Healey vows cheaper marmalade and gherkins in pre-Budget package
Marmalade, for example, will see a 20% tariff, plus an additional £19 charge per 100kg imported, suspended. Healey…
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Marmalade, for example, will see a 20% tariff, plus an additional £19 charge per 100kg imported, suspended. Healey…
The Treasury has announced the removal of import tariffs on over 100 products
Harvard economist Jason Furman told Axios that if he were to return to his old job as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers today, he would rely on AI tools over staff economists for much of the council's day-to-day analytical work.The big picture: Unsurprisingly, this made some waves in the online discourse, particularly the loose-knit community formerly known as Econ Twitter.Many veterans of the economic policy trenches see real risks in future policymakers becoming overly reliant on AI — or at a minimum think that Furman is underestimating the importance of human economists in advising the nation's leaders.What they're saying: "CEA work, at least in my experience, is highly bespoke as you're explaining the data flow (and much else) to very busy people who don't want only market-shop analysis," Jared Bernstein, the CEA chair under President Biden, wrote on Substack."Yes, they want and need that — what will the markets make of this CPI, jobs, GDP, etc. report — but more so they want to know how this report fits into our narrative, our agenda, the president's trip today to Iowa."He adds that within a White House, "the human skill of reading-the-room is paramount.
I'm far from an AI expert, but my sense is it sucks at that and probably always will, a conclusion that derives in no small part from listening to its creators!"Zoom in: Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist, raised an issue that we've often heard from senior people in fields like consulting and investment banking: If you get rid of junior positions, where will future senior leaders come from?Furman's staff "went on to found the Yale Budget Lab, run Treasury economic policy and a Fed institute, serve in later [administrations], and publish research on trade, environment, and taxes.
That's what '20 staff' become," she wrote on X. "No model does that."Bloomberg chief U.S. economist Anna Wong argues that the "ability to now not depend on anyone, as a senior person, is very, very empowering. Now, with just the idea, a senior person can go far."Zoom out: "Entering into sci fi speculation," Wong wrote on X, "as humans [we're] not about to replace the aging experts due to low pipeline of young human experts, AI themselves, through the training over the years, became the one spawning the ideas.""That seems like a disaster waiting to happen that current social policy needs to address."Yes, but: Casey Mulligan, who served in President Trump's first-term CEA and now as chief economist at the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the implications of AI for human labor in policymaking are not so obvious."I built AI tools at two federal offices," Mulligan wrote on X. "Able to do economic research better and more quickly, we needed more economists rather than fewer due to the added demand for what we do.
This pattern is also evident in the small business sector."This concept — that labor-saving tools can actually increase demand for labor — is known as Jevons Paradox.The bottom line: "Be the labor-augmenting technological change you want to see in the world," wrote Stanford economist Neale Mahoney."It's on us olders to build organizations where people and AI complement each other, and to prepare the youngers for a world with better and better AI," he adds.
Government weighs lowering 12.5% capital gains levy, allowing foreign investors to calculate gains in dollar terms
Chancellor John Healey is expected to announce an investment boost, and modest tax rises, as he seeks to placate the City.
PARIS — French student leaders said the government had offered a package of education proposals on Monday in response to weeks of street protests, but vowed to keep demonstrating as the measures had fallen short of their demands. Emerging from a meeting with government officials, the students said the proposals included capping the size of some classes, loans for renovating schools and the replacement of a university admissions system they saw as unfair.
"Not all our demands were met. We'll go on for as long as it takes," Louis Letoublon, one of the representatives of high school students, said. There was no immediate confirmation of the education proposals from the government. A press conference to announce the details was delayed.
There were no immediate details on how much funding any such education package would require. The hands of President Emmanuel Macron's minority government are tied by national debt approaching 120 percent of GDP and high new borrowing needs already making it difficult to agree a budget for next year.
The protests, initially triggered by student discontent, h
Oakland city council members could get a $108,000 pay and benefits bump as the city deals an illegal dumping epidemic, high crime, a homelessness crisis and a structural budget deficit.
Investors had been positioned for victory by rightwing Bolsonaro, seen as more willing to tackle budget deficit
Exclusive: Ahead of Wednesday’s Budget an influential group of female Labour MPs will publish a collection of essays telling the chancellor that he needs to make the economy work better for women if they want economic growth
Meta says share sale will support its “continued investment in AI infrastructure and personal superintelligence”, as Elon Musk warns some AI cloud computing firms face ‘guppy-level death’UK government borrowing costs are dropping this morning, a welcome sign ahead of Wednesday’s budget.The yield (or interest rate) on 10 and 30-year UK gilts have both dropped by around three basis points (0.03 of a percentage point) this morning.Issuing loans to public financial institutions creates a financial asset that offsets the increase in outstanding government debt.
If the investments that the PuFins make generate sufficient returns for the PuFins to repay their government loans, then long term debt sustainability is little affected.Limited transparency and the risk that the PuFins may suffer impairments on their investments will probably make bond market investors skeptical of the extra gilt issuance.
Chancellor Healey should avoid a big increase in gilt issuance to fund such intra-public sector lending.Nebius, CoreWeave and Iren were slammed in premarket trading on Monday after SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said more than 200 neoclouds are “going to see guppy-level death and consolidation.”That’s the guppy fish – prone to suddenly dying in household fisk tanks – not the GBPJPY FX cross...In a post on X Musk said “debt markets have almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers”.
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EU exit has damaged economy and failed to bring promised benefits, says PM, but he rules out big pre-election changesUK politics live – latest updatesEurope live – latest updatesBrexit has not “played out” like it was promised to the public, has weakened the economy and the current deal is not good enough, Andy Burnham has said, while ruling out any major changes in the current parliament.The prime minister said Britain had ended up with a “harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign” and it had not helped to control the small boats crisis.
Backing the home secretary’s tougher immigration rules, he said Brexit had weakened the UK’s ability to control its borders as it could no longer send people back to Europe. Continue reading...
PM says talking about changing the relationship with the bloc would not be divisive but ‘can start to bring people together’Good morning. Andy Burnham started budget week with an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley. There were plenty of decent lines in it, but some of his most intriguing comments were about Brexit.
Yesterday opposition parties (and even in private some Labour MPs) were criticising the PM for saying in a Sunday Times interview that he would be willing to consider going into the next election proposing accepting EU free movement rules. This was treated as if it was a novel outrage – even though at Labour conference Burnham announced that rejoining the EU could end up as the best option to emerge from his proposed renegotiation of the Brexit settlement, which of course would automatically involve accepting free movement.Neil Kinnock said recently he thought Burnham was determined to take Britain back in the EU, but in his interview this morning Burnham insisted that he was not dogmatic in that way.
When Madeley asked him if he saw himself as someone “destined” to be the PM would take Britain back in, Burnham replied:Honestly, I don’t.I see it as my job to be pragmatic about the whole situation. Can I make it work better? Can I add growth to the British economy?I’ve said – I’m going to be honest – in my lifetime I would like to see that happen, but I am not going to move ahead of the public.
I am not going to dictate in terms of my own opinions here. You have to make sure that the British public are the bosses here.And [to] go back to Brexit, by just talking about it in a more practical way, by being honest about it … that can start to bring people together who voted in different ways.The divides that we’ve lived through in the last decade really do need to end, and we need to pull people together …My mind is not on that [an early election].
I don’t know if that is coming over here, but it genuinely is not on that. There is no election coming anytime soon. People may as well just put that out of their mind. Continue reading...
Back in Healey’s time under Gordon Brown, there was no OBR. Back then it was not unknown for…
Heather Stewart | Blaming a moribund economy on too many rules is a hackneyed neoliberal trope – UK plc needs smarter regulation, not less regulationBefore becoming prime minister, Andy Burnham pledged to “end 40 years of neoliberalism”. But as he prepares for his first budget on Wednesday, his government is yet to let go of one of its most tedious cliches: red tape.In the run up to chancellor John Healey’s high-stakes Commons address, the government issued a press release last week promising his plans would include measures to “slash the red tape choking firms”.
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