Modern cynic. British/Italian Gen X guitarist, biker, father, wine drinker, cigar smoker FSU member
Wherever it matters
Joined April 2016
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#COP26 is not about climate. It's about asset stripping middle and working classes through the vehicle of carbon reduction. All it will achieve is poverty and enslavement
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
Your bank will no more pay the bank levy than your TV set pays the licence free, your car the road duty or your house the council tax.
This tax will fall on all of us as borrowers or depositors. Banks can only COLLECT taxes, not PAY them. All taxes fall on humans.
#Budget2026
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
The last Tory parliament was the worst on record for stagnant living standards.
Hold my beer, says this Labour Parliament.
We’re on track to be even worse.
Source: OBR
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
Je parle souvent de Gramsci. On me demande régulièrement pourquoi un patron de boîte d'IA cite un communiste italien mort en 1937.
Réponse simple : parce que c'est le type qui a écrit le mode d'emploi du monde dans lequel vous vivez.
Gramsci, en prison sous Mussolini, a compris un truc que Marx avait raté. Le pouvoir ne tient pas par la force. Il tient par le consentement. Et le consentement se fabrique dans les institutions : l'école, l'université, les médias, la culture.
Il appelait ça l'hégémonie. Le pouvoir le plus efficace est celui qu'on ne voit pas. Quand tes idées deviennent le "sens commun", tu n'as plus besoin de convaincre personne. Les gens pensent comme toi en croyant penser par eux-mêmes.
La méthode s'appelle la guerre de position. Pas de révolution, pas de barricades. On prend les tranchées une par une. Une salle des profs, une rédaction, un ministère, une subvention, une asso.
Et franchement, chapeau. Ça a tellement bien marché que plus personne ne voit que c'était un plan. Ça ressemble juste à "la normalité".
Résultat : on a fabriqué des armées entières de gens déconnectés du réel. Des journalistes qui n'ont jamais signé une fiche de paie de l'autre côté. Une partie de la jeunesse qui sait tout de l'oppression systémique et rien de la façon dont se crée une richesse. Des militants qui confondent indignation et compétence.
Personne ne leur a appris ce qu'est la création de valeur. On leur a appris à la redistribuer. À la taxer. À la soupçonner.
En France, c'est encore plus visible. L'État est en phase de cancer généralisé. Et un cancer nourrit ses propres cellules. Subventions, postes, comités, observatoires : la machine publique est devenue un système de perfusion pour les idées qui la maintiennent en vie.
Sauf qu'un organisme sous perfusion finit par perdre le contact avec l'extérieur. C'est exactement ce qu'on observe : des erreurs de communication de plus en plus crasses. Des sorties hors-sol. Des campagnes qui se retournent contre eux en 48h.
Je vous fais une prédiction. Dans les mois qui viennent, vous allez les voir de plus en plus agressifs.
Pas parce qu'ils sont méchants. Parce qu'ils ne comprennent pas ce qui leur arrive.
Ils sont sincèrement convaincus d'être dans le camp du bien. Toute leur vie, leur discours a été le sens commun. Applaudi à l'école, validé à la fac, récompensé en rédaction. Et d'un coup, ça n'imprime plus. Le réel répond. Les gens décrochent.
Quand on est persuadé d'avoir raison et que le monde arrête de vous écouter, il reste deux options : se remettre en question ou crier plus fort. Devinez laquelle est la plus confortable.
Mais voilà ce que personne ne dit. Quand leur monde va s'effondrer, quand la perfusion va être débranchée, il va y avoir un boulevard.
Pas pour les humilier. Pour leur dire la vérité : on vous a menti depuis l'enfance. Ce n'est pas votre faute. Et ça va aller.
On va vous apprendre ce qu'est la création de valeur. Ce qu'est le bon sens. Comment un pays s'enrichit, comment une boîte se construit, comment on remet un cerveau sur les rails.
Gramsci avait raison sur un point : tout se joue sur le sens commun. Il a juste oublié un détail. Le bon sens, lui, n'a jamais eu besoin de subventions.
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
Let me remove my economist hat for a second and make a comment which, speaking as an ordinary citizen in a personal capacity, might capture a lot of the frustration the British public has with this generation of policymakers.
How can it be that a new government with a £1.3 TRILLION budget (40% of GDP) sees ‘doing no harm’ as a good outcome for its first Budget when people are being told to stockpile three days’ worth of water and food in case of an emergency?
£1.3 TRILLION to spend this year, likely rising to north of £1.5 TRILLION by 2030, and the government argues it does not have the resources to take the necessary bold measures on energy security, defence and AI.
None of this is even remotely serious.
#Budget #Budget2026
@JohnHealey_MP @RobertJenrick @afneil @KemiBadenoch
Eye-catching policy tweaks will make headlines, but financial markets are likely to look through the noise and focus on three issues at today’s Budget:
1. Borrowing costs: UK benchmark interest rates are too high, crowding out private economic activity, and are caused by years of inflationary fiscal and regulatory policies. A good Budget would be one that allows markets to reduce the “moron premium” priced into UK debt.
2. Inflation impulses: The government’s planned deficit reduction should be disinflationary over the medium term. But any near-term giveaways to ease cost-of-living pressures that are not offset within this fiscal year would add to short-term inflation pressures, keeping benchmark rates elevated and heaping pressure on the Bank of England to tighten.
3. Issuance: Headroom above £15bn should draw a decent market reaction, and £20bn better still. But how much debt is issued around the rules matters more. “Your First Home” equity loans buy a financial asset, but require debt issuance to fund them in the first instance. Will Healey use this trick to finance other initiatives too? If gilt markets see heavy issuance on the horizon, even a positive surprise on the headroom number could see yields rise.
#healey #Budget #Budget2026
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
What Socialism Is.
Socialism is not a real model to be applied in the world – it is a contradictory rhetoric used to gain power over people, by manipulating those who are easiest to manipulate.
It is anti-life, because it contradicts reality. Its contradictions stay harmless only as long as it stays on paper. Try to implement it, and they come due.
It postulates equality – and produces the most unequal societies of all: the nomenklatura in its special shops, everyone else in the queue.
It says it frees the workers – and in 1980, ten million Polish workers had to rise up against the workers' state.
It postulates abundance – and gets rid of the people who produce it. Venezuela, sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, watched its people lose an average of eleven kilos in a single year.
It says the state will wither away – and builds the biggest state in history.
It postulates peace – and needs an enemy for every failure.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Needs, of course, especially of the immoral, are unlimited. Ability is punished.
Someone has to resolve these contradictions. In socialism, that someone is the police, by force. When the theory says one thing and reality another, it is never the theory that gets arrested.
That is why it is anti-life. Life works by getting reality right: every living thing survives because it reads the world correctly. Socialism switches off the instruments – prices that say what is scarce, profits and losses that say what works, free speech that says what is wrong. A society that can no longer see where it is going ends up where socialist societies always end up: first the queue, then the famine and the camp.
And yet it keeps coming back. Why? Because socialism is not an economic theory that failed. It is a technique of power that works. The economics always fails. The rhetoric never does – on those easiest to manipulate, and for those who rise by manipulating them.
Socialism has never delivered what it says. It has always delivered what it is for: power.
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
Socialism is not an economic theory that failed. It is a technique of power that works. The economics always fails. The rhetoric never does – on those easiest to manipulate, and for those who rise by manipulating them.
Socialism has never delivered what it says. It has always delivered what it is for: power.
What Socialism Is.
Socialism is not a real model to be applied in the world – it is a contradictory rhetoric used to gain power over people, by manipulating those who are easiest to manipulate.
It is anti-life, because it contradicts reality. Its contradictions stay harmless only as long as it stays on paper. Try to implement it, and they come due.
It postulates equality – and produces the most unequal societies of all: the nomenklatura in its special shops, everyone else in the queue.
It says it frees the workers – and in 1980, ten million Polish workers had to rise up against the workers' state.
It postulates abundance – and gets rid of the people who produce it. Venezuela, sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, watched its people lose an average of eleven kilos in a single year.
It says the state will wither away – and builds the biggest state in history.
It postulates peace – and needs an enemy for every failure.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Needs, of course, especially of the immoral, are unlimited. Ability is punished.
Someone has to resolve these contradictions. In socialism, that someone is the police, by force. When the theory says one thing and reality another, it is never the theory that gets arrested.
That is why it is anti-life. Life works by getting reality right: every living thing survives because it reads the world correctly. Socialism switches off the instruments – prices that say what is scarce, profits and losses that say what works, free speech that says what is wrong. A society that can no longer see where it is going ends up where socialist societies always end up: first the queue, then the famine and the camp.
And yet it keeps coming back. Why? Because socialism is not an economic theory that failed. It is a technique of power that works. The economics always fails. The rhetoric never does – on those easiest to manipulate, and for those who rise by manipulating them.
Socialism has never delivered what it says. It has always delivered what it is for: power.
Bookmark this as it's spot on. And *then* they will make an emergency budget asset stripping everyone with more than £1k in savings. Bookmark this too.
Budget Day will be bad, what comes next will be worse. Burnham will call an election, Tories will win back seats lost to Lib Dems who will disappear again, Reform will set a record for most second places and win fewer than 20 seats, SNP will be rampant in Scotland, Burnham will have a majority of c. 90.
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
The state is handing out billions of taxpayers’ cash to charities challenging political policy, writes @CharlotteCGill, and without effective democratic oversight
thecritic.co.uk/issues/novem…
You all thought I was unserious when I said I was ordering another 200 bottles of Nebbiolo and Rioja each.
It all adds up.
The Habanos, I can carry myself when I shop in Europe.
As you were.
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
Time to post my biannual “how artificially compressed are British wages”.
Rising minimum wage and a 50k+ p/a tax bracket that runs to 40% of earnings, and hasn’t adjusted for inflation. This form of artificial wage compression has turned everyone in Britain into low productivity tax cattle - you have zero incentive to become anything other here.
This is also a form of ambition and productivity compression.
Source, ONS, Fig 5: ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabo…
energy bills going UP by £250, from historical highs, so the Chancellor pulls all the stop to remove tariffs on gherkins so we can save £21 per year.
And you take them seriously.
That will help the over 1 million young people not in jobs or education. 🤦
EXCLUSIVE
John Healey will announce plans to increase the minimum wage by nearly 4 per cent but slow the rise for young people after warnings that they are being priced out of jobs
The Times has been told that the national living wage, which applies to those aged 21 and over, is expected to rise from £12.71 to around £13.20 — an increase of 3.9 per cent
However, Healey has decided not to repeat the big rises of the past two budgets in the national minimum wage, which applies to those aged 18 to 21
It will rise broadly in line with the rate for older workers - from £10.85 to around £11.27, an increase of 3.9 per cent
It effectively spells the end of Labour’s manifesto pledge to bring the “discriminatory” minimum wage for young people into line with the living wage for older workers in this parliament
The minimum wage increased by 26 per cent between 2025 and 2026, leading to stark warnings from employers that it risked impeding efforts to get 1 million “Neets” - young people not in education, employment or training - into work.
Healey alluded to the approach in an interview with The Times last week, in which he spoke of the importance of the “trade-off between the level of the minimum wage and the employment rate”
thetimes.com/article/c9142a2…
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
EXCLUSIVE
John Healey will announce plans to increase the minimum wage by nearly 4 per cent but slow the rise for young people after warnings that they are being priced out of jobs
The Times has been told that the national living wage, which applies to those aged 21 and over, is expected to rise from £12.71 to around £13.20 — an increase of 3.9 per cent
However, Healey has decided not to repeat the big rises of the past two budgets in the national minimum wage, which applies to those aged 18 to 21
It will rise broadly in line with the rate for older workers - from £10.85 to around £11.27, an increase of 3.9 per cent
It effectively spells the end of Labour’s manifesto pledge to bring the “discriminatory” minimum wage for young people into line with the living wage for older workers in this parliament
The minimum wage increased by 26 per cent between 2025 and 2026, leading to stark warnings from employers that it risked impeding efforts to get 1 million “Neets” - young people not in education, employment or training - into work.
Healey alluded to the approach in an interview with The Times last week, in which he spoke of the importance of the “trade-off between the level of the minimum wage and the employment rate”
thetimes.com/article/c9142a2…
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
I find these facts on the NEETs crisis truly shocking.
In parts of England, youth unemployment is worse than in Bulgaria or Slovenia.
A third of 16-24 year olds who aren’t in education are also not employed.
This week, the Government has got to tackle the moral crisis of youth unemployment in the Budget. Abolishing employers’ NICs for under-25s should be the first step. Only by reducing employment costs for businesses, especially SMEs, can we give young people the chance they deserve.
gbnews.com/money/budget-yout…
There is a brass neck and there's this.
We're past insulting voters here.
Where are the journalists taking this clownish caricature to task?
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
An oldie but a goodie. In 1968 a bunch of entitled hippy bastards sent a letter detailing their specious demands to the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford. This was their letter of reply, which speaks to how far the academy has since fallen.
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
Brutal chart.
France and UK vs. Communist countries at their peak.
UK public spending as % of GDP is currently above Romania, Venezuela and China.
And France is a lost cause.
(HM Treasury/Rand Research)
Radium Chaser #CFH retweeted
I wake up. I go on X.
Wes Streeting says we must be ready for war with Russia.
Fuck off.
The BBC says the riots across Europe are mostly peaceful.
Fuck off.
Mehdi Hasan whining about everyone being a racist.
Fuck off.
New poll shows Labour lead in the polls increasing.
Fuck off.
Sadiq Khan says Britain should rejoin the EU.
Fuck off.
… that’s an awful lot of fuck off for a Sunday morning.