Interesting Links for 12-05-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Jodie Whittaker to narrate Tabby McTat for next Julia Donaldson Christmas short

(tags:animation cats TV )

2. Sand was not used to fill potholes along the coronation procession route

(tags:monarchy roads UK FactCheck )

3. Twitter will mark your account inactive after 30 days.

(tags:Twitter wtf )

4. The Asus ROG Ally beats the Steam Deck at all but the most important things

(tags:games review consoles )

5. Why inflation is so much worse in the UK than in the US and Europe

(tags:inflation uk economy europe )

Comments

3

[channelpenguin]

Ah. Great. So the account I created years ago to do a course that involved talking to the Twitter API, will now be cleared out and I'll stop getting spam mails from Twitter about stuff the few contacts I added post!

[ninetydegrees]

#4 Solid article, thanks. I've heard the same from other experts. Some had to reinstall the OS, things were buggy and/or unpractical in certain circumstances, and the Steam OS seems way more stable and reliable than Windows 11, which has already proved to be problematic for desktop PC players. However, I look forward to the next models that are gonna come out. Long-term, I think worldwide hardware companies can make better machines and offer better repair/customer services than Steam (which is doing its best but can't really compete in some countries).

[andrewducker]

Absolutely.

I'm really hoping that someone else produces another Linux one based on the same software as the Steam Deck, but with better hardware.

Or a box that plugs into my TV that does likewise.

The more competition the better.

[movingfinger]

2. I saw those patches on the road on TV and assumed that graffiti had been spray-painted over! Sand, of course!

[hairyears]

(5) The inflation article is good, but it's iNews and they're a little too polite when someone feeds them a story...

The UK's economy is less competitive than the USA, suppliers here have much better 'pricing power' - more so, after Brexit made it harder for European companies to compete - and we have a problem of price gouging from domestic cartels and monopolists.

The price shock that precipitated an inflation spiral in the UK was the energy bills last year - iNews' source skirts around it, and doesn't say 'regulatory capture' but it's there if you look - and they don't mention the influence of cartels in the the food supply chain.

The other side of it - which is also present in the US - is longstanding wage suppression in a labour market where unions have very little bargaining power: but there's a limit to how far living standards can fall, and how the far pay can fall below the 'living wage'.

The result, in the UK's unionised public sector, is widespread industrial action and more aggressive pay bargaining.

The result, in private sector companies who hare now competing for workers in a labour shortage - especially those companies who are finding it harder to import cheap labour from the poorer parts of the EU - is a competition for workers that they can only solve by raising wages...

Which looks like 'wage inflation', but isn't: the driver for the inflationary cycle is elsewhere.

...Or the companies hit hardest by labour shortages can contract, withdrawing from businesses that are now unprofitable, and redeploy their capital into rent-seeking.

That, too, is inflationary - despite the initial contractionary impact - because it pushes-up business costs and household costs everywhere else, even in a shrinking economy.


This is the spiral we call 'Stagflation'.

[channelpenguin]

Nice explanation.

So what are the (ordinary-people-friendly) ways out?

[hairyears]

Break-up monopolies and reverse the 'regulatory capture' that facilitated the disproportionate rise in energy costs for households and businesses.

Push back against rent-seeking with housebuilding, rent controls (and indirectly, with quality and liveability standards) and a shift in the taxation system to discourage rents and incentivise productive investments.

Enforce the minimum wage and workplace safety, and stop suppressing unions and collective bargaining: the current labour market squeeze is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pursue higher wages without risking inflation, because the inflationary pressures are elsewhere in the economy and can be mitigated by suppressing monopolistic price-gouging and reversing Brexit's barriers to trade.