Financial Times: Arm boss tapped for Nvidia job as chip giant fights to steady ship • Haas among contenders. Blame game in Washington. Stock hit again amid Huang scandal.
Comment: The Huang story has everything a frustrated journalist would wish for, sex, wealth, scandal, and especially “the mighty fallen”. In the end it may be the case that not only was it a case of “it is my company, I can do what I like” but also the success of Nvidia or otherwise has nothing to do with the extracurricular activities of the founder, or even their successor.
The Telegraph: Inflation wipes out 24 years of house price growth. Some first-time buyers cannot sell their homes that are worth less than they paid. The average value of a British home is now less than it was 24 years ago as inflation eats away at nationwide property wealth. New data show that the average property has shed nearly £63,000 in value over the past five years after adjusting for inflation. Real-terms property prices fell to £276,157 between July and September, according to Nationwide Building Society, down 2pc compared to the previous three months and 19pc lower than the most recent market peak in 2021.
Comment: An Englishman’s Home may be his castle, but it has also been a tax magnet, with a combination of stamp duty, council tax, energy bills, 2% over base mortgages, mansion tax, and when it is all over, inheritance tax. What is perhaps most amazing is that with a rapidly rising population house prices are still falling?
The Telegraph: Burnham funding ‘pro-EU propaganda’ at British universities. PM accused of wasting millions on Erasmus courses championing ‘European values’ as part of reset with Brussels.
Comment: It is a shame that Mr Burnham is obviously not as in tune with life on British university campuses, as he would find there is more chance of bumping into a Martian than someone of that demographic being in favour of Brexit. Clearly, after 10 years of the Blob: judiciary, legislature, Bank of England, media et al, sabotaging the aftermath of the 2016 vote, one would be hard pushed to find many people outside Reform / Restore who would now be against championing European values of unelected officials spewing out diktats such as banning smoky bacon crisps.
Sunday Times: Andy Burnham is facing the first major rebellion of his premiership from Labour MPs mobilising to block approval for drilling at the Rosebank oilfield. Seventy-five Labour MPs have privately signed a letter opposing the move, according to some involved in the campaign, and there are hopes the number could hit 100. The letter warns that the UK’s credibility as a global climate leader would be destroyed if drilling went ahead off the Scottish coast and argues that it would not reduce energy bills.
Comment: Of course, we know that the main policy of the Labour party is to tax “working” people to give money to non-working people to vote for them. Anything that gets in the way of this ideology, such as money from the North Sea has to be stamped out at source. What a situation we are in when our own MPs wish us to work harder rather than reap the benefits of natural resources to make our lives more comfortable. And of course, who cares about this country’s role as a leader in any area any more?
Sunday Times: The air traffic shutdown that grounded flights across the US for nearly five hours on Friday began when a contractor at a remote site was switching copper wiring to fibre-optic cable, according to Sean Duffy, the US transport secretary. As passengers continued to crowd airports waiting for cancelled flights yesterday, Duffy said the “incredibly old telecommunications system” was not fit for purpose. Although the ground stop was lifted on Friday evening, almost 6,000 flights leaving, entering or crossing the US were affected by cancellations or delays again yesterday, the tracking website FlightAware said. More than 3,800 were cancelled. Duffy said the ground stop happened because workers from L3Harris, a technology provider, had been replacing a router during the wiring upgrade.
Comment: One might have thought that having key pieces of infrastructure put together in papier-mâché style was the domain of the British, it would appear that our friends in the former colonies also like to emulate us in terms of taking risks with aerospace. Given that we are supposed to be in the age of AI, one might have thought that a system crash in one area might have a back up somewhere else. The takeaway this week is that if Microsoft cannot get it right, who can? Of course, neither of these incidents were hacks, were they? Did anyone notice that there was no significant Microsoft outage in Russia?
The Telegraph: Starling flies into trouble after bank’s wings clipped. The digital bank has found itself flying into a fresh batch of City regulations. In its latest accounts for the 12 months to March, Starling reported a 5pc increase in deposits to £12.7bn, but all of its growth came from a 45pc increase in savings-account deposits. Personal current-account balances fell 6pc, eroding its cheapest form of funding and leaving it more exposed as rates fall. In a recent bond offering, it warned that a faster-than-expected fall in rates “could present a threat to the group’s earnings and profitability.
Comment: It would appear that although the UK retail banking space is one of the pillars of rip off Brittain, even this may finally run out of road as being the gift that keeps on giving as far as those operating in it. Whereas previously it would appear that the banks were acting as HMRC’s proxy in terms of keeping tabs on our money, now in desperate times they have been subject to the typical over-regulation and taxation that the rest of us mere mortals are facing. Starling is / was a banking too many.
Mail On Sunday: Andy Burnham was facing embarrassment last night after a No 10 speechwriter was caught using artificial intelligence to help craft a keynote address. The Downing Street aide using ChatGPT to make the Prime Miniister’s words more ‘emotive’ was also seen quaffing prosecco as he wrote about the cost-of-living crisis en route to a party conference.
Comment: One of the problems of using AI / ChatGPT for any “creative” exercise, including this one, is that despite all the chips and data centres, it really is not quite good enough. We are still in the early days of the technology. While it may be good enough for a lackey of the Prime Minister to write a speech in his name for him to then layer faux sincerity on top, for most serious purposes we are probably still a year or two away from AI providing the human touch.
Sunday Times: Paul McCartney is a billionaire and world’s third-richest musician. The former Beatle’s wealth is partly down to sizeable music catalogue that includes the works of Buddy Holly. “Forbes attributed the 84-year-old’s mega wealth to the sizeable music catalogue he has amassed since he shot to global superstardom as primary songwriter and vocalist of the Beatles, alongside John Lennon. McCartney is now the third-richest musician in the world after Jay-Z at £2.01bn ($2.8bn) and Taylor Swift at £1.49bn ($2bn), according to the magazine.”
Comment: While pop stars always try and assure us that they do it for the passion they have for music, the joy of performing, or even for the fame, we all know that they are really just in it for the money. Given the influence and longevity of the Beatles and latter his solo career, one would actually have thought Sir Paul might have reached the £1bn rather earlier than the age of 84. This is especially the case given how much the Beatles marketing machine continues in overdrive. Perhaps one can blame the Taxman.