My only issue with what you have said is you claim it’s “easy” and “simple” when fact is it isn’t why can’t you just admit that. There are huge logistical challenges in doing stuff like beefing up the testing system you make it seem like you click your fingers and its done.
You're completely missing the point. I"m talking about money not logistics. You said the government can't afford to prop up the economy. It can. How they use the money is a different thing, and I suggested a workable solution. The alternative is millions of people on the dole sitting idle when they'd rather be working. I really can't see why anyone would be opposed to this.
I mean this basically sounds like a workers camp
No they would be government funded community jobs. Advertised, recruited and appointed in the normal way. People wouldn't be forced into them, they would choose to do them, either permanently or on a temporary basis while their current jobs are on hold. Again, why would anyone be opposed to this?
There is a hint of conscription about the idea of “put (people) them to work caring for and supporting people affected by covid”.
See above.
You’re completely missing the point. I”m talking about money not logistics. You said the government can’t afford to prop up the economy.
So, you're saying financially its easy to do? Im talking practically logistically its hard I think we can both agree on that. The concept (aka moonshot) maybe easy but practically its something that would be very hard to do.
No they would be government funded community jobs. Advertised, recruited and appointed in the normal way. People wouldn’t be forced into them, they would choose to do them, either permanently or on a temporary basis while their current jobs are on hold. Again, why would anyone be opposed to this?
I mean thats not what you said initially but what ever.
No they would be government funded community jobs.
*Recommends DazH for a propaganda position in the CCP*
do people really think they all sat around doing it on purpose?
Yes. I know a couple whose younger family members explained that Brexit would be a major problem for their business activities and would the oldies kindly vote against. They voted Brexit. Their son-in-law's buisiness is about to fold due a combination of Brexit and Covid, the grandson working for a holiday company is unlikely to return to Greece next year, the granddaughter won't be working in France anymore, another grandson isn't affected but disappointed by the lack of vertical solidarity from the oldies - zero help with education or anything for that matter.
Covid and Brexit are revealing just how selfish the oldies are.
All the best to you and yours A-A, hope you all come through to teach another day.
Having been in direct contact with the finances of Travelodge, Holiday Inn and Future Inns in my old job it’s a very big part of their business model. They rely on the income from suits travelling to meetings, other offices and travelling reps plus they have the income from the trades (electricians, plumbers etc) moving round the country as their base income. The extra from tourists and stop-overs is their profit base. It’s why a lot of the hotels are located on main roads or just outside a town with no real attractions, they’re there to hoover up the business travellers.
I'm a very good customer of the above through work. Back in Feb / March booking a week ahead you could maybe get the odd room at £50, but more usually £60 - £80 and that would go up over the summer. I'm picking rooms up for £30 at the moment, and these are the better located hotels that used to be at the more expensive end.
Also Travelodges have generally closed their bar / restuarnt areeas that were normally busy. Premmier Inn are running really poor reduced menus in their restaurants (basically Steak, Fish n Chips or Curry but always they're short of stuff. So the menus is like Steak (no chips left), Fish (no peas or tartare sauce) and Curry with toast instead of nann. Their revenues must be way way down. I can imagine they must be getting near the point of mothballing sites for the winter.
I'd like to know the cost of this say against the Gulf War or indeed when we look back in three years the start up costs of Brexit. Before anyone jumps in that's without having an opinion on the relative merits of Brexit long term.
Technically not a boomer, but I do have a 23yo who went to work this morning at 07:30 to a minimum wage job as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. He has two degrees and a debt that he may or may not pay off. Of course having me as a father means he is rather informed on the pandemic. Poor sod! As for the younger one, well he's in a (party) bubble self-isolating in hall for another week until term starts. He's also had COVID19.
Long-term I view the economy as a zero sum game across the ages - the NS&I/premium bonds are signalling that already. Wealth redistribution will come, but pensions in the private sector mean more long-term saving will be needed from those starting work. As for Brexit - I think we have bigger, more pressing issues.
Low skill doesn’t mean no skill and never has, its more skills that can be learned with little prerequisites in a relatively short period of time.
Even higher skills could be learned in a relatively short space of time. It's clear that we're going to need much more hospital and health infrastructure in future, pehaps even a parallel health system dedicated to covid if a vaccine doesn't solve the problem. We could be planning and building that infrastructure now, and training the nurses and doctors ready for when they're built.
I do despair at the lack of vision displayed on here. It seems everything is too hard, too complicated, too expensive or whatever else. It's no wonder we're f***** as a country. Yes we have a useless government. Guess who voted them in?
Last time I checked (few weeks ago) the UK prevalence was around 6%.
Has that changed much of anything in the last few weeks?
As for Brexit – I think we have bigger, more pressing issues.
Such as? It's very pressing at present as there are a few weeks to come up with a deal and it conditions the UK's relationship with the rest of the continent for an indefinite period.
Wrong thread but I wasn't the one to bring Bexit into the Covid thread. I also think that the initial UK response to Covid was in part due to not taking what was happening in Europe seriously even though large numbers of Brits were skiing there. We'll be fine said someone earlier in this thread, we don't do all that kissing and hand shaking, that did make my eyes roll.
So, you’re saying financially its easy to do?
Yes, absolutely.
I mean thats not what you said initially but what ever.
I never specified the mechanism, you just assumed I meant forcing people to work.
*Recommends DazH for a propaganda position in the CCP*
Sigh. You do realise that the govt is by far the largest employer in the UK and somehow manages not to be a communist state?
Don't take my flippant reply too seriously, the language you used just entertained me.
I’d like to know the cost of this say against the Gulf War or indeed when we look back in three years the start up costs of Brexit. Before anyone jumps in that’s without having an opinion on the relative merits of Brexit long term.
Estimates are £260bn to £390bn, that's Furlough, lose of taxation, JSA, Hospitals, Nightingales, Vaccines etc etc. That's 'only' April 20 to April 21, so some more will be pre-April and there will be more post-April 21.
The estimated cost of Brexit is £200bn, but it's based on a reduction in GDP and not a direct cost for the Government. No one will ever really know how much it will cost, there's too much Politics for that.
The Gulf war cost £8.4bn between 2003 and 2009. The total cost of the 'war on terror' for the UK was £20bn.
If you wanted a 'big number' the cost of the Credit Crunch and resulting Great Recession was about £7 Trillion, but again that's a reduction in GDP and not a cost, although the direct cost to Tax Payers will be higher than Covid and Brexit combined.
The 'good' thing about the Covid cost is that the value of money is only relative to other nations / currencies, because pretty much every developed nation has spent a huge amount of it's GDP on Covid, the effect will be less pronounced than it might otherwise be. The nations who haven't had to spend huge amounts on it will do better - Australia did very well out the the Credit Crunch because it avoided it, I get the feeling they will do well out of Covid too - NZ will of course, but their economy is much smaller.
That's not to say it will benefit it's people, the last 10 years have seen a lot of inflation in Australia resulting in very high costs for essential goods.
Yes, absolutely.
As this point I don't understand why although financially its easy you can't admit logistically its not. Which makes it not as easy as you initially made out. Don't worry admitting you're not 100% right wont invalidate your point / argument.
...and my local rag reckons the panic buying has started again pictures of empty supermarket shelves where the bog roll should be. FFS
Last time I checked (few weeks ago) the UK prevalence was around 6%.
That is the prevalence of seroconversion - People who have previously raised antibodies against the pathogen. It has changed very little due to control of the epidemic, and is about 8% now (and may be waning slightly). About twice this value in London, a bit lower in the South West.
Prevalence of infection is much much lower - typically far below 1%. ONS records about 60/100,000 (0.06%) people infected at any one time. Incidence is the number of new cases per day. If one assumes a six-day infectious period then it is approximately 6x lower at 10/100,000 new cases per day (with much regional variation), equal to 6,000 new cases per day in England and Wales (60M people).
Data is here for reference
It has changed very little due to control of the epidemic, and is about 8% now (and may be waning slightly). About twice this value in London, a bit lower in the South West.
This is something i don't get TiRed how does region dictate percentage of people with the antibody or is just more people in london more people likely to have the antibody?
There have been a LOT more cases in London that the South West so the pathogen has burnt through about 3x the proportion of the population. Controls were implemented at the same time, but the epidemic was later in London than the South West, hence the difference in prevalence. Devon and Cornwall were two weeks behind London in March.
Looks like Munich, Germany's hot spot, is going back to harsher restrictions.
As of Thursday only 5 people allowed to meet up. Masks to be worn outside in certain parts of the city.
Pjay's post was good and sums up what a lot of my younger cousins are saying on fb.
I've mentioned from the start how ironic it is that I'm having to take a massive hit financially, watch the pennies and restrict my activities whilst those with solid pensions carry on more or less as normal.
…and my local rag reckons the panic buying has started again pictures of empty supermarket shelves where the bog roll should be. FFS
That started to happen the second the Caerphilly lockdown was announced in my local ones, empty shelves almost overnight. Home deliveries also doubled in size (all slots are usually full) and are full of bog roll, tissues, pasta, pet food, long-life milk and home baking ingredients. Thankfully it's just people doing big shops while in there rather than all-out panic but it's having an effect, making others do the same.
So @DazH wants the bank of England to print a big wedge of cash (magic the money out of the air) and inject it into the economy, without a similar output of product from the economy, infarct within an economic downturn....?
Its very simple why the gov can't do that, something called inflation.
Link
"Printing more money doesn’t increase economic output – it only increases the amount of cash circulating in the economy. If more money is printed, consumers are able to demand more goods, but if firms have still the same amount of goods, they will respond by putting up prices. In a simplified model, printing money will just cause inflation."
As this point I don’t understand why although financially its easy you can’t admit logistically its not.
Stop being pedantic man! Take a look back and you'll see I said it was easy for the government to prop up jobs and businesses during the pandemic. The mechanisms for providing the money and dstributing it already exist and are already being used. The debate about logistics is a completely separate one about how we spend that money in a more useful way to deal with the pandemic and other problems.
So what is exactly your point? That we can't afford it, or that it's too difficult to spend the money? Or both? Or that it's better to do nothing and allow the economy to collapse?
Its very simple why the gov can’t do that, something called inflation.
Inflation is only a danger when the economy is at it's full productive capacity, and we're currently a long way from that.
https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-explained-aoc-2019-3?r=US&IR=T
The mechanisms for providing the money and dstributing it already exist and are already being used.
Sound point. The government found the methods to deliver support to companies and workers... they could now not only be extended/repeated, but improved upon, and the gaps and any areas of overspend fixed. So we're down to it being "unaffordable", which, in the short term (the next 12 months) it is not. Arguably, it will damage the economy more not to do so... especially as we can expect a serious of economic shocks not related to the health crisis in the coming year.
And then there's the issue of devaluation against the backdrop Brexit.
This is what I mean about the messaging:
What you get from a Government that relies on spin and distraction and glib phrases. I despair.
wants the bank of England to print a big wedge of cash (magic the money out of the air) and inject it into the economy, without a similar output of product from the economy, infarct within an economic downturn….?
The Gov did 'print' about £100bn at the start of the crisis, they will print more.
They could print about £1Tn, as you say it would cause massive inflation, but the cause of that / the flip-side is a devalued £.
If, DezH is of a socialist leaning, that may not be seen as a 'bad thing' it was pretty much as the core of the Corbyn plan for Brexit. Devalue the £ to encourage more production in the UK. We'd be relatively poorer, but with higher levels of employment and a smaller divide between rich and poor. They will of course mentioned highly skilled, well paid jobs, but it's not really easy to do that, even with our relatively high levels of education it would be a generational shift, much like the generational shift between the 70s and late 90s. A lot of pain in the meantime.
I know BJ has very few fans on STW, but look at the position he's found himself in.
He can't print money endlessly, see above, not practically, and certainly not as the Leader of Right leaning Tory Gov.
Borrowing is higher than ever, higher than even "the war" - 10 years of austerity only went so far, mostly it just stemmed the tide. There is a limit to how much we can borrow, we may be close to that limit, and the closer you get to it, the lower the limit gets because interest payments get higher.
The economy did bounce back pretty much inline with BOE projections through the summer, even though few expected it to be a straight line to the end of Covid. This meant the borrowing was a fixable problem.
A second, months long, national lockdown would be very, very difficult to pay for. Another couple of hundred billion in Furlough payments, because it simply will not work if they ask people to stay at home without assurances they'll keep their jobs. There's no way on earth people will look at a 0.05% chance of death as a good enough reason to lose "everything".
An extended Furlough scheme WILL mean Tax Rises, they might try austerity, but the public have little taste for it now, and there's the dreaded "B Word" honestly, if there was a chance the EU would allow it after all of this shit, I'm sure Boris would consider cancelling Brexit, such is the scale of the problem.
Plus, there's a good indication it just won't work, I stand by my claim that, even though most people might agree with the need, they only agree with the bits that don't affect them too much - the childless youngster will live with schools closing, the middle aged parent with pubs closing, the Elderly with both, but not Garden Centres and shops etc. The same people who clapped for carers will still visit their friends because "oh it's only a quick cuppa, and anyway, I'm sure I had Covid months ago" everyone's now got an excuse to do whatever they feel they "need" to do.
I've come to the conclusion the only plan left, is the first plan - we "flattened the curve" and we "protected the NHS" they're as ready now as they're ever going to be. It's terrible the vaccine hasn't come yet, but frankly the pace in which it has been developed is staggering, it's equally terrible Covid seems to refuse to become less lethal like SARS (although their is perhaps a chance it has). The only course of action left, is to shield the old and vulnerable, maximise social distancing in busy places and ride the storm until Spring / Mass vaccinations.
So what is exactly your point? That we can’t afford it, or that it’s too difficult to spend the money? Or both? Or that it’s better to do nothing and allow the economy to collapse?
My point is I simply picked at what I see as a flaw in your argument but you decided to be rude and a little condescending by starting your responses with yawns and claiming "they" will never understand. If it was so easy to boot the test program we wouldn't have the shortage we have now for example. But you do you dude.
@P-Jay my thoughts exactly, I just can't be arsed (or have the time) to write them out on here.
They could print about £1Tn, as you say it would cause massive inflation
Only if the economy is at full capacity with near to full employment. We don't know the figure it would take to get to that point, but clearly right now there is a lot of spare capacity and the danger is not inflation, but the opposite.
He can’t print money endlessly, see above, not practically
He can within the limits mentioned above.
There is a limit to how much we can borrow, we may be close to that limit, and the closer you get to it, the lower the limit gets because interest payments get higher.
There is no limit. What's the evidence for saying we're at the limit? Borrowing never stopped increasing since 2009 yet interest rates have remained at close to zero or even negative. It's a zero-sum game, public deficits represent private sector surpluses, which are then invested into the economy. Reducing the deficit reduces the ability of the private sector to invest. Running a surplus will actually remove money from the economy and reverse growth.
An extended Furlough scheme WILL mean Tax Rises
Tax rises will only be required to combat inflation if/when the economy hits the productive limit. They are not required to either 'pay back the debt' or provide public funds for spending. The debt will evaporate through inflation as has always been the case, or if inflation remains low it will simply persist, there really is no limit.
Sorry I know I'm banging on about this but these are all fallacies based on the assumption that the national finances are the same as a household's. They're not. Use whatever metaphor you like, but we don't have to operate within the conventional constraints of a 'national credit card' etc. The only reason we do is politics and vested interests. Instead of asking if the money tree exists, try asking why it's only used for a tiny select few purposes (like funding wars, bailing out banks etc) instead of improving things for society at large.
Great speech from Johnson in the commons just now... and a good response from Starmer ongoing right now.
[ one offered little detail ... and the other concentrating on the details ... but nothing to disagree with as regards anything said by either ]
So another 6 months of working from home. 10pm curfew on restaurants and pubs, plus table service only. 15 people max at a wedding, and fines doubled to £200.
Interesting that the changes elsewhere (eg Northern Ireland) that ban households mixing in private dwellings hasn't been replicated here.
The changes don't quite feel as urgent as the speech that preceded it
Interesting that the changes elsewhere (eg Northern Ireland) that ban households mixing in private dwellings hasn’t been replicated here.
That is in place in this bit of England... I suspect that more regions will be included if and when they are needed.
Is the working from home an enforceable rule or a guidance? They seem to be emphasising enforcement of the various rules so will we need key worker letters or letters from our employer stating we can't work from home?
Cant see that stopping the acceleration tbh. The only indoor places my wife, myself and my son have been since school started is school and funnily enough theres no distancing or masks...apart from tesco actually, forgot tye food shop.
Yeah it did seem like the speech was saying how bad things were and then the result is a slight changing in the current rules that clearly aren't working.
seems like the virus only likes to come out to play after 10pm so the pubs curfew seems like a sensible precaution.
Great speech from Johnson in the commons just now… and a good response from Starmer ongoing right now.
I feel like he was channeling his best Churchill.
So another 6 months of working from home. 10pm curfew on restaurants and pubs, plus table service only. 15 people max at a wedding, and fines doubled to £200.
Don't forget not being able to play indoor football. These are the things that will blow Corona out of the water.
.
These are the things that will blow Corona out of the water.
What will then ?
The number of businesses that are just going to call it a day on the back of that is going to be huge. He's just read them the last rights. As a self-employed freelancer in an industry that pretty much ground to a halt overnight in March, I truly just despair.
If they end furlough next month then what state this countries economy is going to be in tatters before they even factor in Brexit
We're all just hostages to their rank incompetence.
I thought PJay’s post was pretty subdued really.
Today’s youth is being expected to sacrifice their youth to save the generation that has benefited from free education, cheap housing and decent pensions and pulled up the drawbridge after them whilst expecting the youth to pay the bill.
And they’ve created a climate crisis (that will impact on the youth, not them) and forced the country into an act seppuku and voted in a bunch of lying fanatics without a thought for said youth.
Quite frankly I’m surprised that it’s just ‘* you’ instead of why don’t you just * off and die now, please…
Best hope then youth don’t get properly political!
I also thought PJay's post was pretty much bang on.
That last point about 'youth getting properly political', though is something that terrifies the Tories. Getting younger people on a treadmill of low wage, low security jobs is a key aim.
It serves them in two regards.
Firstly it makes younger people simply too busy trying to make ends meet to even consider what the alternatives might be.
Secondly, it makes them simultaneously protective and resentful. They know they can't put their head above the parapet at work because there is a conveyor belt of applicants who haven't got anything at all - threatening their small crumb of security. This resentment is then easy to channel. Never the fault of the 80 year old who retired 25 years ago, oh no, immigrants, shirkers (edited) etc.
