Whitelocke
@CoKeynesian
Armchair Commentator
I'm making my debut on Substack today with the first two parts of my essay on the postwar British economy, "Why Britain Fell Behind". Subsequent parts will be published... later, but I intend to write about other stuff as well. polichron.substack.com/p/why-britain-…
UK wasn't close to starving in ww1, they only introduced real rationing in mid 1918. USA never gave the UK "aid", ww1 loans were not ww2 lend lease. UK was a net creditor at the end of ww1, Russia just didn't pay ofc. But France and the UK aided America by equipping the AEF
The U.S. gave $4.9B in aid to the U.K. during & after WWI ($84.9B adjusted) so it didn't starve. We aided colonial admin, guarded Pacific & Caribbean for your crippled fleets. The Dawes & Young plans paid Germany's debts to you from us. The U.S. was the primary power after WWI…
Fascinating that this pundit cannot discern events in the Western Hemisphere from World Affairs. It's Main Character Syndrome. He cannot conceive of world history not revolving around the US.
In truth, the U.S. surpassed the U.K. after we claimed domain over Hawaii & arbitrated the Venezuelan border for them in 1895. Ergo, the U.S. really "wrested" (surpassed) global authority from the Brits gradually between the 1860s and 1890s. If you wanted to pick a specific…
The Bretton Woods Conference is the real Rubicon as it cemented the dollar's central status and forced Britain to accept convertibility of sterling. Without the Fall of France, there would be no Bretton Woods, and the USD would never have become hegemonic.
People who say WW1 are astoundingly stupid. The US spent the interwar doing jackshit, Britain was obviously the primary power until the Fall of France.
If Prince Andrew had been killed in the Falklands War then his reputation would be golden.
The only Tory I have any trust in regarding housing is Jenrick. He actually had an excellent planning reform proposal when he was housing secretary. (It was sabotaged by a Tory backbench revolt enabled by Johnson's fecklessness.)
My last interaction with James was: He and some of his friends were discussing how awful it is for people to want to build new houses. I said "no, we need them. People my age can't afford houses". He and his friends then turned to me, looked me in my eyes, and burst out…
Seriously though, what kind of rescue equipment could you create if you had an unlimited budget, brilliant engineers, and basically no oversight?
The tech billionaires of the world should do something useful and create a modern day Thunderbirds force.
Great show. You can rewatch it online, and it holds up extremely well. The music was amazing as well. Barry Gray was really a genius.
In 1966 there was a marionette TV show that changed kids TV forever. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's THUNDERBIRDS was the most expensive kids show ever made, and wasn't just for kids. It was a huge hit in the US, UK and around the world, spawning several sequels and features.
I know this is a joke, but I really would be interested in learning about the various supposed plots against Harold Wilson. It's a rabbit hole that gets genuinely weird when you go down it.
Labour, sensing partial exctinction, could lose the plot on inquiries in the next 5 years. Exhume all the skeletons. Was there an M15 coup planned in 1976 to oust Wilson at the hands of SAS founder David Stirling? Was the Mail properly punished for the Zinoviev letter in 1924?
They'd be far better off burning cash on Dad War Movies than this. Yet another WW2 film where a chiseled-jawed White American Hero kicks ass would have far greater potential appeal than this ideological fever dream. And they'd probably enjoy making it a lot more too.
New: Palantir's CTO and several early employees are raising money to launch Founders Films, a film and TV production studio that aims to "say yes to projects about American exceptionalism, name America’s enemies, back artists unconditionally, take risk on novel IP.”
Thatcher's policies on Northern Ireland were not very different from those of her predecessors. The whole "no special status" thing that led to the Hunger Strike was initiated by the previous Labour government; Thatcher just carried it through to its logical conclusion.
I’m against thatcher because of IRELAND
The main reason so many Spaniards have informal jobs is that they can't find formal employment. It's not a choice but a necessity. Most people prefer regular hours and employment protections to the insecurity of cash-in-hand work.
Bizarre thing to argue when he notes that Spain has people lying to collect welfare while working in the black market. He also concedes that the reason many Spanish speakers would want to immigrate is due to living in ‘poorer and more dangerous’ countries. Genius!
Something everyone misses about the Beveridge Report is that it called for National Insurance to operate on a Flat-Rate Benefit and Flat-Rate Contribution basis, in order to minimize its redistributive effects. Beveridge was a Liberal rather than a social democrat after all.
