Coronavirus

[Witton Park]

Saw this tweet yesterday. Made me chuckle.

"Does anybody know the long term exit strategy for the clapping thing?"

[Graham Breeze]

Hello Oracle,

QE – plenty of evidence that the QE following the crash led to a reallocation of resources by redistributing the money created to those who were already asset rich. Lots of pieces on line about it from the FT to the Spectator – take your pick. People with assets don’t really need more money.Perhaps you don't know as much about it as you think.

Lots of your other points I agree with (bet you didn’t expect that).

Public sector pensions? Yes, I’d agree they are better for your average employee than private these days.

People screwing the system? Yes, that happens in the public sector. Small beer compared to the money squirrelled away offshore in the private sector though.

School closures, as part of the overall lock down, yes that’s damaging the economy, as well as other things like businesses being told to stop trading.

Entire crisis overegged? We’ll never know. Is it better to be where we are now than suffer what happened in parts of Italy? Hindsight – that thing you get just after you need it.

You have called a few times for parity. A synonym for parity is equality (I bet you knew that). Another thing we agree on. There should be more parity in society, you are absolutely correct.

People relying on foodbanks would like a bit more parity too. As would zero-hour, low paid workers who have to top up their wages with UC to survive.

It doesn’t have to be achieved by a race to the bottom though. In the 6th richest country in the world, there should be enough money out there to try and give us all a fairer deal. Better pensions, better wages, a better health service, better job security, no need for food banks. Sadly, with the CV crisis, a fairer society is now even more unlikely. There will be plenty of money made out of it though but it won’t ‘trickle down’ to people who need it. Rees Moggs’ investment firm has been advising its clients on how to make ‘super normal returns’ off the back of the current market upheavals. That’s a nice thought.

Pie in the sky, wishful thinking, unaffordable! (the asset rich will tell us), but we have to start somewhere.
So there you go, I’m a ‘lefty trouble maker’. Yet here you are calling for equality. It’s a funny old world.

Mmmh. Odd how a case made calmly is more convincing than a spittle - flecked rant.

[Muddy Retriever]

Mmmh. Odd how a case made calmly is more convincing than a spittle - flecked rant.

Maybe, but a spittle - flecked rant is far more fun.

[Muddy Retriever]

SARS had much lower transmissibility , and good fortune helped.

Covid is far more endemic, by a factor of hundreds or thousands. The confusion over symptoms and assymptomatic carriers made it endemic before it was even recognised as a problem.

It is not going away after months.Brazil is on the way up not down.

Schools cannot wait till it is “ unconditionally safe”. It Is years, not weeks.

You could be right, it could be with us for a long time.

However, I'm fascinated by what's going on in London right now. They've had exactly the same lockdown as everywhere else in the UK but unlike elsewhere, they are getting hardly any new infections. What can be the explanation for that?

It could be wishful thinking, but perhaps the virus has run it's course there. As London, initially had far more infections than the rest of the UK, could an element of herd immunity be kicking in? The Liverpool School of tropical medicine believes herd community kicks in at much less than the 60% figure that is conventionally quoted. This is based on the theory that people's susceptibility to the virus varies. So that as the epidemic progresses, the pool of easily infected people starts to dry up.

Certainly this would explain the situation in Sweden where there has been no lockdown. Although it has had more infections and deaths than its neighbours, the pandemic is still broadly having the same trajectory as elsewhere.

It's a hope anyway.

[Oracle]

QE is a foolhardy response to problems caused by money at too low cost.
It is prescribing more heroin to an addict, more of the poison that made the economy sick pre 2008.

Even bernanke admitted eventually that fed monetary policy lately copied by Blair and brown caused the bubble and the crash, also destroying savings. It destroyed return and so pensions for all but public sector.

But ALL QE is , is more capacity to lend. It is not “ free money”, there is still a counter party to expiring bonds that have to be paid eventually.

The idea of QE is demand or stimulus to economy is encouraged by lending cheaply.

The practical fact is there is a limit to how much an individual can borrow and pay back, in lifetime. So stimulus is a one hit now exhausted, and with very low economic return there is little motivation for massive industrial investment either. It is now trying to push on the end of a rope.

So the prime beneficiary of QE was the government able to borrow more cheaply once central banks bought up existing bonds from financial institutions at market rate , thereby giving banks the opportunity to buy more of the same. It funded primarily government debt at market value by putting buyers into the system for existing debt, But thereby is the problem. It hands debt and interest on to kids. It is this generation stealing from its grandchildren.

So who is left to borrow more? Speculators, ( who are in large proportion joe public ) which is why housing bubbles happened. Gordon brown was so fixated on spending the illusory income, from a fake housing boom, he turned a blind eye to the bubble. Even in early 2008 he said there would be no boom and bust.
QE is also the reason for the longest Dow bull run in history.

Be careful who you read with their politically motivated tripe.
The list of those who missed the 2008 bubble visible easily in 2006 include Gordon brown of course, stiglitz , IMF, OECD, FT, spectator, mervyn king, need I go on? I read all sorts of tripe in the FT.
Most of the same said we should join the euro or die.

My criterion for Listening to economists is those who saw 2008 in 2005. The list is short.

You - personally - are responsible for wage levels. Every time you buy cheapest or when that isn’t cheap enough you buy from abroad.
Employers can only pay what their customers will pay. If you think business can pay more - try starting one.

Public sector pensions are not “ better value” they are an uneconomic greedy scam in present economic climate.
Even worse when the system is gamed.

I expect employees to retire on a pension based Broadly on what they have saved. Topped up by a small amount from universal NI.
Public sector are getting double or triple that, and since the economy is a zero sum game, they are stealing it from private sector.

This attack on so called billionaires will put tens more thousands onto the unemployed queues. And far more into food banks.

Socialists do not have a monopoly on caring.Indeed, they don’t care at all: they are like a parent who buys all the toys in a shop on a credit card then can’t pay the electricity bill at the end of the month. Ask James Callahan, or the Greeks. The caring parent limits spend to income. If someone wants to spend more, they need to find NEW revenue, not more deadweights on enterprise killing the golden goose.


Latest crazy statement from NUE.
Teachers won’t mark homework in the list of 100 demands.

They could act responsibly instead: leave it unopened for 72 hours. Mark it then.

Hello Oracle,

QE – plenty of evidence that the QE following the crash led to a reallocation of resources by redistributing the money created to those who were already asset rich. Lots of pieces on line about it from the FT to the Spectator – take your pick. People with assets don’t really need more money.Perhaps you don't know as much about it as you think.

Lots of your other points I agree with (bet you didn’t expect that).

Public sector pensions? Yes, I’d agree they are better for your average employee than private these days.

People screwing the system? Yes, that happens in the public sector. Small beer compared to the money squirrelled away offshore in the private sector though.

School closures, as part of the overall lock down, yes that’s damaging the economy, as well as other things like businesses being told to stop trading.

Entire crisis overegged? We’ll never know. Is it better to be where we are now than suffer what happened in parts of Italy? Hindsight – that thing you get just after you need it.

You have called a few times for parity. A synonym for parity is equality (I bet you knew that). Another thing we agree on. There should be more parity in society, you are absolutely correct.

People relying on foodbanks would like a bit more parity too. As would zero-hour, low paid workers who have to top up their wages with UC to survive.

It doesn’t have to be achieved by a race to the bottom though. In the 6th richest country in the world, there should be enough money out there to try and give us all a fairer deal. Better pensions, better wages, a better health service, better job security, no need for food banks. Sadly, with the CV crisis, a fairer society is now even more unlikely. There will be plenty of money made out of it though but it won’t ‘trickle down’ to people who need it. Rees Moggs’ investment firm has been advising its clients on how to make ‘super normal returns’ off the back of the current market upheavals. That’s a nice thought.

Pie in the sky, wishful thinking, unaffordable! (the asset rich will tell us), but we have to start somewhere.
So there you go, I’m a ‘lefty trouble maker’. Yet here you are calling for equality. It’s a funny old world.

[Graham Breeze]

... believes herd community kicks in at much less than the 60% figure that is conventionally quoted. This is based on the theory that people's susceptibility to the virus varies. So that as the epidemic progresses, the pool of easily infected people starts to dry up.

Last Saturday I self-administered a Covid 19 test as part of a random DoHSE/ Imperial College/ Ipsos MORI survey to see how many people actually have the virus.

It was all very professionally done - comprehensive instructions/ youtube video/ lengthy questionnaire about health/contacts etc, time - slot courier collection of sample.

I got my result (negative) on Wednesday by text, email and a letter - so no delay there and I look forward to the findings.

[Mike T]

Last Saturday I self-administered a Covid 19 test as part of a random DoHSE/ Imperial College/ Ipsos MORI survey to see how many people actually have the virus.

It was all very professionally done - comprehensive instructions/ youtube video/ lengthy questionnaire about health/contacts etc, time - slot courier collection of sample.

I got my result (negative) on Wednesday by text, email and a letter - so no delay there and I look forward to the findings.

My partner also did this - negative - and was also impressed with how smoothly the process went. I assume it was these tests that gave us the 1 in 400 current infection rate.

[Stagger]

I work at a college and even with 16year olds and older. The building is not structurally made for the current guidelines.

Corridors are not wide enough, the workshop spaces are too confined. PPE is currently available but shared. Tools and equipment are shared.

There are approximately 120 different students use just our welding facilities weekly.

I fail to see how staff and students can be keep to reccomended guidance.

Risk assessment is all well and good but unless you have a very good knowledge of the risks and hazards it would be extremely had to write an assessment.

Assessing current data only 500 people under 45 have currently passed away from the virus

Just over 4500 people in the 45 to 65 years old.

36000 are over 65.

The elderly are at the greater risk.

So keep your elderly in doors.

[Stagger]

Should be fairly safe at work apart for the elderly staff.

[Stagger]

Oh

Keep em out of supermarkets and off golf courses.