(@iclee3)

@iclee3

If a troll is trying to waste your time geting you into stupid arguments about nothing, if you argue with them, they're winning and you're losing. Im happy to have good faith debates. Bad faith accounts will be muted and reported. DMs disabled.

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iclee3@iclee3· Jun 22

Liz Truss speaking at a function. A banner is unfurling behind her. It shows a lettuce with eyes stuck on, with the caption 'I crashed the economy'.

iclee3@iclee3· Jun 19

No they wouldn't. Burnham beat Reform and Restore combined. He got 54% of the vote. Reform and Restore combined got 42%. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Labour won 54% of the vote to Reform UK’s 35%, while Restore Britain secured 7%. Turnout was 58.75% – six points up on the general election, with 45,510 votes cast.

iclee3@iclee3· Jun 14

Highlighted text

"Had the major parties met people’s material needs, no operation would have been able to take hold in this way. Both things are true at once.

A polity that values its democratic nature needs to respond to this infiltration accordingly:
- with exposure,
- with regulation of the entities and platforms that fuel it, and
- with fixing the material conditions that underpin it."

iclee3@iclee3· Jun 8

Except that if your job is in London, you will probably pay more for train fares to get to work (even with a season ticket), than you save on rent.

Screenshot of National Rail season ticket cost from Chelmsford to London, travelling in 5 days per week. Annual ticket £5204.00, monthly ticket £499.60.

iclee3@iclee3· May 25

Its what you wrote. Your example was 'State-controlled economy (USSR/ N Kor)' Renationalising selected industries is a very different to a 'state-controlled economy (USSR/ N Kor)'. They are different classifications, mixed v centrally-planned economies. So this doesn't support your argument.

Screenshot of previous posts, highlighting

'The strong emotional attachment to a dogma outweighs anything that can disprove it.'

from first post,

and 'State-controlled economy (USSR/ N Kor)' from third post, given as an example in the third post. The third post was a response to a second post asking for examples of left issues.

iclee3@iclee3· Apr 17

Still running? The article shows the date it was published - in 2023.

iclee3@iclee3· Mar 17

There is a good inflation explainer in this article from the UK. www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/08... @richardjmurphy.bsky.social @grogsgamut.bsky.social

There are essentially three ways we get inflation.

One is excess demand, so too much new money chasing too few goods.

Then there are supply shortages, meaning there are too few goods for existing money to buy.

And last there are political shocks which change the relative value of a country's money compared to other countries, importing inflation as a result through changes in the exchange rate.

iclee3@iclee3· Mar 17

No, raising interest rates is a completely inappropriate response. It only addresses inflation caused by excess demand, not supply shock inflation. There is nothing monetary policy can do to address that. But the rate rises will do other harm to the economy. www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/08...

So the question is, are interest rate rises the way to tackle supply chain shortage induced inflation? To put it another way, would they increase the number of lorry drivers? Clearly not. And can increasing mortgage rates control the demand for food? Again, obviously not: people have to eat.

So what would increasing rates for this reason do? It would push people already on tight household budgets because of food price increases into even harder economic scenarios, and may lead to mortgage and debt defaults, with all their consequences.

So what an interest rate rise to tackle inflation resulting from supply shortage issues will not do is change the demand for food or make lorries move. So a rate rise will not solve any problem, but it will increase the financial stress in the economy, considerably.

The real way to tackle supply chain problems is to fix them. In other words, training, investment and a more flexible migration policy are required. That's down to fiscal policy (or government spending) and politics then. Monetary policy can do nothing about these issues.

iclee3@iclee3· Mar 1

Labour in general, and Starmer the PM in particular, are both very unpopular. Labour won in 2024 with a historically low vote share in the low 30s. Their vote share is now 18%. Starmer has a net approval of -57. Only Liz Truss has gone lower. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

iclee3@iclee3· Apr 27

Reducing the deficit is contractionary fiscal policy. Source www.imf.org/en/Publicati... 1/2

GDP = C + I + G + NX.

On the left side is GDP—the value of all final goods and services produced in the economy. On the right side are the sources of aggregate spending or demand—private consumption (C), private investment (I), purchases of goods and services by the government (G), and exports minus imports (net exports, NX). This equation makes it evident that governments affect economic activity (GDP), controlling G directly and influencing C, I, and NXindirectly, through changes in taxes, transfers, and spending. Fiscal policy that increases aggregate demand directly through an increase in government spending is typically called expansionary or “loose.” By contrast, fiscal policy is often considered contractionary or “tight” if it reduces demand via lower spending.

iclee3@iclee3· Apr 27

People may be overestimating the damage Trump is doing to the world economy. The US is just under 15% of the world economy. Therefore over 85% of the world economy is continuing to trade as normal (source www.imf.org/external/dat...). 2/2

GDP based on PPP, share of world. The US is 14.75%. Therefore the rest of the world is over 85%

iclee3@iclee3· Apr 14

No, the one of the posts states he can be considered honest when he is factually wrong if he is "sincerely expressing his belief". If he says sonething he knows is false, he is not sincerely stating his belief, even if he is perceived as honest. 1/2

Full text

Under the first approach, Donald Trump cannot be considered honest.
But under the other approach he can be considered honest even if he is speaking a falsehood because he is sincerely expressing his belief even if it is false.

Highlighted section

because he is sincerely expressing his belief

iclee3@iclee3· Mar 11

It looks like most of Musk's wealth is the result of a bubble built on vapourware. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

Tesla’s electric-vehicle business accounts for almost all of its revenue but less than a quarter of its stock-market value, according to a Reuters review of more than a dozen analyses by banks and investment firms. The bulk of its worth rests on hopes for autonomous vehicles Tesla hasn't yet delivered, despite Musk's promises in every year since 2016 that driverless Teslas would arrive no later than the following year.

Tesla’s forward PE ratio is more than nine times the average of the next 25 most-valuable automakers.

iclee3@iclee3· Feb 20

@andreashopf.bsky.social In the post in this exchange before your first reply, @christanwind.bsky.social says 'My hunch is to listen more ...', the opposite of unwillingness to listen.

Screenshot of four posts in the converstaion. leading to accusation of unwillingness to listen. The first post explicitly talks about needing to listen.

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 31

Markets aren’t designed to solve national challenges. They’re designed to maximize profits. Left unchecked, they prioritize short-term gains over long-term resilience. That’s why our companies spend more on stock buybacks than on R&D. That’s why our healthcare system costs nearly $5 trillion a year while delivering worse outcomes than those of many developed nations. It’s why our infrastructure projects often cost multiple times more per mile than comparable projects in China.

America wasn’t built by waiting for markets to fix everything. The transcontinental railroad, rural electrification, the arsenal of democracy, the Apollo program—these weren’t miracles of the invisible hand. They were the result of collective action, guided by a clear national purpose.

The Chinese understand this. They have taken our old playbook and made it their own. While we’ve dismantled our capacity, they’ve built theirs. They’ve linked innovation to production, creating systems where engineers, manufacturers, and thinkers work together to solve problems in real time. That’s why they’re outpacing us—not because they’re stealing ideas, but because they’ve embraced the tools we abandoned.

If we want to compete, we need to stop waiting for markets to save us. We need a national strategy to rebuild our industrial base, invest in critical industries, and tie public spending to measurable outcomes. Both government and corporations must be held accountable for delivering results. Most importantly, we need to reject the myth that markets alone will lead us to prosperity.

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 27

The obsession with 'balancing the books' has led to Reeves setting a contractionary fiscal policy, in particular holding down government spending, which is working in textbook fashion to constrain growth. I'm astounded she doesn't seem to realise this. www.imf.org/en/Publicati...

Fiscal policy is often considered contractionary or “tight” if it reduces demand via lower spending.

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 23

@wynterwytch.bsky.social‬ is right. The bill doesn't mention control. As it is currently written, it would also make wet dreams illegal. Also, going to the toilet, coughing or sneezing, which all release bacteria, which contain genetic material. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK790...

It shall be unlawful for a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.

The genetic material of bacteria and plasmids is DNA.

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 23

When is anybody going to ask Reeves how she is expecting to generate economic growth when her fiscal policy settings - cutting expenditure and raising taxes - are contractionary? They are working exactly as the textbook says they should - reducing economic growth. www.imf.org/en/Publicati...

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 15

Economic policies that fuel inequality do not win elections. A much better way for the right wing to win elections is to start culture wars

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 13

If you tax people with a low marginal propensity to consume, i.e. generally higher incomes, you really substitute one form of money destruction, taxes, for another, deposit taking, with close to zero net effect. 2/2 www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/...

Consumers repaying loans are the
most significant way in which bank deposits are
destroyed in the modern economy. But they are far from the
only way. Deposit destruction will also occur any
time the banking sector (including the central bank)
sells existing assets

iclee3@iclee3· Jan 13

Does Keir Starmer understand that government spending cuts are a contractionary fiscal policy, which is diametrically opposed to his mission of creating economic growth? www.imf.org/en/Publicati...