…right…so…I’m…not going AWOL…I think I got leave…but…before I leave…let’s see if I can get through today…which…may require avoiding distractions
The European Commission has been gearing up for years to unleash the full authority of its new Digital Markets Act against Big Tech. The landmark rules were designed to help start-ups by forcing powerful “online gatekeepers” — most of whom are US companies — to open up their businesses to competition.
Tech groups had to comply with the law starting from March this year.
In preliminary findings issued on Monday, regulators in Brussels said they were concerned about restrictions Apple is imposing on developers’ ability to “freely steer their customers” by directing them to promotions outside the App Store.
[…]
If found guilty, the iPhone maker faces a penalty of up to 10 per cent of its global annual revenue, meaning any fine could run into tens of billions of dollars. The fines can rise to 20 per cent in the event the offence is repeated, the EU said. Apple said it was “confident” in its compliance.Speaking at a conference on the DMA in Amsterdam on Monday, Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s executive vice-president in charge of digital policy, said: “We are dealing with the biggest and most valuable companies on the planet. The DMA is not an excessive ask. [It] is plain vanilla to ask for a fair, open and contestable marketplace.”
She added: “I find that it is surprising that some of the most valuable, respected big companies on this planet do not take compliance as a badge of honour.”
Brussels accuses Apple of breaking EU ‘gatekeeper’ rules [FT]
[…]
“If the Commission indeed finds that Apple infringes the letter or the spirit of the DMA, it has to impose fines that really hurt — that is the only language Big Tech understands,” said Markus Ferber, a German MEP.
…big tech is big money & all
Nvidia has lost $500bn in market value since briefly becoming the world’s most valuable company last week, as its shares fell 5 per cent on Monday.
Nvidia’s market value on Monday fell to $2.96tn, down by around $500bn from Thursday’s peak. Earlier last week, the company had leapfrogged Microsoft and Apple to become the most valuable publicly listed company in the world, though it has since fallen back to third place.
Nvidia, whose gains alone are responsible for roughly one-third of the increase in the S&P 500 in 2024, is now down about 15 per cent from its intraday high of $140.76 hit last Thursday.
Nvidia share slide erases $500bn in market value [FT]
…but…there’s different sorts of competition…& for a lot of people I know…although a lot of them don’t think about it…when they pay their money for an iThing…some of what’s worth the premium to them is all the thinking about stuff they outsource in one fell swoop
…I mean…I forget who it was that put it to me this way but basically you can do one of those “there’s these kinds of people” things about tech generally…but…in the specific “computers” bit…the three they had in mind were basically people who want to have complete control…these people…basically…run some flavor of linux…& if they want to change the semaphor provided by the little LED that tells you something into morse code…or concoct a recipe for conky to turn their desktop background into a cornucopia of real-time information…they can…if they don’t break something vital in the process & have to scrub the whole thing & build it all over again…there…aren’t that many of them…then you have the people who expect to be able to fiddle with some things but wish they didn’t have to…these are windows people…they often sort of hate the machine & feel like it makes them sacrifice more time to fixing the things that used to work than getting the work out of them but they feel pretty strongly that the point of a computer is all the things it can potentially do so they ought to get to decide which ones theirs does or doesn’t do…& then you get people who don’t care how it works so long as it does & they don’t have to think about it…& it took a while…but eventually apple’s approach kind of cornered that market…for loads of people the difference between “an app” on their phone & “a page” in a browser window is basically irrelevant unless they’re currently having to use one when they’re used to another & the experience isn’t identical…they don’t start with a desire to have the device do a thing & then hunt down a means to make it happen…they find out about an app & they install it & follow instructions to learn how to do the thing…& if there’s one place to find those & you can be pretty confident it isn’t some kind of shiny wrapper on a payload of hackery…you don’t have to think about that whole nest of hornets…so…that fine is arguably a philosophical misfire in terms of serving the interests of the consumer the way the EU wants to be able to say it’s doing…but…who has time for that sort of consideration, right?
…so…I’m trying not to…but I’m getting distracted
Two years ago, Holly, 36, and her husband, Mike, 38, a soldier in the British Army, made the difficult decision to send Emily, then aged nine, to boarding school.
Emily is autistic, and had already moved school four times in her short life – because Mike’s job means the family has to relocate every two to three years.
“She couldn’t cope with all the changes,” explains Holly. “She struggled with moving around; she struggled to fit in. Boarding has been the making of her. She’s a different child.
She gets the support she needs. We’ve been posted [moved to a different job] since she started boarding and it was the first move she hasn’t been fussed by. She said ‘Mummy, all my friends are at school, so it doesn’t matter.’
“We promised this would be her forever school and she would never have to move again. We haven’t discussed it with her yet. I’m hoping and praying we’ll never have to.”
Holly can’t give me her real name, because the family lives where her husband is currently serving, in Northern Ireland, where British soldiers still face a very real threat to their safety.
[…]
Because of the demands of Mike’s job – for which he gets paid £34,000 a year as a lance corporal – Holly works part-time, flexible hours from home, at minimum wage.“We can’t afford the cost of holiday childcare on top of school fees. What would I do with three kids all summer if I worked more hours?” she asks. “The costs would be more than I could possibly earn.”
[…]
They also have to find more than £3,500 a year to pay for Emily’s school, because the British military’s continuity of education allowance (CEA) rules, which allow families such as Holly and Mike’s to access a stable education for their children, require families to pay a minimum of 10 per cent of a child’s school fees.The rest is funded by CEA payments from the Ministry of Defence, up to a cap of £6,998 a term for junior schools and £8,692 a term at a senior level.
Emily’s school costs £12,065 a term, and requires Holly and Mike to pay the 10 per cent plus £350 per term.
[…]
From September, Emily will be in the senior part of her school, where the fees jump significantly – but Holly and Mike will still have to find the 10 per cent, plus the top-up.Then there’s the money they have to find on top of that for flights to and from Northern Ireland for school holidays – the military covers three flights a year, but there are six school holidays.
…there’s also “weekends out” or “exeats”…but like some of the kids I was at school with…it’s not “worth it” for them to spend the time & money for the few hours that would leave over for actually being at home so their daughter stays with someone else for those
“We are not,” says Holly with massive understatement, “an affluent family. Keir Starmer said something recently about how if you work hard enough you can afford it. Actually, my husband and I work really hard to pay for what we have.
“We can’t do any more – and he might have to die for his country. I wrote to Keir Starmer to tell him about our situation, but I got no reply. I find it really insulting.”
Parents who have served this country are increasingly disillusioned with Britain – and they’ll struggle if Labour has their way [Telegraph]
…six kinds of voters my ass…still…it doesn’t take having survived the experience of attending a school like that to have been able to predict the existence of those families…& although I’m sympathetic…I can’t do any more about any part of that equation than most people with an iPhone can side-load a non-sanctioned code package…or for that matter achieve a basic copy/transfer of a file to a non-apple device without sending themselves an email…which is not me dissing apple users…no…I’m here to diss telegraph readers…that’s the distraction
https://www.focaldata.com/blog/focaldata-prolific-uk-general-election-mrp
…that’s what they think the field looks like…&…people pay them to be on the money about that sort of wishful thinking…&…the strain might have got to the telegraph?
Starmer’s attack on private schools now looks more reckless than ever
If privately educated people are healthier in midlife, the party owes it to the NHS to support independent schools
…feel like a bit of a reach?
…that one’s by michael howard…who was the tory leader for a stint in opposition & a cabinet member under more than one prime minister when the other lot were the opposition…you know…the project fear crew…anyway…that’s not the half of it…how about this one?
Keir Starmer is about to suck the last remaining joy out Britain
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/24/brace-yourself-for-keir-starmers-war-on-joy
…sidenote…once upon a time…the “honourable gentleman” (now baron something-or-other) mr howard…was viewed as the sucker
…he wasn’t even safe in the pages of the telegraph…a place I’ve heard referred to colloquially as “the torygraph”
In the heart of the northern Romanian countryside, with his hand on an ox-drawn cart bringing in the hay harvest, Ruscova’s mayor Pop Vasile has one piece of advice for the new Conservative leader: Come home and rediscover your roots.
Michael Howard may be trying to shed his image as the dark force behind the Tories, but in this mist-soaked enclave from his family’s past, he is fooling nobody.
“He is a son of this village,” said Mr Vasile. “His blood is Romanian. His is the blood of Transylvania, of Dracula, who represented justice, prosperity and discipline.”
Here, above all, Mr Howard cannot escape his past. Vlad Tepes, the impaler who resisted the Ottomans and who is considered the inspiration for the bloodthirsty vampire, is not an icon to be disowned. “Will he come here or is he ashamed of his past?” insisted Mr Vasile.
Memories of the Hecht family remain strong in this 6,000-strong village. Bernat Hecht, Mr Howard’s father, fled the fascist Iron Guard in the Second World War.
“I heard about the family long ago from my parents and grandparents,” said Mr Vasile. “His family was a great and prosperous family in Ruscova. All the old people remember them.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1446764/Land-of-Dracula-cries-out-for-Howard.html [Nov ’03]
…so…yeah…some cracks may be showing in some places that consider themselves bywords for solidity…but…all the whistling past graveyards will probably drown it out…let’s see…you got the people who the lady from the first telegraph effort may be relying on to keep her husband’s posting fixed to the sticking place
The party, which won the most Westminster seats in Northern Ireland at the last general election, is fielding candidates in 16 of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies.
It chose to stand aside in North Down and in Fermanagh and South Tyrone to give other unionist candidates a stronger chance of winning the seat.
This will be Gavin Robinson’s first election as leader and his manifesto includes pledges to continue pressing for better financial support for Northern Ireland and promoting the union.
Here are some of the DUP’s policies, analysed by BBC Northern Ireland experts.
DUP manifesto: Key policies analysed [BBC]
…or…maybe you’re forcibly inducted into the ranks of the rent-seeking
Margaret Thatcher had Essex Man and New Labour boasted Mondeo Man. David Cameron secured the Mumsnet Mums and for Boris Johnson it was Workington Man. They all symbolise voters who switched their votes in the election, effectively deciding who will lose and win.
So what of 2024? When working out the key electoral blocs, it is possible that Renter Ruth could be key if Labour are to win, as the polls currently suggest. In the last decade the numbers of renters has increased while the Conservative party has seen its share of support among the group fall.
In 2022-23, the private rented sector in England accounted for 4.6 million or 19% of households, about double the size it was in the early 2000s, according to the English Housing Survey. This is larger than those renting social housing.
The issues affecting renters have never been more visible politically, be it safety after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, or attempts to ban no-fault evictions after the Covid pandemic. The housing affordability crisis has also created more renters than ever, particularly in the private sector.
Are renters a new electoral coalition? [BBC]
…or…worried whether the safety net will hold up under the strain
Perhaps like most people, Brian never expected he would need social care. But in a population that is ageing and living longer with complex conditions, many of us will.
About a million people in England receive services that support them in care homes as well in their own homes, according to the King’s Fund think-tank. Many who rely on the care system want to know why the major political parties aren’t talking about it more.
An open letter has been sent to politicians signed by 24,000 people and more than 50 organisations warning it would be a betrayal of the public if a new government ignored social care. A second letter from another 20 bodies, including council groups and care workers, urges politicians to use the remainder of the campaign to be ambitious about reform.
[…]
In short, the system is outdated, unfair and crying out for reform – and on that there is broad political agreement.But the two main political parties have steered away from detailed plans. In the first televised leaders’ debate of the general election campaign, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer spent a total of 36 seconds on the subject – neither challenging the other on what they said.
You can perhaps understand nerves among Labour and the Conservatives as in previous elections both parties have seen campaigns crashed by the issue of social care.
In 2010, Labour’s plans to pay for universal long-term care were dubbed a “death tax” by the Tories. Then, in turn, the Conservatives’ 2017 proposals for social care funding were branded a “dementia tax” by Labour.
Boris Johnson’s government did set a timetable for introducing an £86,000 cap or limit to an individual’s care costs over a lifetime. Originally due in 2023, its introduction in England was delayed until October next year.
Labour and Conservatives have said they would go ahead with this care cap, but experts say the money allocated is already being used to prop up the existing system.
Both manifestos say they will improve pay and conditions for care staff. Labour also pledges to set up a National Care Service within 10 years.
But there is little detail – particularly when it comes to how care will be funded.
Smaller parties have been more ambitious. The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have both said they would make personal care free.
The care systems in the rest of the UK have seen some change. They are more generous, and in Scotland there is already free personal care.
Why aren’t politicians talking about social care? [BBC]
…so…I don’t want to get previous…but…well…there is a non-zero possibility that heroic quantities of booze may be imbibed while all that speculation gets nailed to the wall like so much jello while america sets off fireworks…though hopefully the hangover will have worn off without being the actual death of me before I next have to try to put one of these together…either way…unless an awful lot of people are awfully mistaken…that’ll be after it’s keir starmer’s britain…whatever that winds up looking like after the giddy rush of whatever honeymoon period he can contrive…so…in a spirit of…I dunno…transatlantic translation or some such japery…you know how they say fools rush in where angels fear to tread…& a fool & his money are soon parted…& a fool is a jester…& jesters wear motley…don’t worry if the last one sounds like I made it up…it’s a thing…well…if you haven’t heard of it before…don’t let the name fool you…one of the roles of the court jester was to have license to do the whole “speak truth to power” thing…it’s why they always crop up in the plays, for example…&…this lot have some examples of their own to offer
Calculating your net worth is simple. You add up all of your financial assets — checking accounts, savings accounts, investments, your home value, and any other property. Then, you subtract any financial liabilities — your mortgage balance, student loans, credit card debt, or anything else you owe.
If you consistently save more than you spend, you’ll see your net worth increase over time. Establishing that habit will ensure you don’t reach retirement without anything to show for your long career.
Steady progress toward a higher net worth is an accomplishment unto itself. But if you want a big benchmark to aim for, you might want to know the net worth that puts someone in the top 5% of households. A high net worth is often (but not always) tied to a high income, so seeing what the top 5% of earners in each age group brings home could also help you gauge where you stand and how you’re doing for your income level.
When the Fed conducts its survey, it counts all sorts of sources of income in its calculation: wages, businesses, farms, interest, Social Security, retirement account withdrawals, and basically anything else that will show up on your tax return. So, the income sources of people in their 70s likely include a lot of Social Security and retirement income, while someone in their 20s will get most of their income from regular wages.
…safe to say that military wife the telegraph talked to…isn’t in the top 5%…but…google tells me the USD to GBP rate is 1:0.79 these days…which is a far cry from the 2:1 I vaguely recall it being when a french franc was worth about 10p…in what the kids think of as the steam-powered dawn of civilisation…so…those school fees the soldier’s family would struggle to pay the minority component of…in full…would be of the order of 15.25K in dollar terms…so…presumably not an issue for a “5%er”
…not that people who call themselves 5%ers tend to mean it in the net worth sense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-Percent_Nation
…so…don’t take this the wrong way…because I have total faith that you won’t burn the joint down around your ears while I’m away with the fairies…but…what’s an article of faith to some…is enough to threaten others’ faith in their fellow humans…so…I might be agnostic…but the phrase that comes to mind is…ummm
pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death
…let’s just try to make sure those two timestamps are easy to tell apart, eh…there’s a nice uncaring universe…who’s a good boy, now…have a biscuit
…ah…yeah
…I may have checked out early
…y’all take care, now
Why is it that centrist idiots constantly think that if they appease right wing bullshit, then it will somehow become less of a threat?
This guy gets it:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/25/emmanuel-macron-marine-le-pen-france-far-right-government
…this part?
…that kind of thing would have been common ground when dealing with a tory party comfortably running the show from within their wheelhouse back in the salad days of my misspent youth?
…but this part feels like it could go for just about anywhere I can bring to mind…& it’s hard to say which nation would be patient zero?
…I dunno…I can barely get my head around how the UK went from a politicans’ expenses scandal through a string of tax avoidance/evasion scandals about off-shore sheannigans…through lockdown-parties-at-downing-st being a string to the banter bow when at a mic in a press briefing room…even if the press weren’t supposed to be in conference for that part…& the poor lass whose job it blew up was the one who thought it was a bleak joke by way of gallows humor…rather than one of the actual jokers responsible…& an onslaught of “mates rates” for public money at the same time…to the proxy for that part sticking in the public craw being a few hundred quid here or there in personal bets…rishi cut bait on the pair out of the shitty 5-card draw hand that dealt him who are/were on a ballot…& it sounds like the press got wind of the blood in the water thanks to the offices…or officers…of scotland yard…which is fun…but similarly seems to miss the forest for the trees?
And you can bet your tuchus that great-aunt Nan “Wolf of Wall Street” Pelosi somehow profited bigly from the Nvidia churn:
https://247wallst.com/investing/2024/06/24/nancy-pelosi-made-millions-on-nvidia-options-heres-her-next-ai-stock-play/
…you mean she didn’t nip down the bookies to get odds on a bet for less than $100?
…that’s…just weird…everyone knows that’s the thing you need to make illegal…not perfectly respectable personal investments…perish the thought?
I think there’s a slight plausible stench of insider trading, there certainly was when she was speaker and regulatory bills were proposed and it was up to her to bring them to the floor and monitor the voting sentiment. But to be fair, her husband has been a stock trader for 110 years or something and she comes from a Baltimore political dynasty so, who knows.
I love the image of Nan calling up Ladbroke’s and putting a fiver down on who might take it away at the French Open or whatever. You know she would.
This is very premature, but since it will be 2-4-2sday in mere hours, let me offer my contributions now:
And (and I can’t believe SNL ever did this. Eight years of Obama and they NEVER brought him up. They were merciless about Hillary, though):
…it’s a pretty clear offense against the spirit of the law, as it were…but…legitimately I read in an interview with starmer that the labour lot were keeping a close enough eye on the bookies’ numbers that they spotted the spike in bets on july at some point in june…or may…or whenever it was…& pretty much on that basis pulled the trigger on spinning up the campaign machine before the announcement…by days or possibly weeks…to minimise the home advantage to team #wegettocallit…who apparently forgot to include most of their lot on the memo to be prepared for “surprise – we’re having a ballot”
…so…I wouldn’t say it’s clear whether or not she & her other half communicate about such things more than…say…a supreme court justice & his other half about flags or cases on his docket…but I would actually buy that it’d be a coin-flip as to whether or not he’d make the same trades without access to his significant other?
He definitely would. I don’t want to wade into the google swamp of “Pelosi insider trading” but there was a notorious case of some company, some stock, that was in stasis. It was tech but I can’t remember which one, and Congress was debating a regulation that would have hampered their profitability. Two days before the vote the Pelosis, Tony and Carmela, plowed millions into the company. The vote shot down the new regulatory rule (not that it would have been enforced anyway; this was the Trump era) and the stock price shot up.
I know people who are pretty good at stock picking. Some of them do it for a living. But I don’t think I know anyone who can match the Pelosi track record from the time that Nan picked up the gavel in the House.
…if I was laying odds…10 would get you 5 that if he wasn’t her husband he’d make the same trades but for bigger amounts because he wouldn’t care about the look of the thing or have to fill out the extra paperwork
…some people accuse me of cynicism…but…the people I know who deal in those sorts of trading games are a disparate bunch in almost every respect…except the one that agrees the line is a guideline not a barrier of substance…you just have to do things the proper way & take your licks if it goes against you…so to my mind that’s arguably a charitable interpretation
…if it’s true, though…someone should build an ETF to mirror their moves & make bank?
Yeah, it shouldn’t matter if she did or didn’t slip him info; there are worse cases on both sides of the aisle and it should be banned, period. It often gets pushed aside for worse/louder/dumber things that Trump did, but anyone who refuses to give up their business while president should be disqualified.
But those are nice white-people crime so nobody cares (and getting Congress to vote against its own interests, lol, good luck there!)
…the favorite rallying cry for the tories (not just them but they cry hardest, longest, most often & most stridently because it’s about “their people”) is “if the opportunity cost of being a politician is too high for those with high earnings potential then you’ll only get the dregs in the game while the smart go where the money is”…where politicians’ salaries, interests, executive director no-show-sinecures & other forms of lucrative supplemental income streams are concerned…the functionaries charged with enforcement via regulatory bodies goes the way that piece from the other day described…funny, that
Yeah, it’s every CEO’s argument for insane pay packages and it’s like but are you actually good at the job? No? Cool, approved.
But it’s also like, what if a not-rich person actually got into politics? And then I think about AOC and it’s like ooooh yeah they really really REALLY hate that even more.
…got distracted by the AOC part at the end but the first bit made me think it depends what “the” job is…if it’s your gig with the carlyle group…then the value proposition of what they pay you from the group’s perspective is likely on the order of “a bargain” “a snip at the price”…”why, you could call it a steal”?
So much to comment on.
1. I didn’t realize that Michael Howard was descended from Romanian Jews. But you see the antisemitism which is so pervasive in the British press, especially on the left. Which is really kind of strange, to an American, because Jewish folk are so strongly identified with the left, and the far-left, but maybe not so much after the anti-Israel riots.
2. Poor Emily, the boarding school student with the pseudonymous Lance Corporal father. I went to university with a lot of kids who boarded. The hair-raising stories. One guy told me that he had gone to school with another alum in our university class, a woman, and one day some adult walked into a science lab to discover her flat on her back and being serviced by another student. They were asked to leave.
“Why didn’t they just—”
“Sex-segregated dorms. If she was found in his dorm or he in her dorm they would have been expelled. It was worth the risk in the science lab, though. I fucked the guy myself. It was easier, though, you know, two guys.”
…it’s…not as difficult as that makes it sound?
…even when the boys & the girls are seperated into school & sister-school
…one of the things that makes barely a ripple in the popular understanding of boarding schools (maybe all of them but definitely the expensive english sort) but allows for the instinctively natural fit of a toff that breaks bad like in a guy ritchie movie is that the institutions demand…in a mother of invention sort of a way…the development of an extensive toolkit for subverting “the rules” while evading the baliffs when it comes to the deliquent tab for unpaid dues
…even in the worst of the winter weather I think the science lab would have been a weak bet…maybe not amateur grade…but…sophmore at best…it’s not even that hard to brace a door that doesn’t have a lock if you pick the right sort…& they didn’t even need to worry about not having the smell of cigarettes blow their cover…which people managed to serially evade multiple times a day in significant numbers
…where there’s a will there’s a way?
More Covid Insanity Fallout:
https://www.westsiderag.com/2024/06/19/sailboats-return-to-central-park-waters
This harmless event was suspended by Emperor Andreus Marcus Maximus “out of an abundance of caution” (the article swerves away from this inconvenient truth.) So you could have been an 8-year-old, double-masked, standing six feet away from the nearest fellow child model boater, but not no. While Handsy was putting the make on a lot of woman who came within his purview, with the collusion of Ghislaine DeRosa, he was draining every ounce of joy out of what was once the most exciting city in the world.
#never forget
…along with…variously…assange maybe doing a deal…israel saying contradictory things about the prognosis for hostilities & whatever frothing nonsense turns out to be the dish of the day…one of the things the above distracted me from was this, actually
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2024/06/23/battle-new-york/
…last archived a day ago apparently
…certainly in the never forgetting stakes the elephant tradiotionally has the edge over the donkey…but…I dunno…don’t fuck with eyore would be my advice?
…that WaPo thing…with all of this
…did put me in mind of an FT thing that went along these lines
…the more I consider the part where the UK goes to the polls on Independence Day while the US picked Guy Fawkes’ Night…for a matched pair of fireworks-across-the-pond…the more it feels like some buggers are having a laugh at our expense…but…irony…gotta love it
…at least…such are the tenets of my faith…tested though it may be on the daily?
NY Dems didn’t try. And haven’t been trying; Cuomo specifically handed power in the state Senate to the GOP for years just because!
Now they’re going to get Jamaal Bowman booted in favor of an openly racist white guy, and it’s just par for the course. And then they’ll be surprised when their guy, who is completely indistinguishable from a GOP opponent, gets waxed by someone who pretends to love Israel even more!
Serious question: but who actually sends kids to private/boarding schools over there? Is Starmer being an asshole or is this the right screaming and shouting because it’s their only hobby besides gutting human rights?
I ask because here until the ’50s used to be two options: the extremely rich, glide-path to elite status schools and then religious schools … and then Brown v. Board happened and the third “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” option came into existence and got quite popular.
Which is to say: basically all of them are varying degrees of “right” mindset and if someone said something about them here, there would be similar rending of garments over religious freedom and parents rights and so on and it would all be completely performative.
I think quite a few British schoolchildren go to non-public schools. Maybe not to board, maybe as day students. All my British friends’ children do/did (but so do/did all my New York friends’ children.) I think in general it’s far less common elsewhere but there is the Ivy League/Oxbridge pipeline to consider.
It’s the ferocious credentialism. I went through public schools and was welcomed with open arms by my university. I doubt that would happen today. Also, I was such a strange, drunken, free-spirited, wandering off the rez guy that I probably poisoned the well for anyone from my town who wanted to go there (I was the first person from the town to get in in 21 years.)
…not counting kidergarten/elementary schools…for the period between 5-16 years old when the state is obliged to find a spot for them for free…the vast majority go to public-funded ones…if this is to be believed
…nearly all of them, in fact
…the “public school” thing is…traditionally…13-18 for boys but for girls it used to start with sitting the 11+ exam…the two post 16 years basically being enough to call it higher education even if you didn’t get to undergraduate
…don’t know that I have an answer, exactly…but…I’ve heard a lot of takes on it from people over the years
…people who didn’t go to one…people who did…people who didn’t put their kids through one…or did…people who are or aren’t stumping up those fees these days…& every combination & permutation of all those pairings you can compile a couple & a kid or two out of
…back in the day…like…way back…before my father’s father’s time…their product was the building block of colonial empire…&…the “right” schools…whether or not they’d be thought of as “of the right” except as a matter of convenient expedience where wealth & commerce overlaps with diplomacy…were pretty much a microcosm of the establishment so the world actually ran much the way the schools did…& with a few exceptional exceptions…were pretty much the preserve of the gentry they indeed preserved at the top of the proverbial heap
…a couple of world wars, a welfare state & a grocer’s daughter later…which is approximately the era my anecdata achieves primary source status…it was a mixed bag…with an incredible amount of baggage…but as a cost benefit analysis it was still an exceptional return on investment in primarily two cases…the bright kids (&/or the ones prepared to “do the work”) could make the grades in the state system & the savings could take you all on holiday in the holidays…but if your kid was one of the duller tools in the box & you had money to burn…public school (in the private sense) literally bought them prospects beyond the reach of many a clever child
…then you had the sort of folks like the military family…or…say…single-income families with a bread-winner in civil engineering with job-sites overseas…or whose home address was less stable than a campus over a five year period…so…some poorer than others…there were scholarships…& bursaries…& installment plans & grants & all manner of ways to tweak the sticker price…even if those tended to be outnumbered by the extras you could tack on in the other direction…but…compared to the international students…whose parents spent insane money to have them schooled in an associated but seperate institution that could deal with anything-but-english being everyone’s first language but enforce english as the only contender for the runner-up second slot…except the really smart ones…those got extra tuition on the english until their parents could be offered, effectively, a discount on the fees to have their statistical bump added to the assessment for the main school
…those kids made everyone look about equally poor despite the pretty stark spectrum between the natives otherwise
…& nowadays…well…you need to be better paid by quite a lot to be able to take it on the chin…although there’s still ways & means to make it happen on more modest means…not unlike buying property, in fact…the phrase “the bank of mum & dad” gets a lot of work…sometimes by the parents’ parents…who are big players in the defrayed childcare costs when it comes to the younger generations being afforded things that advantage them…but…unless you have help…you need to be raking it in…& schools seeming to be aiming more for being featured in the FT’s How To Spend It section than living up to their duly-registered charitable status…is a good bit of the self-reinforcement of it spiralling out of most people’s reach
…here & there you get leftie parents with means who feel virtuous that they aren’t pricing a family out of a home in a catchment area with a better school (maybe even a grammar school like the ones half…probably a lot more than half, actually…of the non-privately-educated politicians of the last several generations went to on their way to a debt-free university experience) whether they think their kids are smart enough to overcome the state school disadvantage or that it’s a bargain to get them out of the simmering climate of comprehensives where farage or andrew tate get traction with pre-pubescent assholes…in their heirarchy of principles “what’s best” & “what I can live with” are both moveable feasts…but for most people…it’s not a choice…either because you view it as a necessity the way the not-their-real-names family do…or in the “couldn’t even if we wanted to” sense that dictates the only way is the state’s way…& there’s just some small outlying slices of demographics that actually wrestle with it
…I went there & so did every male of the family since several hundred years ago when it was only recently built, so you’re going there…that part isn’t a no-brainer even for a lot of the sorts of family names for whom it used to be sufficiently sufficient that it was never likely to be questioned
…but they’ve been taking a similiarly kind-to-be-cruel approach to public education in the UK as they have in a lot of the US for a long time…so the state couldn’t pick up the slack if the private sector went belly up…& I haven’t heard about places going unfilled at any of the pay-as-you-go ones…but for those that ideologically cleave to the idea that they need to be removed from the board in order to achieve a universal single-tier system…the trick is that if you make that happen faster than you fix the sabotage to the other sort…you break everything & fuck a few more generations
…or…to put it the traditional way…who goes to the private sort of public school?
“the lucky ones”©®™
Interesting. Not surprisingly it sounds more class-based there than here, but about 72% of the U.S.’s history of public and private schooling is based on racism rather than class so it’s (should I … should I … yeah I’m making the joke) separate but equal, you could say.
Not unlike colleges, private schools have been broadly struggling here, but it tends to be sort of the middle-grade ones that have it the worst. The religious schools are caught in the wave of less religiosity, but they’re not going anywhere for now. The super-high-end ones haven’t even noticed a blip. But everyone between those two poles is sort of figuring out how to stand out with fewer people willing or able to drop $10-$20K a year on tuition rather than just move to a “good” (that means “white” or possibly “Asian”) district elsewhere.
…the faith-based schools are a whole other puddle of melted votive candle wax
…but there’s overlap on the venn diagram
…if you’d rather see the funny side…this one’s from 2015
…which would be 9 out of the 14 years this one from recently refers to
…who apparently goes down pretty well in all sorts of places?
Counting down until Captain Combover backs out.
Donald’s growing excuses for not showing up to the debate
I heard a dog ate his homework.
…he says it answered to “major” & it bit some secret service guys getting in & out of the mar-a-largo ballroom where he left it with some friends from overseas to look over
The same dog that ate his bone spurs?
Many people are saying it.
Just to cheer you up.
Extra-Large Good News Roundup for Tuesday, June 25, 2024
I know, polls. But I’ve been saying that the narrative has shifted.
Gosh, I wonder why?
…can’t promise it’ll make you feel better…but… @brightersideoflife …saw this & thought of you?
Fingers crossed!
Not Dr. Feelgood!
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/ronny-jackson-house-ethics-committee-b2568097.html
No shit?
https://www.propublica.org/article/biden-report-columbia-river-dams-northwest-tribes
“Friends?”
https://www.rawstory.com/rudy-giuliani-2668600894/
Mad props to The Independent for using the word “Swanky” in the header. Legend status achieved.
People think Rudy is crazy because Rudy is, in fact, crazy. He’s thrown away everything for an orange narcissist with dementia who probably doesn’t even remember his name.
Super-confused right now: vampires are antisemitic?
I must know where our candidates stand on this. This is the one issue that is really wrecking my shit.
#NotAllVampires
But it is a classic trope: https://www.anumuseum.org.il/blog/myth-vampire-jew-blood-libels/
Wow, I had no idea. That’s astounding. Time to start drinking, before I find out that the garden gnomes are homophobic flat-earthers.
There we go….we have taken Berlin 😋
Wij houden van Oranje!
…this might be too funny…but by the sounds of it keir dropped a candidate for laying a bet on the outcome of their bid for a seat
…even though the labour candidate bet that they’d lose?
…apparently that’s a real thing that’s happened today