John Stepek

RT @Frencheconomics: Agreed. De-equitisation by UK pension funds, US economic exceptionalism and the imbalance between the corporate report…

RT @Frencheconomics: It was a pleasure to join @SallyBundockBBC earlier to preview today’s UK Spending Review. I retain the view that this…

I fear the "death" of writing would matter, because I can't think of any other process that clarifies one's own thinking in the same way. I do recognise that I may be wrong/biased. But I find that writing is a scaffold to thought and I have found no decent substitute.

Matt Ridley @mattwridley

Just as writing made memorising and reciting redundant, And printing made scribes redundant, So video and audio are slowly making writing redundant. As a writer that hurts. But does it matter in the end? Genuine question.

I do think this is bad. But it's a result of the explosion in the volume of on-demand entertainment. Eg when I was young, kids' TV was both time (Saturday AM) and place (in front of the telly) specific. Also video games have advanced to the point where they have much wider appeal

James Marriott @j_amesmarriott

Children's reading falls to all time low. The post-literate society is well on its way https://t.co/2EGGfBlLxo

RT @Sam_Dumitriu: There is a common view that the only way London can meet its housing target is through massive subsidies. This is nuts.…

Ah fiscal drag - one day everyone in the UK will be a 40% taxpayer, even the unemployed

Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist

‘Half a million more pensioners to lose winter fuel payments by 2030’ https://t.co/mziNW3afF3 Govt figures showed no. gaining immediately but costs in 2029. £35k limit is frozen. So costs higher immediately and number gaining smaller in future. Could have been more transparent

RT @Frencheconomics: In 22 of the last 28 months the first estimate of PAYE employment has underestimated what is now estimated as total PA…

The UK market has seen 30 bids this year, and one IPO, reports Peel Hunt. As @MerrynSW explains in today's Money Distilled, this matters. The government must step up as UK public markets wither, rather than falling for private equity's dubious charms. https://t.co/1Wdg0C5lMr

RT @julianHjessop: FYI, here's a longer comment on today's UK labour data... 🤔 (TL;DR - higher payroll costs = fewer jobs) The slump in t…

Absolute credit to @SophyRidgeSky for not dignifying this nonsense, but also the fact she can do it so bluntly shows how much the story stretches credulity

Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge @SkyPoliticsHub

"I really don't say this lightly, but I don't believe that's the truth for why you've reversed this" @SophyRidgeSky challenges Treasury Minister @jamesmurray_ldn on the government's winter fuel payment U-turn. #PoliticsHub https://t.co/GlTNastFii 📺 Sky 501 and YouTube https://t.co/FpqoXQb9VT

RT @julianHjessop: Ouch - provisional HMRC PAYE data suggest that payroll employment fell by 109,000 in May 🙄 This is what happens when an…

UK wage inflation (quarter to Apr '25): bit weaker than expected Regular pay +5.2% y-o-y (previous 5.5%); +2.1% in real terms (using CPI) Pay inc. bonuses +5.3% y-o-y (previous 5.6%); +2.3% real Public sector 5.6% (5.5%); private 5.1% (5.6%) (both ex-bonuses)

"AIs are just sophisticated pattern-spotting machines!" "And what, pray, are you?"

Ruben Hassid @RubenHssd

BREAKING: Apple just proved AI "reasoning" models like Claude, DeepSeek-R1, and o3-mini don't actually reason at all. They just memorize patterns really well. Here's what Apple discovered: (hint: we're not as close to AGI as the hype suggests) https://t.co/9A4Lg5aQWO

Talk about top notch trolling

Keir Starmer @Keir_Starmer

The Tories left us with a £22 billion black hole. My government has fixed the foundations of our economy. We now have the highest growth in the G7, four interest rate cuts, and we have signed three trade deals to protect jobs and put more money in your pockets. The economy is

RT @Frencheconomics: Whilst not macroeconomic significant, it speaks to a problem that if Chancellors/PMs can’t find it politically intoler…

RT @LampLighterBot: @John_Stepek It's actually policy failure layered upon policy failure. It's a crutch to cover up the fact we have the…

Cf child benefit

Vicky Spratt @Victoria_Spratt

A pension-age household of two people with a combined income of just under £70,000 will receive a winter fuel payment. This is going to become increasingly harder to justify when young adults in work who earn less receive no support at all despite having higher housing costs.