Josh Trimble retweeted
Excellent article in the Wall Street Journal on Britain's unsustainable welfare spending:
— 7 million people (over 10% of the UK population) now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefit. This is up 60% in the past 6 years.
— The UK will spend over £100 billion pound this year on sickness and disability benefits. This is projected to increase to £130 billion a year by 2030.
— No other Western country has seen such a rise in disability claims. In the US, 10.6 million people claim some form of federal disability payment, despite the population being 5x larger.
— 1 in 7 new cars sold in the UK are under the Motability scheme; however, only 10% of cars are modified for a disability. In one dealership, 25 out of 26 cars they sold in August were all under the Motability scheme.
— Charities, consultants, YouTubers and TikTokers have all sprung up, telling people how to maximise benefit access. Some of these videos receive hundreds of thousands of views. Over 1,000 people a day are signing on for PIP.
— According to a Government survey from 2024, 25% of the UK's working age population could theoretically be classed as disabled under the current criteria and access these benefits.
— A minimum wage worker who works 40 hours per week would take home around £1,880 per month after tax; however, if you are classed as too sick to work and claim PIP, you can take home £2,000 tax free per month.
wsj.com/world/uk/united-king…
Josh Trimble retweeted
“Let me get this straight, you’re lending billions with cheese as collateral?”
“Not cheese. Parmesan. Parmigiano-Reggiano to be precise.“
“So, you finance this by packaging the Parmesan loans into Parmesan CDO A, which has part of Parmesan CDO B and both get put into Parmesan CDO C?”
“Yeah. The original loans are backed by wheels of Parmesan. Minimum age of 12 months. Some are 24 months. 36 months. 48 month. Hell, up to 120 months. Delicious. Millions of wheels. But Parmesan CDO C is a synthetic Parmesan CDO. A CDO of Parmesan CDOs. Parmesan Squared if you will.”
“What if it gets too hot in the summer and the wheels of Parmesan melt?”
“We’ll sell Parmesan credit default swaps.”
“C’mon! How much bigger is the market for Parmesan-backed sythentic loan and CDS products than actual edible real-life Parmesan that I can grate on top of my homemade spaghetti bolognese tonight?”
“At least 10,000x.”
“Ok, let’s say we have an underlying pool of $10 million in Parmesan wheels. How much money could be out there betting on your synthetic Parmesan financial products?”
“Probably $100 billion.”
“That is fucking crazy.”
“No, it’s awesome.”
The biggest cheese banks in Italy store 300,000+ wheels of Parmesan.
Dairy farmers use cheese as collateral and get loans up to 80% of market value. At ~$1,000 per wheel, that’s $200m+ in loans (banks seize and sell cheese if farmer can’t pay back).
Best part: banks use automated machines that brush and turn the cheese wheels everyday to keep them fresh.
***
Vid link: youtu.be/QqqVnxw1GZk?si=tefH…
Josh Trimble retweeted
The plan is to erase physical knowledge so they can monetize it.
WTF
AI companies are purchasing large quantities of used and rare books. Scanning their contents to train models. Then turning the originals to pulp.
The sum of human thought, digitized and shredded.
Every book that gets scanned disappears from the physical world permanently. The knowledge survives only as training data inside a system no one can hold, browse, or resell.
What used to sit on a shelf for centuries now exists as weights in a model that might get deprecated next quarter.
Josh Trimble retweeted
MOURINHO, a three-part documentary, is coming to Netflix August 11.
With exclusive access to Mourinho himself plus interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson, John Terry, Iker Casillas, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Didier Drogba, Marcelo, Samuel Eto'o, Javier Zanetti, Frank Lampard, Petr Čech, and more of football's greatest names.
Josh Trimble retweeted
Work? Taxed to oblivion
Sell? Taxed to oblivion
Buy? Taxed to oblivion
Die? Taxed to oblivion
And now… save? Taxed to oblivion
There is no point doing the right thing any more in the UK.
Josh Trimble retweeted
ANTHROPIC VALUATION: $965B
WALMART VALUATION: $940B
ANTHROPIC REVENUE: $20B
WALMART REVENUE: $725B
BUT AI IS NOT A BUBBLE, RIGHT?
Josh Trimble retweeted
Taxing people who get 4% on their uninvested cash while inflation erodes the same cash at 5% a year, all while considering this cash has already been at taxed between 20-45% before it was even eligible to be put in an ISA, is crazy.
Josh Trimble retweeted
British economy snapshot over the last 4 years:
Gas: +94.1%
Electricity: +78%
Fuel: +49.3%
Airfares: +34.4%
Hotels: +37.8%
Groceries: +25.0%
Eating out: +26.5%
Baby food: +26.3%
Dog food: +58.1%
Rent: +25%
Used cars: +30.5%
Public transport: +18.7%
Real average weekly earnings: -2.8%
The UK population is being killed
Source: ONS
Josh Trimble retweeted
Le Tissier sat in Wembley on Saturday but the Southampton players are all wearing Middlesbrough kits
Josh Trimble retweeted
In this Backyard, it’s “win or go home,” and this crew hasn’t left since the 90's.
Where there’s a pitch, there’s a legend.
#YouGotThis
Josh Trimble retweeted
Hahahahahahaha
‼️ 323 vials containing deadly viruses go missing from a lab in Australia — ABC News
Among them, nearly 100 vials contained the Hendra virus (transmitted from horses to humans, with a 57% fatality rate). Two vials contained the hantavirus (spread by rodents, with a 38% fatality rate), and 223 vials contained the lyssavirus (rabies virus, with an almost 100% fatality rate).
The most likely cause of the "disappearance" is thought to be the loss of containers during transfer to a new freezer. The Ministry of Health is conducting an investigation.
Josh Trimble retweeted
Wait… Mosley? As in those Mosleys?
Louis Mosley, head of UK and Europe at Palantir Technologies, is challenged on #PoliticsLive by Faiza Shaheen of Tax Justice UK over the company’s contract with the NHS and its use of patient data
bbc.in/48sNXUY