican candidate by the odious Ken Paxton. Hence Democratic Talarico is about to become the new Senator.
That long-awaited Democratic breakthrough has finally happened, courtesy of Trump.
The Democrats might even win the governorship.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
My late mother was a professional opera singer, whose favorite aria was Nessun Dorma.
Anyway, we watched the 1998 Grammy Awards together because her favorite opera singer, Luciana Pavorotti was scheduled to sing, but at the last minute, he had to cancel due to a sore throat, and with a half hour notice, Aretha Franklin agreed to step in and sing, even though it wasn't her key, and she had no time to rehearse.
This brought the audience to tears.
Watch this amazing performance by the Queen of Soul.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
Trump promised his $920 billion corporate tax break would create jobs. Another lie.
Amazon
Tax break: $17.5 billion
Job cuts: 30,000
Meta
Tax break: $13.7 billion
Job cuts: 10,000
Verizon
Tax break: $2.5 billion
Job cuts: 15,000
UPS
Tax break: $130 million
Job cuts: 78,000
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
AI is as conscious as a teaspoon.
We used to lock up people who thought inanimate objects were alive.
It's time we started doing that again.
Almost nobody worries that AlphaFold "might be conscious. That’s because AlphaFold predicts protein structures, whereas LLMs ‘talk’ to us. The compelling illusion of consciousness created by linguistic fluency just isn’t there for AlphaFold" @anilseth & al
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
If Musk is responsible for weakening Ukraine's defenses at this critical time, his businesses need to be excluded from any critical infrastructure in Europe. Not as a sanction, but as self-protection.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
A historic video of America’s betrayal – November 22, 1994.
The U.S. President thanks Ukraine for giving up its nuclear weapons. In return, the U.S. promises to stand by Ukraine’s side to safeguard its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
But instead of defending Ukraine, Trump and his administration have sided with the aggressor against Ukraine.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
The kompromat Russia has on trump must be insane.
Breaking News: President Trump signed an executive order to exempt Russia from new sanctions legislation that Congress passed last month. nyti.ms/4zDoByS
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
‘Effective immediate’ Trump wrote on ‘Truth Social’ at the weekend. ‘There is an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Both sides have agreed.’
Not a single word of that post is true.
There is no energy ceasefire. It is not effective immediate.
Ukraine has agreed in principle. But Trump’s pal Putin has not.
Pal Putin refused when Trump last said there was an energy ceasefire (Sept 14 — bollocks then, bollocks now).
Russia is still trying to cripple Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in advance of winter.
There have been 196 Russian attacks on Ukrainian electricity in the past week. They continue. Over 20 attacks on Ukrainian oil and gas. They continue.
And 153 Ukrainians, mainly civilians, killed in these and other attacks on residential areas.
Yet Trump calls for Zelensky to be deposed, blames him for war continuing, high energy prices (NOT his failing war on Iran!).
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
It's all been bullshit. All of it. Diesel, energy deals, peace negotiations, everything between Trump Co. and Putin's mafia is a charade. All they're doing is laundering money and trying to lift sanctions. It's all they care about and all they know how to do.
The Trump/Putin deal gets worse. According to reports, the US was also offering $100 billion of frozen assets (that are in the custody of the EU) in exchange for a limited ceasefire. kyivpost.com/post/86720
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
The President of the United States has announced, with obvious pride, that he phoned Vladimir Putin and asked him for fuel. He calls it a great success. It is the richest country on earth going cap in hand to the man who bombs Ukrainian cities every night, because diesel became expensive before an election.
For four years Europe paid more for its energy, housed millions of refugees and emptied its arsenals so that Putin would not be rewarded. Washington has now concluded that all of it matters less than a cheaper tank for a truck in Ohio, and has told Ukraine to stop hitting the refineries that pay for the war.
This used to be the country others measured themselves against. Its remaining admirers are in Moscow and Pyongyang, and it has become exactly the kind of shithole it used to sneer at.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
Trump doesn't want to hide anymore. He is Putin's business partner (a junior one!) and thus an accomplice in Russian crimes against humanity in Ukraine. And a reminder to members of Trump's administration, especially those who are planning to run for their boss's office in 2028—you will not be able to wash the blood of innocent Ukrainians from your hands. We see you and we will not forget, forgive, or let anyone else forget.
According to the Kremlin, today’s phone call between Putin and Trump lasted 1.5 hours. It was friendly — neither wanted to hang up first.
“I’m ready to keep talking with Vladimir Putin today, this evening, tonight, and tomorrow,” Ushakov quoted Trump.
Trump warmly congratulated Putin on his birthday, wished him success and well-being, and passed on greetings from the First Lady.
Im going to be sick 🤢
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
Every single visitor to Singapore this week should be told that the haze originates from Indonesia.
Explain to them how an incompetent state fails to prevent deliberate slash and burn land clearing fires.
Humiliate and shame Indonesia on the world stage.
No better time than now , when the entire global business and tourist community are in Singapore.
When the cameras are broadcasting F1 to the world , make sure the commentators mention “The Indonesian Government has failed to prevent this toxic haze “.
Do it frequently
Let the world see the incompetence of Indonesia with their own eyes.
Nicholas Cocks retweeted
The elites of Victorian Britain got up late, drank ceaselessly, worked short hours, partied through the night, and knew nothing about science, technology or engineering. And yet, by their own lights, they were hugely effective.
worksinprogress.co/issue/the…
The Victorians are often held up as a model against the supposedly soft, feckless, humanities-educated elites of today. But I argue that the genius of their system may have been its drastic weighting towards soft skills, team-building and intra-elite networking:
- A Victorian’s gentleman’s office hours typically began about 11am and finished about 5pm, including a multi-course lunch with wine.
- Upper-class Victorians drank ceaselessly. Conduct guides recommended four or five glasses of wine at dinner *for married women*. Port was often served in pints.
- Party culture was intense and nocturnal. Balls started at about 10pm, peaked after 1am, and continued till dawn. During the social season, bankers, judges and politicians might go to several balls per week.
- Elite Victorians learnt almost no STEM at school or university. At least half of class time was given over to ancient languages, often as much as 80 percent. One leading educationalist remarked that it was not worth teaching science to gentlemen because it does not involve ‘continued reasoning’.
- Sports and character formation were valued far above transmitting facts. A top headmaster described his school’s priorities as ‘First – character, second – physique, third – intelligence, fourth – manners, fifth – information’.
This cannot have made elite Victorians more productive individually, but maybe the dense social and emotional network it created helped them to work as a sort of extended team.
Perhaps we should think again about what makes groups of people effective.
