@nprofile1q... At least Pence did finally stand up to Trump on Jan 6.
Fat chance that any of Trump's offspring would do likewise, or that Trump, who also took the oath, would take any notice if they were to.

@nprofile1q... not just fools.
They have just rigged the rules for adding these IPOs to the NASDAQ so that otherwise conservative index funds are likely to be forced to buy them. Thy are also changing the rules allowing SpaceX to list with only a very small percentage of stock available for investors to buy, so rigging the market.
So a lot of ordinary individuals holding index funds in their portfolio will get sucked in and no doubt beggared as both SpaceX (really mostly a profitable but unsustainable telecom satellite company harnessed to unprofitable rocket launch company) and the two grossly overvalued GenAI companies (OpenAI and Anthropic) that are never likely to turn any sort of profit ever.
So surely surely the price of these shares is going to crash and burn (like Starlink satellites do) before too long.
These IPO are just there as opportunities fro there initial VC investors (and Musk) to cash out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/garthfriesen/2026/04/25/spacex-ipo-is-forcing-changes-to-index-and-underwriting-rules/

@nprofile1q... perhaps you now need to add a diagram to represent vibe coding.

@nprofile1q... well I think it unlikely the Russians would want to undermine one of their principal UK chaos agents. Surprised he didn't accuse Starmer and the Met of doing it.

But irrespective, who cares how or by whom he got found out taking bribes and is now serially being found out coming up with a sequence of different and inconsistent lies as each one is refuted in turn?

@nprofile1q... link to Andy Cotgraves LinkedIn piece:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/acotgreave_a-great-piece-of-data-storytelling-in-the-activity-7461772265538449408-UNvj

@nprofile1q... apart from the claim "Hitler was a socialist" being untrue the sylogism fails anyway.

"A is a B" doesn't imply "all B are A".

"Wolves are Animals" doesn't imply "all Animals are Wolves".

But then Elon (and presumably his followers) were never great at logic.

@nprofile1q... by number or by salience? Large MNC are very big and visible in the economy. I note the survey doesn't actually ask the general public to estimate the profitability of your local greengrocer.

More to the point I don't think the general public has much of a handle on company profit/revenue ratios as is clear from the range and realism of the answers.

As a former economist maybe I ought to have a better handlle on this, but I don't have much of a clue either, except knowing that supermarkets only have a P/R in low single digits. I would be inclined to decline to attempt to come up with figures if were to be asked by the IEA but I suspect most people just make a wild guess based on how exploitative they feel a particular industry seems.

But then current economic orthodoxy is based on the assumption that all economic actors have perfect knowledge (not true, of course), so setting up a survey like this is consistent with that viewpoint, especially as it can then be then used to attempt to justify their partisan lobbying against increasing corporate tax and stamping out avoidance.

@nprofile1q... normal profits?
The big, particularly overseas, companies have well established tricks (such as license fees and transfer prices) to minimise declared UK profits. So why should the general public understand figures that are heavily distorted anyway?

https://social.linux.pizza/deck/@[email protected]/114356686820335404

@nprofile1q... I think most people have no experience of seeing or using company profit percentages as asked in this survey. Clearly evidenced by the attribution of profits to the NHS. Of course there are plenty of very profitable private companies providing goods and services to the NHS and other government organisations.

Company profit rates don't have any relevance to the question of raising the (corporation) tax rate that is applied as a percentage of whatever the profit actually declared. Trying to draw conclusion about this using this survey is gaslighting by the IEA.

And this is ignoring, of course, all the legal subterfuges and legal fiddles that larger companies, in particular, are currently allowed to use to reduce their declared taxable profits in the UK.