This directly related to a long standing tradewar/mercantilism actions taken by China against Australia running over the past 2 years as punitive actions against the Aussie Gov’t.
If only they would just stop mining the coal and force people to use solar or something else.
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We already use a shitload of solar(In fact, it’s so common in residential properties that many power companies have more power surplus than they really know what to do with), and we can’t force anyone else(nations, that is) to do anything.
And we’re not going to be able to stop the coal being mined, because most of our richest assholes are heavily invested in, if not outright own, coal mines, and they’ve already bought the entirety of one of the two major parties, making it difficult if not impossible to stop them mining. Believe me, we’re trying, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
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Also more to the point, China mines the majority of the coal it uses for itself, it just needs so much that Australia’s coal export was like 10% of their sourcing and that still makes for a major impact if its not there due to a political decision.
FP just did a write up on it.
This seems like a big deal. Now do congress.
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Sorta?
Ok so what they’re saying is that big time employees at The Fed (the countries top banking regulator) have had limits put on what sorts of trades they can make.
Pros: this is good, I’m kinda astounded they didn’t have such regulations. I know someone who’s an executive at a broker dealer and because of it both her and her husband have limits on what they’re allowed to trade. (which in practice means they do like 2 or 3 trades a year because of how much of a hassle it is to get it approved)
Cons: Nobody I know of has really complained about employees of The Fed doing insider trading. The complaining has usually been that congress can do insider trading. This isn’t that.
Policymakers doesn’t mean your average senator or rep. It means some bureaucrat at an executive department.
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First we run out of chips. Then we run out of blue.
Insert domino meme here.
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I’m on backorder, duba dee duba dye
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Turkish inflation.
I really like this article examining the affordable housing crisis by looking deeply at a single example. In wealthy places like a ski town you have an area where very wealthy people live. Yet, all the people who work there live quite far away and have to commute in. The person who cleans the toilets in a ski town clearly does not make enough money to actually live there. We’ve historically seen the same thing in wealthy places like Monaco.
There are quite a few good ideas they are talking about here including deed restrictions, taxes, etc. However, the whole time I’m reading this I can’t help but think of the more obvious answer. Pay the workers enough to live where they work.
It’s the Iron Monkey principle. The same medicine is free for the man living in poverty, but is a very high price for the brothel owner. If someone waits tables, drives a bus, or cleans toilets in a wealthy town, they should be paid enough to afford to own a house in that town. A steak dinner in a town with a medium annual income of a $1 million should cost $1000+ (I didn’t actually do the math on that). The residents can afford it. You want to live here so bad? Prove it. Pay an exorbitant price for not just your home, but also everything else in life. Sell those investments. If you don’t want it that badly, then GTFO and the housing prices will correct themselves.
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I just watched some of the Simon Reeve documentary about the Lake District in the UK, and it kept touching on the same issues.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as “shops charge locals less and rich people more” because, in many villages, about 90% of the homes are now second homes and vacation rentals.
There used to be schools, but none of the seasonal visitors needs schools. There used to be post offices, but none of the services are needed by seasonal visitors.
Many of the rentals are self-catering, and everyone who visits comes by car, and drives into the bigger towns for the nicer restaurants, if they go out for food at all.
And then there are entire resorts that have full catering services, where each holiday home has its own chef!
There isn’t a single infrastructure that can service both the people coming for a week on holiday, those who have a second home that sits empty for 10 months a year, and the local population who remain in the last 10% of homes.
It would be great if a system like that could magically work, but the Lake District is a National Park, so the amount of development required for the economies of scale to work aren’t possible. It would take magic.
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Supply side inflation on Christmas trees.
I just use a fake tree. I store it up in the attic for most of the year, then bring it down every December.
Also…
Legit most of my dislike of christmas is how stressful and obnoxious setting up and having a christmas tree is.
Have used a fake tree for the past four years and it’s great. You genuinely don’t notice. If the smell is that important there are sprays.
I don’t use any tree. It’s amazing.
No tree cutting.
No plastic.
No mess.
Considering the inflation, Series I bonds have become pretty hot. I might buy some. This is not investment advice for anyone else. Just sharing my personal thoughts.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_glance.htm
I however do advise US citizens to create an account with treasurydirect.gov. As the name implies, this is an actual retail account directly with the US Treasury. At minimum, you can use the account to cash out savings bonds you may have received as gifts long ago, which is quite useful. You can also use it to directly digitally perform any transactions with the US Treasury that a normal person is allowed to do, mostly buying bonds and such. Even if you never use the account, it is likely to come in handy at some point in your life.
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So I guess this comes out…tomorrow on HBO Max.
