BC BREXIT
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Good to hear that the ERG star chamber has approved the Brexit trade deal (or Deal--- as I think it should be called). It "preserves the UK's sovereignty as a matter of law" they say. I wonder what they'd have said if they'd actually read it.

 Boris Johnson: "we have pressed ahead with this task, resisting all calls for delay, precisely because creating certainty about our future provides the best chance of beating Covid"

Eh?
I'm pretty sure Brexit preceded pandemic but there we are. I would advise, having read extracts from the speech Johnson is to deliver, that people put away sharp objects, bricks etc if they're going to watch the debate. And there is never an excuse for kicking the cat.
Starmer is now savaging (politely) the PM, pointing out lies and inconsistencies. Given he's already whipped Labour MPs to support the bill, I think he's wasting his breath - the result is already settled, the headlines already written.
I have to say that Johnson is performing well: a fake success allied to complete lack of scrutiny has empowered him. He's flinging lies like a monkey flings its own dung.
Theresa May has just had a whine about Labour not backing the deal she negotiated. File under "irrelevant".
Ian Blackford up now, valiantly pointing out more lies and inconsistencies. I disagree with Blackford's comment that Scottish fishing is Johnson's "biggest betrayal" - he's done far worse than that and he doesn't give a toss about a few fishing Sweaties anyway.
Up pops Peter Bottomley: I thought he was dead (soon will be if Lucy Allan has her way). Ever the rebel, he says he's against it but will vote for it.
Sammy Wilson speaks.

Sammy Wilson stops speaking.
Iain Duncan Smith is up. I watch avidly in case this is the day his head explodes through an overdose of self-satisfaction but am disappointed. He says nothing interesting. As ever.
A comment by ERG that I missed: Level playing field clauses "their impact on the practical exercise of sovereignty is likely to be limited if addressed by a robust government."

That means they want us to bomb France in 2022, I think.
Kevin Brennan: Even on the government’s own terms, this deal is a failure. It is a thin deal and a bad deal. He won’t be voting for it.
Hilary Benn welcomes the "absence of tariffs" as well as level playing field and security provisions.

That sound you can hear is father Tony spinning in his grave.
Ellie Reeves will vote for the bill, surprise, surprise. She posted a statement earlier.

https://t.co/iL1CxOg19s
Dame Cheryl Gillan: the UK can once again "control its own destiny", making the UK's departure from the EU a "controlled" one.

Passing the bill will leave the country in a "golden position"

And by the way, services ...
Some light relief: Boris Johnson sitting on the front bench, thinking about pilchards.
Not so light relief - the population is weary.
Mark Francois has quoted Nigel Farage and Braveheart. Nearing peak stupidity now.

Just a reminder, don't be alone with Mark Francois or let him into your home.
David Davis lends us his wisdom. He says we're not just going to have the exact same benefits of membership, we're going to have better than the exact same benefits.

🎵The years have made me bitter, the gargle dims me brain 🎵
Diane Abbott says she will not be voting for the bill, condemns the way the bill is being rushed through parliament. Harsh criticism of how the deal limits UK access to EU databases accessed by the police.
Damian Green, one hand in trouser pocket, says he'll vote Aye because it's better than no deal and even though (paraphrasing) it's bad and has huge holes.
Sheryll Murray pops up to mention fish, soberly. No one's listening at this point as the sound of lunch preparation echoes through the Slough of Parliament.
Barry Sheerman says he will vote for the deal which is "much better" than he expected.

File under "Very Low Bar".
Meaningful meaningless proceedings winding down. Summary:

It's a great deal (it isn't)

It's a bad deal but better than no deal (it isn't)

We can do fish, services and security at some time in the future (we can't, adequately)

Chargrilled ribeye steak on the menu, £9.19
Only interest in the vote is which Labour MPs will abstain or vote Nay (and how Starmer will react).

Johnson to do a press conf at 5pm (5:20 as he's a very important chap).

Thank you for reading as my brains dribble out of the hole I made banging my head against the desk.

More from Brexit

Chris Randone
Chris Randone
@ChrisRandone
Many bearish sentiments across the mortgage sector because they believe companies won't succeed as much when rate finally go back up (3 maybe 4 years from now). Which makes sense except for $GHIV and here's why. In 2016 Brexit came & rates went down which lead to huge success...

in mortgages. Business was great for many companies but then in ‘17 and ‘18, rates went up. What happened you might ask? A lot of people got compressed, margins got compressed, rates went down, & people struggled in the mortgage market...

Well UWM ( $GHIV ) compound annual growth rate, from ‘16 to ’18, was 28%. Companies that focused on refi struggled, so obviously a very successful company like Rocket or Quicken, they went down 14% in compound annual growth rate in those years...

$GHIV actually grew, and so did their profits, so the opportunity to continue to grow in all cycles is a big differentiator for UWM, and the broker channel versus a lot of our competitors. When rates rise, it's actually even better for $GHIV (UWM)..

If rates stay low, great UWM will continue to crush but when the rates rise, they will continue to steal even more market share because of how they operate in the mortgage sector. People also talk about the speed in closing a loan & that other competitors are faster...
BREXIT
John Lichfield
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
Fish thread.
Having read the Brexit deal, I believe B. Johnson misled the nation on Thurs when he said Britain could catch “all the fish that it wants ” in UK waters in 5 years’ time. The clear presumption in the text is that EU fleets will have similar access after 2026.1/12

The UK fish industry will have to pay a high price in EU import tariffs if that access is withdrawn. Overall… the deal falls far short of the exaggerated “sea of opportunity” promises made to UK fishermen. 2/12

The headline quota compromise - reducing EU catches in the UK 200 mile zone by 25% over five and a half years – is balanced enough. But different fishers will study the small-print with delight OR anger. Some EU quotas will be cut more than others. 3/12

Fisheries, we were told, would be a big Brexit winner. No it won’t. On this deal, the UK industry will certainly lose more from Brexit (no more frictionless access to the EU market) than it gains (incremental, extra quotas over the next 5 years). 4/12

First…the length of the deal. The 5 and 1/2 years of cuts in EU quotas/increases in UK quotas, are laid out in annexes to the main treaty. The last column says “2026 onwards” In other words, the presumption is there will be no further cuts in EU quotas after that date. 5/12
BREXIT
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Katya Adler
Katya Adler
@BBCkatyaadler
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has briefed Europe Ministers from EU member states that progress continues to be made in negotiations with the UK but not significantly when it comes to key sticking points: level playing field, fish, governance of deal /1

This briefing comes ahead of the EU leaders summit in Brussels end of this week, where Brexit will be discussed most likely I’m told on Friday morning. Both Michel Barnier and the PM once described this summit mid October as cut off point by which time a deal had to be agreed /2

This clearly will not be the case and each side predictably blames the other for that. Today a UK government source said: „The EU have been using the old playbook in which they thought running down the clock would work against the UK“ /3

„They have assumed that the UK would be more willing to compromise the longer the process ran, but in fact all these tactics have achieved is to get us to the middle of October with lots of work that could have been done left undone.“ /4

Both sides say they still want a deal and think it entirely possible to reach a deal this year, infact v soon, if only the OTHER side would just be „more realistic“ (ie make the big compromises) /5
BREXIT
European Unity #FBPE \U0001f1ea\U0001f1fa\U0001f4b6\u2b50\ufe0f
European Unity #FBPE 🇪...
@EuropeanUnity1
#Brexitadventcalendar

31 liars & hypocrites who facilitated brexit

Some are mad, some are bad

All are millionaires, some are billionaires

They’ll profit from UK companies failing, keep their money abroad to avoid UK tax and travel freely with their EU passports

#RejoinEU


https://t.co/mZRr9u1RPb


https://t.co/BY6hKloR9d


https://t.co/NdC0ltLeSM


https://t.co/BLnRLotso7
BREXIT
David Henig
David Henig
@DavidHenigUK
So many stories of new barriers to trade between UK and EU, but you might be thinking at some point these will run out. The government is certainly hoping so. Well they may slow down, but trade relations and regulations are not static, and changes will lead to further problems.

The likelihood of continued trade problems for a £650 bn trade relationship is why there should be a huge cross-government effort led by the Foreign Office and Department for International Trade to put in place the necessary resources to seek best results.

There isn't.

So the UK's relationship with the EU currently consists of two not particularly good deals and no consistent effort to manage current problems or prevent future ones. Joint committees are a second order problem to putting in place the right internal structures.

But that's been the consistent UK problem in relations with the EU since 2016. Lack of focus on getting the right internal structures, people, asks, strategy, too much attention on being tough and a single leader.

News just in. This doesn't necessarily mean the right structure being put into UK-EU relations. I suspect Frost's main role is to ensure no renegotiations with the EU.

Also, wonder what this says about the PM's trust in Michael Gove?
BREXIT

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Erik Torenberg
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg
1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
LIFE
Nodutdol | \ub178\ub463\ub3cc
Nodutdol | 노둣돌...
@nodutdol
Today is “Korean American Day”.

#OTD in 1903, the first large group of Korean immigrants arrived in US-conquered territory. [Thread]


102 Korean men, women, and children arrived in Honolulu aboard the SS Gaelic to work in Hawaii’s sugar plantations. By 1905, Koreans comprised 11% of Hawaii’s plantation workforce—around 7000 people.


This first wave of Korean immigrants arrived amid sharpening imperialist rivalry in the Pacific. Korea had slowly been losing its independence for decades, and by 1903 was just two years away from becoming a protectorate of Japan.

At the same time, the US was consolidating its position in the Pacific, annexing Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines in 1898, and partitioning Samoa in 1899.

(Pictured: US troops in the Philippines)


US missionaries colluded with the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association to secure a new, cheap labor force for Hawaii’s sugar fields. Many of the Koreans who arrived in Hawaii from 1903-1905 were Methodists.
WORLD
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
CRYPTO
Naval
Naval
@naval
How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):

Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.

Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.

Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.

You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom.
LIFE , STARTUPS , NAVAL1
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Some people really benefit from hearing advice that everyone knows, for the same reason we keep schools open despite every subject in them having been taught before.

In that spirit, here's some quick Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already.

Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.

Technologists tend to severely underestimate the difficulty and expense of creating software, especially at companies which do not have fully staffed industry leading engineering teams ("because software is so easy there, amirite guys?")

Charge more. Charge more still. Go on.

The press is a lossy and biased compression of events in the actual world, and is singularly consumed with its own rituals, status games, and incentives. The news necessarily fails to capture almost everything which happened yesterday. What it says is important usually isn't.

Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.
TECH