zugzwang

Go, New York!

Which is tragic. Since gun control, socialism and AOC are very things that would improve their lives beyond all recognition. Climate change is considered to be a factor in the latest Covid spike as a/c herds Floridans indoors for days on end to escape the remorseless heat.

Catastrophe in the making in Israel. They missed the opportunity to achieve Zero Covid in June. Since then they've gone from fewer than one case/million to more than 200 cases/million, or 2,000 cases/day.

New hospitalisation records in Florida. https://www.livemint.com/news/world/florida-again-breaks-record-for-covid-19-hospitalisations-11628001395414.html The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida rose to an all-time high of 11,515 patients in one day, according to data the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released Tuesday. The data is used by the Florida Hospital Association to track admissions and staffing shortages. The figures also show 2,400 of those patients are in ICU beds. The previous day, the data showed there were 10,389 COVID-hospitalizations in the state. The new number breaks a previous record for current hospitalizations set more than a year ago before vaccines were available. Last year, Florida hit its previous peak on July 23, with 10,170 hospitalizations. Hospitals around the state report having to put emergency room visitors in beds in hallways and others document a noticeable drop in the age of patients.

It is extraordinary, isn't it? Ten years on from the GFC and an employee of one of the chief villains is now Chancellor of the Exchequer, pumping up a third housing bubble.

Love to know what Richey Rish actually did at Goldmans. Was he mispricing CDOs front of house, or shorting them into extinction in the basement?

That's deeply unfair. Global Britain aka 'China First' has been a resounding success... for China.

Twenty years and three housing bubbles later, and you're still here? 👏 👏 👏

A windfall tax on bank profits would be preferable.

You had a chance to vote for something better. Twice. Mainstream European democratic socialism.

Sucking up to China? Is that now a thing to be frowned upon? Does the UK have a new "special relationship?" That's what some are wondering as China's President Xi Jinping visits London and Manchester this week on a four-day trip that includes a ceremonial gun salute, an address to the UK's Parliament and meetings with three generations of the Royal Family as well as lodging in Buckingham Palace. "The UK has stated that it will be the Western country that is most open to China," Xi told Reuters ahead of his first visit to the country as president. "This is a visionary and strategic choice that fully meets Britain's own long-term interest." UK Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking on CCTV, China's state broadcaster, said the visit would mark a "golden era" in the two countries' relationship. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/19/world/uk-china-xi-jinping/index.html

Yes.

HSBC: £8bn profit - tick! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58051818 Profits at banking giant HSBC more than doubled in the first half of the year as it benefited from an economic rebound in Britain and Hong Kong. Europe's biggest bank by assets saw pre-tax profit for the period rise to $10.8bn (£7.8bn), compared to $4.3bn for the same time last year. The UK-based bank said all regions had been profitable in the period. The figures come as the global economy emerges from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. "I'm pleased with the momentum generated around our growth and transformation plans, with good delivery against all four pillars of our strategy. In particular, we have taken firm steps to define the future of our US and continental Europe businesses", said HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn. The lender highlighted that its UK bank had reported profit before tax of more than $2.1bn in the period.

It's not your money once you've handed it over to a bank.

A recent-ish (2014) paper from Sornette. 1980–2008: The Illusion of the Perpetual Money Machine and What It Bodes for the Future by Didier Sornette 1,2,* and Peter Cauwels 1 Abstract: We argue that the present crisis and stalling economy that have been ongoing since 2007 are rooted in the delusionary belief in policies based on a “perpetual money machine” type of thinking. We document strong evidence that, since the early 1980s, consumption has been increasingly funded by smaller savings, booming financial profits, wealth extracted from house price appreciation and explosive debt. This is in stark contrast with the productivity-fueled growth that was seen in the 1950s and 1960s. We describe the transition, in gestation in the 1970s, towards the regime of the “illusion of the perpetual money machine”, which started at full speed in the early 1980s and developed until 2008. This regime was further supported by a climate of deregulation and a massive growth in financial derivatives designed to spread and diversify the risks globally. The result has been a succession of bubbles and crashes, including the worldwide stock market bubble and great crash of October 1987, the savings and loans crisis of the 1980s, the burst in 1991 of the enormous Japanese real estate and stock market bubbles, the emerging markets bubbles and crashes in 1994 and 1997, the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis of 1998, the dotcom bubble bursting in 2000, the recent house price bubbles, the financialization bubble via special investment vehicles, the stock market bubble, the commodity and oil bubbles and the current debt bubble, all developing jointly and feeding on each other until 2008. This situation may be further aggravated in the next decade by an increase in financialization, through exchange-traded-funds (ETFs), speed and automation, through algorithmic trading and public debt, and through growing unfunded liabilities.