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Andrew Levi

@AndrewPRLevi

6 Oct

@BorisJohnson

As @BorisJohnson keeps digging on “high skill, high wage”, with an approach closer to East German communism than Californian capitalism, let’s look at who did well, how the UK did, & what we can learn.

Spoiler: Mr Johnson urgently needs to reconsider his failed Brexit.

A 🧵 /1.

What matters to people is what their wages can buy. And whether they’re being treated fairly.

Let’s look at the Federal Republic of Germany (“West Germany” until 1990) & the UK. With the USA as global benchmark. /2.

So, how’s that been going?

The attached chart of GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power & inflation, shows Germany
overtook the UK in the 1970s. They tracked each other through the era of UK EEC/EU membership for about 35 years. Until something happened. /3.

Read 12 tweets

Andrew Levi

@AndrewPRLevi

5 Oct

“High skill, high wage” & state “transition” - a history in six tweets

In 1977 Erich Honecker, still trying to build back better after 30 years, issued a labour code for East Germany.

Rules for a high skill, high wage, low immigration, innovative, centrally planned economy. /1.

1977 being the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, Leonid Brezhnev gave a speech.

The USSR & its allies were in transition. The struggling “actually existing socialism” so far achieved was only a step on the way to true communism. A further 60 years would be needed. /2.

Of course, Honecker & Brezhnev also ran low emigration policies, severely restricting their citizens’ freedom movement.

The “anti-fascist protection wall” was there, they emphasised, to protect patriotic workers against foreigners.

All very confusing. /3.

Read 7 tweets

Andrew Levi

@AndrewPRLevi

4 Oct

“If” - updated to 4 October 2021, with apologies to Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your comms going when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on Zuck;

If you can trust your messaging app when all men doubt Facebook,
And you laugh at their bad luck:

If you can wait … and wait, and wait, and wait,
For WhatsApp to restart, perhaps with a new look,

Or, having waited, happily leave its users to their fate,
And yet still send and receive as many messages as you like;

IF you can keep your data secure,
While messaging with Kings, friends or colleagues alike,

If no foes nor other competitors can infect your system, pure,
If all who use a sensible system, like you do, can keep in touch:

Read 4 tweets

Andrew Levi

@AndrewPRLevi

30 Sep

The torrent of whining self-pity, conspiracist “anti-globalism” (hmm, who could be meant?) & reality denial, as the chaotic project shreds a once influential, respected country, often distracts from a core Brexiter motivation. Destruction. Of the EU. And much else. A short 🧵./1.

The UK hasn’t yet been totally wrecked. Hooray! Brexit’s a triumph. Straw-men rule the world.

But the evil EUSSR Empire which oppressed the world for so long, must be destroyed. Then, the independent cantons of UK-Slavia will truly be free & sovereign.

Let’s look at that. /2.

Suppose 🇪🇺 contracted to the original six 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 🇱🇺

The 🌎 would look like this (in GDP order):

GDP $T Def spend Pop M

🇺🇸 22.7 0.7 0.3
🇨🇳 16.6 0.2 1.4
🇪🇺 11.0 0.16 0.24
🇯🇵 5.4 0.05 0.13

And 🇬🇧? /3.

Read 8 tweets

Andrew Levi

@AndrewPRLevi

27 Sep

@UKLabour

.@UKLabour’s making a huge error with its @RachelReevesMP & @Keir_Starmer line on “fiscal responsibility” & “Brexit’s over”.

It won’t win them power. If it did, it’d destroy them in office.

@AngelaRayner’s closer to the mark, but not much, with her attacks. Here’s why. A 🧵 /1.

“Fiscal responsibility” is code for limiting government spending to the amount collected in tax. Perhaps supplemented by a small, strictly limited percentage of government bond sales aka “borrowing”. /2.

The assumption’s that anything else would cause (a) inflation, (b) excessive interest costs/ inter-generational burden to “pay back the debt”. Both assumptions are false. There’s a third assumption among some: they know (a) & (b) are false, but think voters won’t understand. /3.

Read 21 tweets

Andrew Levi

@AndrewPRLevi

24 Sep

You know you can’t have world-beating training in businesses, because of “cheap labour” sloshing around the single market. Right?

So to fix that you must leave the EU?

And well-paid, skilled jobs are therefore a Brexit benefit?

You can. You don’t. They aren’t.

A short 🧵 /1.

Since 1969 the Federal Republic of Germany has operated a highly successful system, which brings business & government together to produce top class training, in a major, dynamic, market economy. Since the early 90s, in the EU Single Market, with the four freedoms. /2.

The four freedoms? To recap: the free movement of goods, services, people & capital. /3.

Read 7 tweets

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