Hello friends, I am back! I have been doing a ton of financial research and am very disturbed by what I have learned.

Please enjoy a long (irresponsibly LONG) story about central banking, manufactured crises, George Soros, and the Great Reset.

This thred will be much longer and more dry than my usual, pls bear with me. This one's legit important. The first portion will reference works by Dr. Richard Werner, and the latter George Soros.

Note my views are not indicative of those of people quoted. This post does not constitute investment counsel.

To understand current financial conditions you bare minimum have to go back to WWII. Bretton Woods has just been signed, establishing the IMF and World Bank, and the USD as standard for international settlement.

But we're not talking about US history (yet), we have to look at Japan. Unlike Germany, which had it's economy stripped down and sold off by the victorious Allies, Japan's system remained remarkably intact.

1/ A thread [1/2]about your NHS pensions, tax & the age discrmination “McCloud” case👇

OK this is complicated stuff, Im going to take you through it step by step. But its important, and will affect your pension, so buckle up and pay attention!

Please share & RT/share awareness

2/ To understand “McCloud” let's rewind to yesteryear- you gave a lifetime of public service & (deservingly) got a good “final salary” pension.

Broadly in 1995 (or “legacy”) pension scheme, each year you got 1/80th of your “final salary” as a pension & 3/80th a tax free lump sum

3/ Back in yesteryear, pensions cost 5 or 6% gross salary. For example you worked 37 years & final salary £120k, pension= 37/80ths x £120k=£55,500. You would get this at normal retirement age- 60yrs & it would be index linked to inflation, plus a lump sum (3/80ths) of £166,500

4/ So roll on 2006-08 & government were worried about affordability of the scheme. Life expectancy was increasing so people were in retirement longer. So they made the scheme more expensive & introduced a new “2008” section for new entrants. The 08 scheme removed the lump sum

5/ Existing 95 members had a “choice” to move to ‘08’ scheme. It had a higher retirement age (65) but paid a higher “accrual rate” (60ths not 80ths). Rather than “final salary” (best of last 3 yrs) it was based on a more complicated “reckonable” pay based on best 3/10 yrs pay.

Cont👇
26/ If you have paid AA tax between 1995-22 it is likely your charges will be lower in 1995 than in 2015 scheme. This is because the AA rules are particularly unfair to members of 2 schemes. If your AA charges go down during any of the remedy period, you can claim a refund

27/ It does not matter if you paid cash for AA or used scheme pays, if you overpaid these charges can be refunded. If you charges go up (unlikely unless you have “MHO” status) you may have to pay back tax. There is usually a statutory limit of 4 years for paying underpaid tax.

28/ This limit of 4 yrs of underpaid tax was referenced in the consultation document 👇, although the position is less clear in the full consultation response. We will need to see the final regulations to understand the implications.

29/ The consultation document also stated that members who choose reformed 2015 in retirement & incurred AA charges would be “compensated”. Again detail in is less clear in the full consultation response. We will need to see the final regulations to understand the implications.

30/An important area are “contingent decisions”. Many members took decisions i.e. “opting out” of the scheme based on the age discrimination. @theBMA argued certain cases should automatically be compensated vs having to prove this on a “case by case” basis

A simple thread to understand the meaning of investment cycle (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) in the economy and why it is important?
Which sectors can benefit in such cycle and why?

Do share if you find it useful.

1/n

What is Gross Fixed Capital Formation?

There are essentially 2 methods to calculate GDP of a country. Both methods ultimately tries to measure the total value of goods and services produced in the country during a particular period.

2/n

1. Income Method of GDP calculation adds up INCOME EARNED from all goods and services produced in the country.

2. Expenditure method of GDP calculation takes into account all purchases of goods and services in the country.

3/n

Expenditure method adds up all
consumer spending(C), government spending (G),
business investment spending (I), and net exports (x-m)

Formula:
GDP = C + I + G + (X − M) is the formula for EXPENDITURE method of GDP.

4/n

The “I” (investment) component in the above includes, business investments in creating new assets and spending by households (not government) on new houses also gets included in Investment.

This is known as "Gross Fixed Capital Formation"

5/n

1/ A thread on $APY @apyfinance. I believe this could become a major DeFi bluechip, and I’ve been waiting since the 10th Feb for the price to settle before posting this! But it just won’t. So I’ll post it now, but please go slowly if you buy it. It just did a 5x in 2 days!

2/ So the APY platform is a yield farming aggregator that uses a single pool of liquidity and automatic rebalances the portfolio among different strategies to optimise risk adjusted yield revenues. It is basically like having an automated fund manager managing your portfolio.

3/ Today, if for example, you have funds in a yearn vault and you realise another vault launched with better returns, it can cost 100’s of dollars in ETH fees to switch between them. For anyone not investing huge amounts, this makes switching strategies completely unpractical.

4/On APY, with a single deposit, users funds will be spread across multiple yield farming strategies and automatically rebalance over time to optimise risk-adjusted returns. So users won’t need to keep track & switch between strategies (+pay for fees!) to optimise yield over time

5/ The genius step here is that the $APY algorithm will track not only the strategies % yields, but also risk scores taking into account financial, liquidity or smart contract risks, so funds will be re-allocated over time in order to maximise yield but also manage risk.

During yesterday’s Clubhouse session, @anuarfariz mentioned Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB), and that reminded me of some old notes I had.



A THREAD on one of the greatest struggles in providing a basic right, electricity, to residents in Malaysia's easternmost state 👇

1/ SESB was privatised circa 1998 to nurse a financially distressed state-owned utility back to profitability by taking it out of the hands of the state and placing it in the care of the federal government.

2/ Ownership wise: TNB is major shareholder with 82%, Sabah gov owns the remainder and the Finance Ministry holds a golden share.

3/ Back-of-the-envelope calculations from 2010-2019 annual reports showed that the company had received about RM13 billion in subsidies and development grants from Putrajaya. That number is sans loan obligations to the federal government which stood at RM2.39 billion as of 2019.

4/ Federal aid had helped SESB post stable revenue and net profits across the period under review since subsidies were recognised as company revenue and grants + loans used to finance capex/opex.

First they came for the 🐟

And John Redwood said the 🇬🇧 fishing industry would adjust

Then they came for the 🐖 farmers and 🐷 exports

And they said don't worry, it's just teething problems

Next they came for the 🦪 exporters

And there the Minister wrote a letter saying 🇪🇺 was wrong, when his officials knew 🇪🇺 was right

Then the 🧪 industries worried about the 💷 of making a new database to replace REACH

They're still waiting

The 🚛🚚 operators fear that a load of vehicles are returning to 🇪🇺 empty, and volumes are down

We do not recognise the numbers, the 🇬🇧 Government says

I sense a few double standards present in the debate over Bidens’ historic Child Tax Credit proposal that would cut the child poverty rate by more than 40%.

My focus here is on a perhaps less obvious one but I think relevant: trust fund kids & the tax treatment of inheritances

Since the mid-1990s, as I’ll walk through, reducing the taxation of large inheritances has been a top, if not the top, tax policy priority of conservatives and Republicans.

In parallel, as I’ll also walk through, there has been a steady stream of research concluding that large inheritances reduce the work effort of wealthy heirs

Unless I’ve missed it, I’ve not sensed the type of concern about the work effects on wealthy heirs among conservative proponents of large tax-free inheritances, which we now see among some conservatives and Republican lawmakers around poor people and a larger Child Tax Credit

In 1997, as part of an agreement with Clinton, who secured wins to make health care more affordable for poor children and college tax credits, Gingrich won “reductions in capital gains and estate taxes that had been principal goals for the GOP.”