The economic impact of the Brexit deal: our

Key points to remember:

1. Leaving Single Market/Customs Union means major new trade barriers - customs and border checks, regulatory barriers, end of rules allowing services to be sold across borders.

2. A deal doesn't change that. It means no tariffs and quotas and *some* provisions that will stop trade breaking down. But the main impacts -on our and the government's own analysis, about two-thirds - happen either way

3. That also means that some disruption is inevitable. You can't introduce new systems/processes overnight. The delay in doing a deal plus covid means some things will go wrong

4. But short term disruption, even if it gets headlines, does *not* mean Brexit is a failure. And when that disruption is resolved and new systems are working, we should*not* conclude it's a success.

"Hello, IT? My economy has stopped working."

"Have you tried -"

"Yes."

"Okay. Check settings. What does it say under software?"

"Compatible with EU membership."

"Do you have that?"

"I just uninstalled it."

"Er - Why?"

"Honestly, I can't remember. Something about fish?"

"Is your fish industry running okay?"

"No, actually that was the first app to crash."

"You see, that one really needs the EU platform installed."

"Really? But my mate told me fishing would run better without it."

"He sounds confused. Can you reinstall your EU app?"

"What about this app my mate gave me instead? It's called Sovereignty 45."

"Mate, don't touch that. It's malware. It'll reduce your economy down to the levels of 1945."

"But those were the glory years! Weren't they?"

"Mate, when were you born?"

"1960. Why?”

“You have also installed the Hostile Environment firewall which is limiting the capacity of other systems”

"But my mate said those things stop viruses."

"Is your mate's name Nigel by any chance?"

"Yes! How did you -"

"Another wild stab. Those aren't viruses, they are EU workers, and they are vital to the smooth running of your systems."

"But I clicked on a pop-up that said it would get rid of them all for me."

In the months prior to the most ferocious stock market crash in history and the eruption of the biggest #publichealthcrisis of our generation, we witnessed the biggest exodus of corporate CEOs that we have ever seen. And as you will see below, corporate insiders also sold

off billions of dollars worth of shares in their own companies just before the stock market imploded. In life, timing can be everything, and sometimes people simply get lucky. But it does seem odd that so many among the corporate elite would be so exceedingly “lucky” all at the

same time. In this article I am not claiming to know the motivations of any of these individuals, but I am pointing out certain patterns that I believe are worth investigating.

One financial publication is using the phrase “the great CEO exodus” to describe the phenomenon that

we have been witnessing. It all started last year when chief executives started resigning in numbers unlike anything that we have ever seen before. The following was published by NBC News last November…

Chief executives are leaving in record numbers this year, with more than

1,332 stepping aside in the period from January through the end of October, according to new data released on Wednesday. While it’s not unusual to see CEOs fleeing in the middle of a recession, it is noteworthy to see such a rash of executive exits amid robust corporate earnings

I’m focused on building an American free market economy protecting free speech.

Allowing the businesses with the highest creativity & best end user experience to compete.

Driving prices low, quality and service high, and putting American’s first.

Made in America!

Cont’d..

I am bored by being patronised by those telling me ‘don’t you know Remain is dead?, closely followed by ‘Move on.’ I can tell you, I have. That’s why I want to Return. To Europe, for sure. But to something much more than that.

I want to also Return to a positive politics. That’s the form rooted in compassion, care and genuine concern. But it’s also one that’s also learned that economics has moved on from what was taught by that subject in the 1980s, as has our understanding of the environment.

I want a politics that is not based in materialism. Or jingoism. Or nationalism. Or populism. Instead, I want a Return to the principles of mutual respect, tolerance, acceptance and co-existence, with each other and the rest of this world, human and otherwise.

I want a Return to a bias to the least well off. That’s because we all know the best off can already look after themselves. It’s those who have trouble doing so, for whatever the reason, that I want to be the priority in politics. I wonder, who wouldn’t, and why?

I want a Return to long term vision based on principles.

Hancock: "It's your actions now which can make a difference."

Plays down prospect of immediate introduction of new restrictions.

Few doubt the public must play its part. But legitimate questions about whether the govt has made/is making public's task harder in two key respects:

1) For some there's still a major economic disincentive apropos self isolation. Sick pay still poor. Savings for many exhausted.

Imminent prospect of Universal Credit cut would make this worse. Some people have fallen through the gaps of government support throughout. Though government support for (effectively) laid off people, a full economic bargain to universally support self isolation still...

...does not exist. Rishi Sunak just made a statement to the House which offered nothing new on any of these fronts.

And 2) The job for individuals is now made harder as a result of prevalence as a result of the delay in full lockdown in most of the country between the...

...point ministers were informed that the new variant had greater transmissibility (December 18th) and full lockdown (early January). We can't interrogate the micro decisions of the public alone, we must look at the macro decisions of ministers too.

The “Should we get rid of the GRE?” conversation and the “Should we pay undergrad RAs $15/hour?” conversation have three things in common that I think are really unfortunate — 🧵

(For the record, I personally think we should keep the GRE and that the minimum wage should be $15 but I know a lot more about psychometrics than labor economics so I’m more confident about the former opinion)

1- lack of clarity regarding whether a proposed change is seen as a morally good END in itself, versus a MEANS to another end, and if the latter what that end is

1b - for instance, I don’t care whether or not capital punishment deters crime; it’s instrumental purpose is irrelevant to the fact that I think it’s a moral wrong

1c -for the GRE, do you think testing is Bad, regardless of its utility? Or do you think that under representation of some racial groups is Bad? Or do you think the racial wealth gap is Bad? people rarely clarify what ultimate wrong they are trying to right

Wait … so … how much worse could the pandemic response and unprecedented death rate get?

How much farther shall our economy crater?

I wonder what it will feel like to get better.

I wonder what it will be like for things to get better after being arguably as bad as they have ever been.

Wait … sooo … were things this bad in 2016?

Wait … things were good? After eight years under a democratic administration?

Huh.

I wonder how all those falsehoods will play after things start to get better.

I wonder how many full fledged COVID deniers will finally encounter this deadly pandemic.

I wonder if red states will continue to suffer needlessly under Trumpian COVID policies.

I wonder what the recovering blue states will look like from those red states.

I wonder how much aid these red states will require from said blue states.

And I wonder what it will feel like to those red state constituents when the aid forced upon them makes things a bit better?

#WealthOfNations I.ii is all about the secret sauce origin story: why does the division of labor happen in the first place? #AdamSmith illustrates (in part) with doggos to hold our attention. (I.ii.2,5) 🐶 #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets #DoggosDontTrade

Divsion of labor, Smith said yesterday, is responsible for a whole heckuva lot. But who thought of it? Nobody! It's "not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion." (I.ii.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

There's no mastermind behind economic exchange, our "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another" (I.ii.1) arises out of our natural tendency to persuade one another and better our condition. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Yeah, there's a lot in that first paragraph. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

You know what's coming, right? 🍖🍻🍞 Butchers, brewers, bakers: they don't make us things because they love us. They're not our moms. (I.ii.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

An important lesson of the post-Cold War era, learned far too late: allowing totalitarian regimes to interface with the political, economic, and media systems of free nations is like installing a dangerous virus on a computer.

The suicidal folly of globalism was believing the reverse: that freedom and democracy would leak into totalitarian systems and produce quiet revolutions. As we know after 30 years of disastrous experimentation, tyranny is FAR more viral than liberty in the modern world.

Tyranny, like a computer virus, breaks all the rules that allow free markets and democracies to function. Tyranny ruthlessly exploits "weaknesses" in the code of free systems, working from beyond the reach of the legal or social enforcement systems in targeted nations.

Tyrannical nations use brutal methods to extract value from their people, then invest that value to target and destroy industries in free countries, taking control of important supply chains with production unencumbered by the costs free societies impose on their companies.

Tyrannical nations easily overwhelm the media of free societies with propaganda, ideological content and official lies. A tyranny can run op-eds in free-world newspapers while silencing all dissent, both foreign and domestic, in its own state media.

American collapse is gonna be a horror show because we are an economic parasite on the world, and collapse will be the host cutting off our proboscis. We cannot self-sustain.

Robert Reich once bragged that our economy was transforming into one where 20% of us would be well compensated "symbolic analysts" and everyone else would be servants to this class.

This is echoed in Primary Colors where Fake Clinton tells the shipbuilder union to get ready to go back to school because making things is over. We are all "symbolic analysts" now.

That's only possible because the rest of the world makes stuff for us to consume. On a net basis the world makes while we take. Capitalism is the international legal system which ensures this will happen through the enforcement of investor and property rights.

This is the "system of international rules" that Biden has warned China must be obeyed. Or else.

The world makes, we take (and pay in USD).

Is it better to split up dominant networks (like social/communication networks) or keep them whole to maximize network effects? I’ve spent 8 years creating a way to use data to answer this for Rwanda’s mobile network, using 5.3b transaction records (1/15) https://t.co/hKC8Vj2PIE

The punchline: allowing an additional competitor in Rwanda’s mobile phone system earlier could have reduced prices and increased incentives to invest in rural towers, increasing welfare by the equivalent of 1% of GDP. (2/15)

Why study mobile phones in developing countries? Mobile operators are emerging as gatekeepers to information, the internet, and, increasingly, financial transactions. (3/15)

And many of the questions faced by tech antitrust have parallels in telecom: whether to force compatibility, make it easier for users to switch, or split dominant firms. (4/15)

But would encouraging competition improve quality--or reduce it? When a network is split between competitors, each internalizes less network effects. But they may still invest to steal customers. In theory it could go either way. (5/15)

Took the 6 yo old out for some local lock down exercise on his bike. Park too busy to cycle through, so we did a loop on local roads because that's the only other option without driving somewhere. Here's how it went (a thread) @CycleSheffield @CyclewalkSCR @DameSarahStorey

The 6yo doesnt cycle in a complete straight line yet so one of us cycles abreast of him just in case. Lots of drivers waited patiently for a long time before overtaking slowly and safely. Thank you for this. Sudden accelerating engines make the 6yo less likely to stay straight.

Some drivers, sadly not an insignificant number, decided they needed to get past more quickly and more slowly than was safe. Where were they all going to and why the need to be so impatient? It's not like there is anything to get to quickly at the moment.

Drivers coming the other way were generally the biggest threat. The roads were double parked with people using the park (worst I have have ever seen) resulting in narrow road space. Drivers did not slow down to adjust to this or to us cycling alongside the 6yo.

One driver overtaking a parked car had to encroach on to our side of the road. Instead of waiting he pushed out and shook his head at us. Did he think we shouldn't be on the road with a small child or did he just think he had priority? Either way he was wrong.

1/ Unit economic for founders thread.

Despite being a founder and a student of the subject, I missed out on a key point growing up.

Length of relationship with your customers, order frequency, product usage and utility matter.

They didn't teach me this in business school.

2/ Structured right, products used daily vs weekly vs monthly vs yearly lead to different profitability and scalability paths.

Quiz. Which business would you pick?

a) Enterprise software - US$ 250k one time license
b) Enterprise software - US$ 30k/month recurring subscription

3/ Sound's obvious? Which one did you pick?

Twice in my life I picked A. They were both great businesses, but they didn't compare to B. Especially in the long run.

Looking back, with hindsight, I know I should have picked B.

Why?

4/ Bringing in customers is hard.

When those customers leave after a few orders, your investment in that relationship is written off.

But it is not just about the relationship or investment. It is also about scale.

What are the easiest ways to scale a business?

5/ Think about it?

a) Get more customers - acquire
b) Get existing customers to order again - retain
c) Increase order size - up sell
d) Increase order frequency - cross sell / new use case
e) Get existing customers to get you new customers - referral

(b) to (e) are free.

THREAD - (Short term Options)

Many of the messages I get regarding options are referencing outside the money (OTM) calls w/ expirations a week or two out (or less)

It's no wonder these traders are often very concerned (even frantic) about the outcome of their trades.

Unless you are an expert technician, and/or have serious market knowledge and intuitive skills, I recommend buying *at least* a month or two of time, and not holding through an earnings report unless you've trimmed your position at a significant profit, or are playing LEAPS.

(LEAPS = Long-term Equity Anticipation Securities
a.k.a. Long term options typically w/ an expiration of longer than a year)

While playing OTM weekly options has the potential for huge returns, & will undoubtedly get your adrenaline pumping, it's also an easy way to lose your💰

*IF* you insist on playing OTM weeklies, be very cognizant of your position sizing.

Each trade should be a *very* small percentage of your account, and you should assume that every trade you make is going to zero.

However, you don't need to play short-term options to make *serious* money over time...

You can still make massive returns on options that have expirations that are 2+ months, even 2+ years out without taking on so much immediate risk.