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Post by aghabullogueshrew on Apr 2, 2020 21:30:49 GMT 1
Okay, so 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month, ermmm! Also, "the cheques in the post", "the taxi is just coming around the corner" and " there will be another along in a minute"!
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Post by jamo on Apr 2, 2020 21:37:45 GMT 1
Okay, so 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month, ermmm! Also, "the cheques in the post", "the taxi is just coming around the corner" and " there will be another along in a minute"! Exactly. Absolute bulls**t. Also, another big statement by the Health Secretary tonight, writing off £13.5 Billion Of NHS debt. A blatant attempt at looking to divert the conversation away from their incompetence . Classic smoke and mirrors stuff from a government extremely well versed in such tactics. First, the NHS had no debt at all. That money was owed from NHS agencies, who just happen to be owned by the government to the government itself. That's not debt.
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Post by aghabullogueshrew on Apr 2, 2020 22:49:08 GMT 1
Cabinet meeting, mid February 2020: PM: "Okay, Covid 19 is on its way to the UK. What can we do?" Health Minister: "Unfortunately, not a lot! We have underfunded the NHS for the last 4 years because of B&@;:/t, so we can't fight it! We don't have the testing equipment, enough PPE, enough beds, doctors or nurses and hardly any ventilators! We are well and truly f&@/€d!" PM: "Okay, what we need is a massive distraction that looks like a revolutionary new approach? Any ideas!" Health Minister: "Herd Immunity"! PM: "Brilliant, we'll go with that. Okay, back to B@&€)/)t!"
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Post by northwestman on Apr 3, 2020 9:12:47 GMT 1
BOSH! And with that Matt Hancock comes out fighting and lands a neat uppercut on the false accusations littering the thread. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8183597/Health-Secretary-savaged-promise-100-000-coronavirus-tests-end-month.htmlMatt Hancock was savaged this morning over his pledge to boost the UK's coronavirus testing capacity to 100,000 by the end of the month after he admitted the government is yet to find a reliable antibody test. The Health Secretary yesterday vowed to dramatically ramp up the number of tests being carried out amid a fierce backlash of the government's efforts so far. But there are major questions over how ministers will achieve the number given that at the moment only approximately 10,000 are being carried out everyday. Meanwhile, Mr Hancock today suggested the lockdown will last until the end of April at least because the UK needs to put in place a test and trace programme before normal life can start to resume. That programme would allow health experts to stop a second wave of the outbreak because people who catch coronavirus could be isolated quickly and all the people who they had come into contact with could also be found and tested. Mr Hancock was grilled on his test pledge during numerous broadcast interviews today but he floundered when he was pushed to give specifics on how things will work. Asked how many of the 100,000 tests will be antibody - a test which shows if you have had the disease rather than the antigen test which shows if you have it currently - Mr Hancock said the UK does not have such a test as yet. He said: 'I think that the antibody test, the blood test, at the moment we haven't got a reliable home test. 'If we manage to get one then that can be easily replicated and we can get into even higher figures., much higher figures.' Asked why the government was factoring in the antibody test for its end of April deadline given that it does not have a test to use, Mr Hancock added to the confusion as he replied: 'Yes, but I am not assuming any come on stream, that is pillar three as we call it, in order to hit the 100,000 target. 'We have already 3,500 a week of antibody tests at Porton Down and they are the top quality, the best test in the world. We are using those for research purposes to understand how much of the population has had coronavirus.' Mr Hancock suggested a mass testing and tracing programme will be the key to ending lockdown but that people will have to wait to get back to normal. He told the BBC: 'The first step is to get the rate of infection down so that that isn't increasing and as you say it takes some time after the lockdown is put in place to get that rate of infection, the rate of transmission down. That is the first step. 'Then we need to make sure that we have the testing in place and the tracking so that if we release any of the measures we don't simply then have the infection spread again in the way that it was starting to spread when we brought the measures into place. So it is a very difficult thing.'
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Post by northwestman on Apr 3, 2020 9:45:40 GMT 1
Public health officials in charge of defending the country from a major pandemic never drew up plans for mass community testing despite warnings from the World Health Organization.
Emergency planners " did not discuss" the need for community testing because they wrongly believed a new strain of influenza would be the next outbreak to strike the UK, a senior Government adviser revealed.
Instead, ministers, along with officials from Public Health England, the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health, decided against planning for mass testing despite an official warning from the WHO that it would slow the spread of disease.
"That may have been a mistake," said Prof Graham Medley, Chairman of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), the official committee advising the Government on infectious diseases, including coronavirus.
The Government now faces mounting questions over the state of Britain's defences against the coronavirus outbreak.
Senior Whitehall officials confirmed that the need for mass testing " did not figure in our thinking" when drawing up plans to protect the country.
Britain has struggled to ramp up its mass testing programme, while other nations including Germany and South Korea were able to move more quickly, testing hundreds of thousands of their citizens.
Public Health England (PHE) in particular has been heavily criticised for failing to mobilise laboratories across the country, with frontline NHS workers turned away for tests due to a lack of capacity.
Prof Medley, who also advises the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said public health officials had failed to draw up plans for mass testing in the mistaken belief that a new strain of influenza would be the next pandemic to threaten Britain.
He added that the current lack of population testing meant that the Government's own modellers were now struggling to track the spread of coronavirus as it passes from person to person.
"The current problem is based upon the fact that we didn't invest in preparedness before all this happened.
Daily Telegraph.
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Post by staffordshrew on Apr 3, 2020 10:05:06 GMT 1
BOSH! And with that Matt Hancock comes out fighting and lands a neat uppercut on the false accusations littering the thread. More like an illegal rabbit punch from a frightened rabbit. 100,000 tests? Expect tonight's briefing questions to focus on how many of those 100,000 are tests to see if you have Coronavirus and how many are the home antibody test we don't have yet? I suppose people's right to refuse medication is suspended at this time?
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Post by northwestman on Apr 3, 2020 10:14:59 GMT 1
BOSH! And with that Matt Hancock comes out fighting and lands a neat uppercut on the false accusations littering the thread. More like an illegal rabbit punch from a frightened rabbit. 100,000 tests? Expect tonight's briefing questions to focus on how many of those 100,000 are tests to see if you have Coronavirus and how many are the home antibody test we don't have yet? I suppose people's right to refuse medication is suspended at this time? And those tests on seeing whether a person has the virus surely have to be repeated, as someone who doesn't have coronavirus one week might then start to show the symptoms the next.
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Post by northwestman on Apr 3, 2020 10:28:37 GMT 1
Worth keeping an eye on how Sweden progresses.Their country might be the only one in Europe to come out of the corona crisis with the economy semi-intact.
There is still no lockdown there. Shopping centres remain open, as are most schools and firms. Many work from home, many don’t – all are at liberty to choose.
It’s not that Sweden is in denial. It has had 5,466 confirmed cases, 282 deaths. Coronavirus has been found in a third of Stockholm’s (many) elderly care homes. But the debate there is still where the British debate was three weeks ago when the Prime Minister was resisting lockdown. This changed for Britain when Imperial College London published its study suggesting that avoiding lockdown could mean 250,000 deaths. This logic applies to Sweden – but the country of the Nobel Prize and the Karolinska Institute believes its own experts. They disagree with Imperial. They still see Covid-19 as a manageable risk.
Hospital data is published all the time, so Sweden’s “experiment” is being conducted in the open. Every time a patient is admitted, the data is updated on a Covid live website in striking detail. Average age: 60. Those with diabetes: 26 per cent. With cardiovascular or lung disease: 24 per cent. With at least one other underlying health condition: 77 per cent. Sweden is also updating its statistics to say if someone died from Covid, or of something else – but with Covid. This might reduce the “death” figure by two thirds. Swedes are also looking at Britain’s surging unemployment, one in five small firms on the verge of going bust, children deprived of education, working mothers edged out of their job. That also hits lives. "Rising unemployment hits pensions directly. What’s more, the tax base disappears – then we have to start cutting welfare.”
Daily Telegraph.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 10:37:14 GMT 1
If all this goes on much longer, we will be sowing the seeds of a total collapse of our Western free civilisation (zero economic activity, resulting in zero tax income and no money to spend on Health, Education the Environment or Defence) and whilst I understand that such a prospect fills many with great glee so that they get their particular Utopia, it scares the hell out of me! Get a grip, people before it's too late!!!
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Post by staffordshrew on Apr 3, 2020 11:19:00 GMT 1
Depends what the health care situation is in Sweden, "Sweden – the country of the Nobel Prize and the Karolinska Institute believes its own experts. They disagree with Imperial. They still see Covid-19 as a manageable risk".
We had to change because the NHS just would not be able to cope with the numbers needing intensive care and so many more would die. Maybe Sweden can cope with the care needs that will be generated?
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Post by northwestman on Apr 3, 2020 11:23:09 GMT 1
If all this goes on much longer, we will be sowing the seeds of a total collapse of our Western free civilisation (zero economic activity, resulting in zero tax income and no money to spend on Health, Education the Environment or Defence) and whilst I understand that such a prospect fills many with great glee so that they get their particular Utopia, it scares the hell out of me! Get a grip, people before it's too late!!! So it would seem. Britain’s services sector has suffered its worst slowdown on record as Covid-19 devastates businesses and forces restaurants, pubs and other businesses to close their doors. IHS’s Markit’s services purchasing managers’ index – which measures the change in sector activity compared to last month – gave a reading of 34.5, the worst ever recorded. Any reading below 50 indicates contraction. The UK’s dire numbers came after even worse figures in the Eurozone, where Italy recorded the worst reading ever seen on the activity gauge – just 17.4. The numbers point towards steep contractions in the UK and across the European bloc. And all because of a bat or pangolin!
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Post by SeanBroseley on Apr 3, 2020 11:40:25 GMT 1
There is a growing push from the likes of the Daily Telegraph to do away with the restrictions in favour of the economy. No doubt there is pressure within the Conservative Party too. The instinct of the party is that people should have the freedom to choose to die to support their families while ensuring the necessity of doing so. This ties in with the nonsense household analogy for government finances that the Daily Telegaph trots out.
The role of outriders in this is useful in building this new consensus. So the BBC told us yesterday, look some of these people would have died anyway because they are ill/old. Young was more explicit: the people who are dying are a burden and economically unproductive. Let's leave aside for the moment that until a few short weeks ago these were people who were going to get the fruit harvest in this year. So yesterday we had Hancock mooting a proposal for a coronavirus passport for people who have had the virus, adn so can return to work. So if you are at home and struggling financially get infected and get back to work if and when you recover.
What should be happening is that the government should order non-essential employers to stop ordering their employees into work and fully financially support those workers. Essential workers should then be given proper protective clothing to do their work safely.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 12:05:04 GMT 1
There is a growing push from the likes of the Daily Telegraph to do away with the restrictions in favour of the economy. No doubt there is pressure within the Conservative Party too. The instinct of the party is that people should have the freedom to choose to die to support their families while ensuring the necessity of doing so. This ties in with the nonsense household analogy for government finances that the Daily Telegaph trots out. The role of outriders in this is useful in building this new consensus. So the BBC told us yesterday, look some of these people would have died anyway because they are ill/old. Young was more explicit: the people who are dying are a burden and economically unproductive. Let's leave aside for the moment that until a few short weeks ago these were people who were going to get the fruit harvest in this year. So yesterday we had Hancock mooting a proposal for a coronavirus passport for people who have had the virus, adn so can return to work. So if you are at home and struggling financially get infected and get back to work if and when you recover. What should be happening is that the government should order non-essential employers to stop ordering their employees into work and fully financially support those workers. Essential workers should then be given proper protective clothing to do their work safely.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 12:06:34 GMT 1
There is a growing push from the likes of the Daily Telegraph to do away with the restrictions in favour of the economy. No doubt there is pressure within the Conservative Party too. The instinct of the party is that people should have the freedom to choose to die to support their families while ensuring the necessity of doing so. This ties in with the nonsense household analogy for government finances that the Daily Telegaph trots out. The role of outriders in this is useful in building this new consensus. So the BBC told us yesterday, look some of these people would have died anyway because they are ill/old. Young was more explicit: the people who are dying are a burden and economically unproductive. Let's leave aside for the moment that until a few short weeks ago these were people who were going to get the fruit harvest in this year. So yesterday we had Hancock mooting a proposal for a coronavirus passport for people who have had the virus, adn so can return to work. So if you are at home and struggling financially get infected and get back to work if and when you recover. What should be happening is that the government should order non-essential employers to stop ordering their employees into work and fully financially support those workers. Essential workers should then be given proper protective clothing to do their work safely.
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Post by Pilch on Apr 3, 2020 12:06:44 GMT 1
While scepticism continues to swirl over China's reporting methods, there are concerns from western officials that Iran, Russia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and North Korea, which has not reported any cases, are also under-counting their cases and death tolls. until a day or 2 ago so were we 2nd day running , I've put on the bbc news headlines and no figures at all on the uk, nothing on their main web page and we question countries we have never been to and really know nothing about
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 12:06:48 GMT 1
There is a growing push from the likes of the Daily Telegraph to do away with the restrictions in favour of the economy. No doubt there is pressure within the Conservative Party too. The instinct of the party is that people should have the freedom to choose to die to support their families while ensuring the necessity of doing so. This ties in with the nonsense household analogy for government finances that the Daily Telegaph trots out. The role of outriders in this is useful in building this new consensus. So the BBC told us yesterday, look some of these people would have died anyway because they are ill/old. Young was more explicit: the people who are dying are a burden and economically unproductive. Let's leave aside for the moment that until a few short weeks ago these were people who were going to get the fruit harvest in this year. So yesterday we had Hancock mooting a proposal for a coronavirus passport for people who have had the virus, adn so can return to work. So if you are at home and struggling financially get infected and get back to work if and when you recover. What should be happening is that the government should order non-essential employers to stop ordering their employees into work and fully financially support those workers. Essential workers should then be given proper protective clothing to do their work safely.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 12:06:58 GMT 1
There is a growing push from the likes of the Daily Telegraph to do away with the restrictions in favour of the economy. No doubt there is pressure within the Conservative Party too. The instinct of the party is that people should have the freedom to choose to die to support their families while ensuring the necessity of doing so. This ties in with the nonsense household analogy for government finances that the Daily Telegaph trots out. The role of outriders in this is useful in building this new consensus. So the BBC told us yesterday, look some of these people would have died anyway because they are ill/old. Young was more explicit: the people who are dying are a burden and economically unproductive. Let's leave aside for the moment that until a few short weeks ago these were people who were going to get the fruit harvest in this year. So yesterday we had Hancock mooting a proposal for a coronavirus passport for people who have had the virus, adn so can return to work. So if you are at home and struggling financially get infected and get back to work if and when you recover. What should be happening is that the government should order non-essential employers to stop ordering their employees into work and fully financially support those workers. Essential workers should then be given proper protective clothing to do their work safely.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 12:19:18 GMT 1
You may, of course, be correct in that response - how does any of us actually KNOW, without the benefit of foretelling the future; however, this does not address the fundamental point that zero economic activity equates to zero tax income for whatever sort of Government we end up with - does it simply print money Zimbabwe-or Weimar Republic-style? Or would the State have no need of funds? Surely there is a text-book answer somewhere.... Help me, somebody!
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Post by claphamshrew on Apr 3, 2020 12:56:23 GMT 1
You may, of course, be correct in that response - how does any of us actually KNOW, without the benefit of foretelling the future; however, this does not address the fundamental point that zero economic activity equates to zero tax income for whatever sort of Government we end up with - does it simply print money Zimbabwe-or Weimar Republic-style? Or would the State have no need of funds? Surely there is a text-book answer somewhere.... Help me, somebody! Hi Armchairfan I’d be happy to help and by coincidence I will be hosting a Zoom webinar this afternoon on how to use proboards. The course includes a section named ‘quoting for beginners’ amongst other things. Send me a DM if you’d like to join and I’ll send you the URL. Regards and stay safe Claphamshrew
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 13:05:10 GMT 1
You may, of course, be correct in that response - how does any of us actually KNOW, without the benefit of foretelling the future; however, this does not address the fundamental point that zero economic activity equates to zero tax income for whatever sort of Government we end up with - does it simply print money Zimbabwe-or Weimar Republic-style? Or would the State have no need of funds? Surely there is a text-book answer somewhere.... Help me, somebody! Hi Armchairfan I’d be happy to help and by coincidence I will be hosting a Zoom webinar this afternoon on how to use proboards. The course includes a section named ‘quoting for beginners’ amongst other things. Send me a DM if you’d like to join and I’ll send you the URL. Regards and stay safe Claphamshrew
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Post by SeanBroseley on Apr 3, 2020 13:11:38 GMT 1
There is a textbook answer and it was written in 1936.
First of all, what I have elicited in my previous post is an extreme position. I am an extremist politically. I believe in what used to be called a mixed economy with a significant role for government and worker-owned enterprises in economic activity is the best approach. Translate this into present circumstances and I am saying that 1) maintaining economc activity should not rely on granny and grandad basically joining the army. 2) We know how to reactivate a dead economy. We don't know how to reactivate a dead person.
"Printing money" is a pejorative term that has no basis in a post Gold Standard world. In the gold standard world a currency is convertible to gold on demand. If too many people try to make good that promise compared to the gold that a central bank can call upon there are problems.
The Weimar Republic - printed its domestoc currency in excess of domestic needs to purchase foreign currency to pay reparations which had to be paid in foreign currency. Its economy was devasted not by war but by the occupation of coalfields and industry by France on their shared border.
Zimbabwe - The country's structure of land ownership was amazingly unequal and across racial lines. Mugabe it in his head in 2000 to suddenly and radically change that. The economy collapsed.
When someone receives money there are three things that happens to it: 1) it's spent, 2) it's saved, 3) it's taxed. And that is the case each time that the money changes hands. Therefore, there is no necessary relationship between the money supply and the inflation rate. The last 10 years has shown this. So the idea is wrong in practice but in some circles it has to be wrong in theory too.
Economic activity has not collapsed to zero. It will likely collapse by 15%. There is a threat relating to food production too. Because the basic assumption to our economy is that we are confident that other people will grow our food for us.
The government announcements will support economic expenditure to some extent. Unfortunately it will probably do that by increasing inequality because it is also geared to supporting asset prices. There is an important reason for that, which I will return to.
The government will also see a reduction in the amount of money that it takes out of the economy in tax. That is a good thing rather than a bad thing in this situation as it keeps the money in the economy (although dependant on other things it may be saved rather than spent).
However the government does not need to collect money to spend it because it produces that money through the Bank of England. This means that the government can and should support incomes as an emergency measure because we do not want to see societal breakdown. The UK secret services many years ago the view that people are on the street after missing five meals. So if Sunday dinner was your last meal you are dismantling stuff on Tuesday afternoon.
The issue for the government is not one of where is the money coming from but one of what can be bought with the currency. If the economy is not producing and if imports are more expensive because of a depreciation in the currency (e.g. our approach to the virus is less effective than other countries) then we could have a problem. But not the problem that we're told: it's not money supply -> hyperinflation as an automatic mechanism. This is why supporting asset prices is important. Our economy is very reliant upon financial services to support employment and to provide foreign earnings. Asset prices support loans and they also maintain management fees based upon a percentage of asset values. Also financial markets have a potential to freeze under these sort of circumstances.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2020 13:43:45 GMT 1
Please can we have a Daily Mail free day once in a while...
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 14:29:42 GMT 1
There is a textbook answer and it was written in 1936. First of all, what I have elicited in my previous post is an extreme position. I am an extremist politically. I believe in what used to be called a mixed economy with a significant role for government and worker-owned enterprises in economic activity is the best approach. Translate this into present circumstances and I am saying that 1) maintaining economc activity should not rely on granny and grandad basically joining the army. 2) We know how to reactivate a dead economy. We don't know how to reactivate a dead person. "Printing money" is a pejorative term that has no basis in a post Gold Standard world. In the gold standard world a currency is convertible to gold on demand. If too many people try to make good that promise compared to the gold that a central bank can call upon there are problems. The Weimar Republic - printed its domestoc currency in excess of domestic needs to purchase foreign currency to pay reparations which had to be paid in foreign currency. Its economy was devasted not by war but by the occupation of coalfields and industry by France on their shared border. Zimbabwe - The country's structure of land ownership was amazingly unequal and across racial lines. Mugabe it in his head in 2000 to suddenly and radically change that. The economy collapsed. When someone receives money there are three things that happens to it: 1) it's spent, 2) it's saved, 3) it's taxed. And that is the case each time that the money changes hands. Therefore, there is no necessary relationship between the money supply and the inflation rate. The last 10 years has shown this. So the idea is wrong in practice but in some circles it has to be wrong in theory too. Economic activity has not collapsed to zero. It will likely collapse by 15%. There is a threat relating to food production too. Because the basic assumption to our economy is that we are confident that other people will grow our food for us. The government announcements will support economic expenditure to some extent. Unfortunately it will probably do that by increasing inequality because it is also geared to supporting asset prices. There is an important reason for that, which I will return to. The government will also see a reduction in the amount of money that it takes out of the economy in tax. That is a good thing rather than a bad thing in this situation as it keeps the money in the economy (although dependant on other things it may be saved rather than spent). However the government does not need to collect money to spend it because it produces that money through the Bank of England. This means that the government can and should support incomes as an emergency measure because we do not want to see societal breakdown. The UK secret services many years ago the view that people are on the street after missing five meals. So if Sunday dinner was your last meal you are dismantling stuff on Tuesday afternoon. The issue for the government is not one of where is the money coming from but one of what can be bought with the currency. If the economy is not producing and if imports are more expensive because of a depreciation in the currency (e.g. our approach to the virus is less effective than other countries) then we could have a problem. But not the problem that we're told: it's not money supply -> hyperinflation as an automatic mechanism. This is why supporting asset prices is important. Our economy is very reliant upon financial services to support employment and to provide foreign earnings. Asset prices support loans and they also maintain management fees based upon a percentage of asset values. Also financial markets have a potential to freeze under these sort of circumstances.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 3, 2020 14:29:59 GMT 1
There is a textbook answer and it was written in 1936. First of all, what I have elicited in my previous post is an extreme position. I am an extremist politically. I believe in what used to be called a mixed economy with a significant role for government and worker-owned enterprises in economic activity is the best approach. Translate this into present circumstances and I am saying that 1) maintaining economc activity should not rely on granny and grandad basically joining the army. 2) We know how to reactivate a dead economy. We don't know how to reactivate a dead person. "Printing money" is a pejorative term that has no basis in a post Gold Standard world. In the gold standard world a currency is convertible to gold on demand. If too many people try to make good that promise compared to the gold that a central bank can call upon there are problems. The Weimar Republic - printed its domestoc currency in excess of domestic needs to purchase foreign currency to pay reparations which had to be paid in foreign currency. Its economy was devasted not by war but by the occupation of coalfields and industry by France on their shared border. Zimbabwe - The country's structure of land ownership was amazingly unequal and across racial lines. Mugabe it in his head in 2000 to suddenly and radically change that. The economy collapsed. When someone receives money there are three things that happens to it: 1) it's spent, 2) it's saved, 3) it's taxed. And that is the case each time that the money changes hands. Therefore, there is no necessary relationship between the money supply and the inflation rate. The last 10 years has shown this. So the idea is wrong in practice but in some circles it has to be wrong in theory too. Economic activity has not collapsed to zero. It will likely collapse by 15%. There is a threat relating to food production too. Because the basic assumption to our economy is that we are confident that other people will grow our food for us. The government announcements will support economic expenditure to some extent. Unfortunately it will probably do that by increasing inequality because it is also geared to supporting asset prices. There is an important reason for that, which I will return to. The government will also see a reduction in the amount of money that it takes out of the economy in tax. That is a good thing rather than a bad thing in this situation as it keeps the money in the economy (although dependant on other things it may be saved rather than spent). However the government does not need to collect money to spend it because it produces that money through the Bank of England. This means that the government can and should support incomes as an emergency measure because we do not want to see societal breakdown. The UK secret services many years ago the view that people are on the street after missing five meals. So if Sunday dinner was your last meal you are dismantling stuff on Tuesday afternoon. The issue for the government is not one of where is the money coming from but one of what can be bought with the currency. If the economy is not producing and if imports are more expensive because of a depreciation in the currency (e.g. our approach to the virus is less effective than other countries) then we could have a problem. But not the problem that we're told: it's not money supply -> hyperinflation as an automatic mechanism. This is why supporting asset prices is important. Our economy is very reliant upon financial services to support employment and to provide foreign earnings. Asset prices support loans and they also maintain management fees based upon a percentage of asset values. Also financial markets have a potential to freeze under these sort of circumstances.
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Post by northwestman on Apr 3, 2020 14:51:34 GMT 1
Please can we have a Daily Mail free day once in a while... I'm working on that, but when both the Times and The Telegraph operate behind paywalls it doesn't make things easy. However, I've tried to level things up a bit by sometimes paying £1 for 24 hours access to the Telegraph, so some of my posts will now dip into that source. The Guardian and the Independent are of course free.
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Post by staffordshrew on Apr 4, 2020 9:22:16 GMT 1
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Post by northwestman on Apr 4, 2020 9:35:58 GMT 1
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8186507/PMs-virus-adviser-warns-Britain-need-adopt-herd-immunity.htmlBoris Johnson's coronavirus lockdown has pinned Britain 'into a corner' with no obvious exit strategy, according to a senior Downing Street scientific adviser who braced the country for a return to a policy of herd immunity. Professor Graham Medley, the government's chief pandemic modeller, said the only viable path through the health emergency would be to let people become infected so they are no longer vulnerable. He warned the current restrictions would not steer the country out of the pandemic - only prevent a short-term spread - but would bring the economy to its knees. Mounting unemployment, domestic violence and burgeoning mental health issues could be widespread if the normal functioning of society remains paralysed, Prof Medley forecast. Describing a trade-off between harming the lives of the young versus safeguarding the well being of the elderly, the scientist said the Prime Minister had a 'big decision' to make on April 13 when the lockdown will be reviewed.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 4, 2020 14:03:43 GMT 1
There is a textbook answer and it was written in 1936. First of all, what I have elicited in my previous post is an extreme position. I am an extremist politically. I believe in what used to be called a mixed economy with a significant role for government and worker-owned enterprises in economic activity is the best approach. Translate this into present circumstances and I am saying that 1) maintaining economc activity should not rely on granny and grandad basically joining the army. 2) We know how to reactivate a dead economy. We don't know how to reactivate a dead person. "Printing money" is a pejorative term that has no basis in a post Gold Standard world. In the gold standard world a currency is convertible to gold on demand. If too many people try to make good that promise compared to the gold that a central bank can call upon there are problems. The Weimar Republic - printed its domestoc currency in excess of domestic needs to purchase foreign currency to pay reparations which had to be paid in foreign currency. Its economy was devasted not by war but by the occupation of coalfields and industry by France on their shared border. Zimbabwe - The country's structure of land ownership was amazingly unequal and across racial lines. Mugabe it in his head in 2000 to suddenly and radically change that. The economy collapsed. When someone receives money there are three things that happens to it: 1) it's spent, 2) it's saved, 3) it's taxed. And that is the case each time that the money changes hands. Therefore, there is no necessary relationship between the money supply and the inflation rate. The last 10 years has shown this. So the idea is wrong in practice but in some circles it has to be wrong in theory too. Economic activity has not collapsed to zero. It will likely collapse by 15%. There is a threat relating to food production too. Because the basic assumption to our economy is that we are confident that other people will grow our food for us. The government announcements will support economic expenditure to some extent. Unfortunately it will probably do that by increasing inequality because it is also geared to supporting asset prices. There is an important reason for that, which I will return to. The government will also see a reduction in the amount of money that it takes out of the economy in tax. That is a good thing rather than a bad thing in this situation as it keeps the money in the economy (although dependant on other things it may be saved rather than spent). However the government does not need to collect money to spend it because it produces that money through the Bank of England. This means that the government can and should support incomes as an emergency measure because we do not want to see societal breakdown. The UK secret services many years ago the view that people are on the street after missing five meals. So if Sunday dinner was your last meal you are dismantling stuff on Tuesday afternoon. The issue for the government is not one of where is the money coming from but one of what can be bought with the currency. If the economy is not producing and if imports are more expensive because of a depreciation in the currency (e.g. our approach to the virus is less effective than other countries) then we could have a problem. But not the problem that we're told: it's not money supply -> hyperinflation as an automatic mechanism. This is why supporting asset prices is important. Our economy is very reliant upon financial services to support employment and to provide foreign earnings. Asset prices support loans and they also maintain management fees based upon a percentage of asset values. Also financial markets have a potential to freeze under these sort of circumstances.
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Post by armchairfan on Apr 4, 2020 14:04:00 GMT 1
There is a textbook answer and it was written in 1936. First of all, what I have elicited in my previous post is an extreme position. I am an extremist politically. I believe in what used to be called a mixed economy with a significant role for government and worker-owned enterprises in economic activity is the best approach. Translate this into present circumstances and I am saying that 1) maintaining economc activity should not rely on granny and grandad basically joining the army. 2) We know how to reactivate a dead economy. We don't know how to reactivate a dead person. "Printing money" is a pejorative term that has no basis in a post Gold Standard world. In the gold standard world a currency is convertible to gold on demand. If too many people try to make good that promise compared to the gold that a central bank can call upon there are problems. The Weimar Republic - printed its domestoc currency in excess of domestic needs to purchase foreign currency to pay reparations which had to be paid in foreign currency. Its economy was devasted not by war but by the occupation of coalfields and industry by France on their shared border. Zimbabwe - The country's structure of land ownership was amazingly unequal and across racial lines. Mugabe it in his head in 2000 to suddenly and radically change that. The economy collapsed. When someone receives money there are three things that happens to it: 1) it's spent, 2) it's saved, 3) it's taxed. And that is the case each time that the money changes hands. Therefore, there is no necessary relationship between the money supply and the inflation rate. The last 10 years has shown this. So the idea is wrong in practice but in some circles it has to be wrong in theory too. Economic activity has not collapsed to zero. It will likely collapse by 15%. There is a threat relating to food production too. Because the basic assumption to our economy is that we are confident that other people will grow our food for us. The government announcements will support economic expenditure to some extent. Unfortunately it will probably do that by increasing inequality because it is also geared to supporting asset prices. There is an important reason for that, which I will return to. The government will also see a reduction in the amount of money that it takes out of the economy in tax. That is a good thing rather than a bad thing in this situation as it keeps the money in the economy (although dependant on other things it may be saved rather than spent). However the government does not need to collect money to spend it because it produces that money through the Bank of England. This means that the government can and should support incomes as an emergency measure because we do not want to see societal breakdown. The UK secret services many years ago the view that people are on the street after missing five meals. So if Sunday dinner was your last meal you are dismantling stuff on Tuesday afternoon. The issue for the government is not one of where is the money coming from but one of what can be bought with the currency. If the economy is not producing and if imports are more expensive because of a depreciation in the currency (e.g. our approach to the virus is less effective than other countries) then we could have a problem. But not the problem that we're told: it's not money supply -> hyperinflation as an automatic mechanism. This is why supporting asset prices is important. Our economy is very reliant upon financial services to support employment and to provide foreign earnings. Asset prices support loans and they also maintain management fees based upon a percentage of asset values. Also financial markets have a potential to freeze under these sort of circumstances.
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Post by northwestman on Apr 4, 2020 15:43:19 GMT 1
A year ago, a former government adviser sat down to write a blogpost about political failure. One sign of the rotten state of our political classes, he wrote, was their “near total general failure” to think about the risk of a pandemic, which could emerge at any time and kill millions. The risk was grave, but the preparation negligible. “New institutions are needed that incentivise hard thinking about avoiding disasters,” he said.
The author of this far-sighted analysis was none other than Dominic Cummings, now the Prime Minister’s chief adviser. Mr Cummings is currently in isolation with coronavirus symptoms. If his symptoms are not severe, he may now be reflecting upon the fact that, earlier this year, the bureaucracy he held in such contempt successfully convinced him and others in Government to adopt a doomed strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Whether this strategy would have worked is now an academic question. It quickly proved to be politically toxic. Its legacy is that the country is now totally ill-equipped to implement the only set of measures that can get us safely out of the economically crippling lockdown. Those measures must involve finding and isolating the virus in a targeted fashion, rather than imposing blanket restrictions on the whole country.
It was a strategy that defied best practice in countries that have experienced and controlled epidemics before. It underestimated the health, political and economic threat heading our way. Yet it was one the Government clung to, with disastrous consequences, for nearly three months. That strategy involved making no provision to control or monitor the mass spread of the virus, based on huge assumptions about its characteristics, instead opting for light-touch measures justified by dubious “behavioural science”.
Unlike past failures such as Grenfell and Windrush, we can now see the faces of officials who have so royally messed this up. They pop up in a rotating cast of senior bureaucrats made to stand with ministers at the daily updates, where we also see the way ministers wriggle out of accountability by bouncing questions onto them, resulting in non-answers dressed in fatuous, bureaucratic pleasantries. We can also see, with startling clarity, the emptiness of the phrases that are bandied about over and over about Britain’s “world-leading”, “world-beating”, “best-in-class” capabilities, when all the data is revealing that we are a country led by institutions of mediocre organisational skill and stratospheric self-regard.
If there is not a major improvement in the handling of this epidemic, we are going to run out of road. The lockdown cannot be kept in place for long. Yet if the Government fails to establish mass testing, efficient contact-tracing and effective quarantine systems, it will not be able to lift the lockdown without reverting to a “survival of the fittest” strategy. The public can accept that we are facing an unprecedented challenge, which makes demands on all of us. What we cannot accept are grand assurances of the country’s administrative brilliance alongside manifest examples of failure and incompetence. Mr Cummings, it turns out, was right. If only he had listened to himself.
Juliet Samuel. Daily Telegraph.
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