I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
We are washing our hands now, and tacking lots of other precautions, and people when identified are getting tested and should be self isolating, you may have faith in the track and trace, but I don't.
irrespective of that some places have opened up already without big problems e.g. in the UK Georgia or Denmark
Yes we are and we need to continue doing those sensible things even as we ease out of the lockdown and get back to normal.
Some places have but their case numbers when they did were lower than ours are. The lower we can get the case numbers, the easier it will be to contain this. The better we contain this the more we can get back to normal. Do you understand that logic?
I understand your logic, I just disagree, the delay in the reopening is doing immense pain to our economy and our freedoms. could the delay you are suggesting save 'some lives' yes possibly but the number is IMHO small. there is an ongoing argument about the 'cost of a life' and its hard to argue when we don't know for defiant ether number, so I will not go down that rabbit hole.
I;m also prity confidant that Georgia had more active ceases per million than than us.
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
Believe in Boris comrade...rejoice at the fountain of the Boris...stay alert and we'll vanquish this disease
Its what Singapore, New Zealand and other nations have done. Why can't we?
R dropped before lockdown just from washing our hands, even when we lacked the testing and tracing capabilities. Why can't washing our hands plus testing and tracing keep it down?
We probably will keep R down, possible below 1 and defiantly at worst only just above it, compared to the first wave, we have built up some level of heard immunity.
Indeed which is why the most important thing for lifting lockdown isn't really R, its the quantity of cases in the community.
If we can get the new cases in the hundreds rather than thousands per day and keep R below 1 then the virus will be very containable and the rest of us can get back to normal.
I accept it's a trailing rather than a leading indicator, but getting the death toll down is the key one, I think. Less death means greater confidence
@BigRich - have you read "The Forgotten Depression: The Crash That Cured Itself" by Jim Grant?
I haven't read it, I may be confusing it with something else, but I think I sore a lecher by the auther,was that about the 'non' depredation of 1921?
That'll be the one.
Basically, his point is that government intervention usually has two consequences: (1) it furthers long term income and capital inequality by protecting the owners of capital, and (2) it usually makes recovery longer than shorter.
The key, of course, is that a crash (like the one we've had) doesn't actually actually affect the productive power of the economy. It might mean you lose the time, money and hard work you sunk into your business. But - to take the example of a restaraunt - it has not made the tables, chairs, cookers, pots and pans disappear.
Just cureose, where/when did you hear about the book?
When I ran a mutual fund, I used to subscribe to his newsletter "Grant's Interest Rate Observer". It was one of the better investment newsletter publications.
I don't work in the industry so have not seen it, but I think I'v head it referd to.
It's comparable to the domino-effect disaster which the financial crisis would have become if the Brown/Darling government hadn't rescued the creditors of the banks, albeit not quite so extreme (because at least some sectors in the current crisis are relatively or entirely unaffected). But it's worse that what the financial crisis was with that rescue, and I don't think there's anything much the government can do* beyond what it is already doing, which is only short-term support.
* Well of course there is one thing they could do to help things somewhat, but this government of ultra-Brexit loons won't do it.
What's the one thing we could do?
I don't see how Brexit is relevant except thankfully the transition will end so we're not on the hook for bailing out the continent as well as fixing our own problems.
It is absolutely incontrovertible that they need to extend the transition, it's a complete no-brainer. There simply isn't the time or the capacity for industry, or even governments themselves, to prepare for the catastrophic increase in red tape, not even to mention the disruption to supply chains in addition to the the disruption already being seen. Only the most ludicrous purblind ideologue could possibly not accept this point.
I do have some sympathy with the argument that merely extending the transition in itself is simply avoiding a resolution of the issues, but the difficulty is that even with Covid-19, eleven months to negotiate a deal and, crucially, to prepare for it, was always absurdly short. Businesses and governments, even in normal times, would need at least six months to make preparations once they know what they are preparing for. That means that even without Covid-19 we would need to be finalising the trade deal now in order to implement it in January. With Covid-19, who the hell is able to give this full attention?
This is a joint failure of the UK and the EU. The UK for ideological insanity, and the EU for the root cause of the problem, namely their daft and inflexible sequencing. The whole thing has been backwards - we should have negotiated the trade deal first, and then jointly figured out what was needed to transition to it. Instead we're in an 11 months transition to an unknown destination. Completely bonkers.
It is absolutely incontrovertible that now is the worst time to extend the transition. It is a complete no brainer. If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice?
I agree the sequencing was bonkers but we are where we are now. The future is in Europe's hands somewhat, there are free trade agreements that the UK is prepared to use off the shelf, basing on CFTA etc. Barnier for some unknown reason is keen to say that all of that is not precedent and this has to be negotiated from scratch based on the PD. That is not good faith negotiating and if it doesn't change by the end of next month then we have a destination: Shake hands, walk away and we adapt and recover post-COVID to post-Brexit simultaneously.
In the future we can negotiate a FTA when people are more willing to take it seriously.
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
We are washing our hands now, and tacking lots of other precautions, and people when identified are getting tested and should be self isolating, you may have faith in the track and trace, but I don't.
irrespective of that some places have opened up already without big problems e.g. in the UK Georgia or Denmark
Yes we are and we need to continue doing those sensible things even as we ease out of the lockdown and get back to normal.
Some places have but their case numbers when they did were lower than ours are. The lower we can get the case numbers, the easier it will be to contain this. The better we contain this the more we can get back to normal. Do you understand that logic?
I understand your logic, I just disagree, the delay in the reopening is doing immense pain to our economy and our freedoms. could the delay you are suggesting save 'some lives' yes possibly but the number is IMHO small. there is an ongoing argument about the 'cost of a life' and its hard to argue when we don't know for defiant ether number, so I will not go down that rabbit hole.
I;m also prity confidant that Georgia had more active ceases per million than than us.
I'm not suggesting a delay will save lives, I'm suggesting eliminating the virus as a threat will save the economy.
I'm saying economically we will get back to normal[ish] much faster if people are confident and people will be confident if people aren't dying.
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
Believe in Boris comrade...rejoice at the fountain of the Boris...stay alert and we'll vanquish this disease
Its what Singapore, New Zealand and other nations have done. Why can't we?
R dropped before lockdown just from washing our hands, even when we lacked the testing and tracing capabilities. Why can't washing our hands plus testing and tracing keep it down?
We probably will keep R down, possible below 1 and defiantly at worst only just above it, compared to the first wave, we have built up some level of heard immunity.
Indeed which is why the most important thing for lifting lockdown isn't really R, its the quantity of cases in the community.
If we can get the new cases in the hundreds rather than thousands per day and keep R below 1 then the virus will be very containable and the rest of us can get back to normal.
I accept it's a trailing rather than a leading indicator, but getting the death toll down is the key one, I think. Less death means greater confidence
... The key, of course, is that a crash (like the one we've had) doesn't actually actually affect the productive power of the economy. It might mean you lose the time, money and hard work you sunk into your business. But - to take the example of a restaraunt - it has not made the tables, chairs, cookers, pots and pans disappear.
Hmm, not so sure about that one. Those tables, chairs, cookers etc are likely to be sold off (i.e. dispersed) or scrapped completely, as will many aeroplanes for example. Many sectors rely on an entire ecosystem of support services and supply chains, built up over years or in some cases decades. Once those get disrupted they are gone.
The point here is that this is not like a normal recession, where you get a proportion of the weaker players in a given sector going out of business or being taken over by stronger rivals at a knockdown price; it's whole sectors - healthy, profitable sectors until the shutters came down on them virtually overnight - being clobbered.
It seems to me that the financial markets and pundits are underestimating the scale of the disaster. It's going to be a long, slow crawl out of this.
If the chairs are sold off, they have new owners who sit on them.
If you are scrapping an aeroplane, it's because there are purchasers for the bits who will presumably find useful ways of using them.
The chairs probably end up in a barn somewhere gathering dust, and the aeroplane is sold for scrap. The value is destroyed.
In any case much of the original worth of a modern business is intangible, and will simply evaporate.
... If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice? ....
Exactly, They need to know what they are supposed to be transitioning to. They need to know that roughly six months before it happens. So in normal circumstances they would need to know in the next five weeks or so, in detail.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
... If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice? ....
Exactly, They need to know what they are supposed to be transitioning to. They need to know that roughly six months before it happens. So in normal circumstances they would need to know in the next five weeks or so, in detail.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
Yes they need to know what they are transitioning to, that is possible next month. Either we agree CFTA and we transition to that, or we don't and we transition to WTO, either way we get six month to transition.
Either way we have certainty and it is uncertainty that is most damaging. Dragging on uncertainty in perpetuity is not wise.
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
We are washing our hands now, and tacking lots of other precautions, and people when identified are getting tested and should be self isolating, you may have faith in the track and trace, but I don't.
irrespective of that some places have opened up already without big problems e.g. in the UK Georgia or Denmark
Yes we are and we need to continue doing those sensible things even as we ease out of the lockdown and get back to normal.
Some places have but their case numbers when they did were lower than ours are. The lower we can get the case numbers, the easier it will be to contain this. The better we contain this the more we can get back to normal. Do you understand that logic?
I understand your logic, I just disagree, the delay in the reopening is doing immense pain to our economy and our freedoms. could the delay you are suggesting save 'some lives' yes possibly but the number is IMHO small. there is an ongoing argument about the 'cost of a life' and its hard to argue when we don't know for defiant ether number, so I will not go down that rabbit hole.
I;m also prity confidant that Georgia had more active ceases per million than than us.
I'm not suggesting a delay will save lives, I'm suggesting eliminating the virus as a threat will save the economy.
I'm saying economically we will get back to normal[ish] much faster if people are confident and people will be confident if people aren't dying.
People die all the time, that does not stop those who live going on with there lives. to eleminat the virus as a threaat we need herad imunity , idealy thouhg a vacsine, but as an imtrim though a level of recovarys. the R number may be seasanal, not fullky known but esamateded to change by 25% by season, if we stop everbody getting it now, we have a higher chanse of a big secodnwave in the sinter and go though this all again.
At the moment there are lots of people who want go get back to normal, if only they where alawd, and some who wish to stay locked in there homes at all costs. the exact number might change a smidgen if we wait another month or two, but the thing that will change moor people attitude is watching others going about there business as normal,
When ever we open there will be some who go out directly and more or wait a week or so.
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
We are washing our hands now, and tacking lots of other precautions, and people when identified are getting tested and should be self isolating, you may have faith in the track and trace, but I don't.
irrespective of that some places have opened up already without big problems e.g. in the UK Georgia or Denmark
Yes we are and we need to continue doing those sensible things even as we ease out of the lockdown and get back to normal.
Some places have but their case numbers when they did were lower than ours are. The lower we can get the case numbers, the easier it will be to contain this. The better we contain this the more we can get back to normal. Do you understand that logic?
I understand your logic, I just disagree, the delay in the reopening is doing immense pain to our economy and our freedoms. could the delay you are suggesting save 'some lives' yes possibly but the number is IMHO small. there is an ongoing argument about the 'cost of a life' and its hard to argue when we don't know for defiant ether number, so I will not go down that rabbit hole.
I;m also prity confidant that Georgia had more active ceases per million than than us.
I'm not suggesting a delay will save lives, I'm suggesting eliminating the virus as a threat will save the economy.
I'm saying economically we will get back to normal[ish] much faster if people are confident and people will be confident if people aren't dying.
People die all the time, that does not stop those who live going on with there lives. to eleminat the virus as a threaat we need herad imunity , idealy thouhg a vacsine, but as an imtrim though a level of recovarys. the R number may be seasanal, not fullky known but esamateded to change by 25% by season, if we stop everbody getting it now, we have a higher chanse of a big secodnwave in the sinter and go though this all again.
At the moment there are lots of people who want go get back to normal, if only they where alawd, and some who wish to stay locked in there homes at all costs. the exact number might change a smidgen if we wait another month or two, but the thing that will change moor people attitude is watching others going about there business as normal,
When ever we open there will be some who go out directly and more or wait a week or so.
You're mistakenly acting as if herd immunity is the only way to eliminate the virus. It isn't.
You can eliminate the virus via containment. That is another option.
Will people get back more to normal if they're terrified and the virus is raging? Or if the virus is contained and they're eager to get out of the house now?
... If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice? ....
Exactly, They need to know what they are supposed to be transitioning to. They need to know that roughly six months before it happens. So in normal circumstances they would need to know in the next five weeks or so, in detail.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
Yes they need to know what they are transitioning to, that is possible next month. Either we agree CFTA and we transition to that, or we don't and we transition to WTO, either way we get six month to transition.
Either way we have certainty and it is uncertainty that is most damaging. Dragging on uncertainty in perpetuity is not wise.
Now in this area I totally agree, would also be good to agree as many other FTA as possible in the next month or so, so that businesses can prepare, the FTA with 4 South American nations that the EU turned down last year would be a good start and the 'Trans Pacific partnership ' would be very simple to sine up to.
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
Believe in Boris comrade...rejoice at the fountain of the Boris...stay alert and we'll vanquish this disease
Its what Singapore, New Zealand and other nations have done. Why can't we?
R dropped before lockdown just from washing our hands, even when we lacked the testing and tracing capabilities. Why can't washing our hands plus testing and tracing keep it down?
We probably will keep R down, possible below 1 and defiantly at worst only just above it, compared to the first wave, we have built up some level of heard immunity.
Indeed which is why the most important thing for lifting lockdown isn't really R, its the quantity of cases in the community.
If we can get the new cases in the hundreds rather than thousands per day and keep R below 1 then the virus will be very containable and the rest of us can get back to normal.
I accept it's a trailing rather than a leading indicator, but getting the death toll down is the key one, I think. Less death means greater confidence
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
Believe in Boris comrade...rejoice at the fountain of the Boris...stay alert and we'll vanquish this disease
Its what Singapore, New Zealand and other nations have done. Why can't we?
R dropped before lockdown just from washing our hands, even when we lacked the testing and tracing capabilities. Why can't washing our hands plus testing and tracing keep it down?
We probably will keep R down, possible below 1 and defiantly at worst only just above it, compared to the first wave, we have built up some level of heard immunity.
Indeed which is why the most important thing for lifting lockdown isn't really R, its the quantity of cases in the community.
If we can get the new cases in the hundreds rather than thousands per day and keep R below 1 then the virus will be very containable and the rest of us can get back to normal.
I accept it's a trailing rather than a leading indicator, but getting the death toll down is the key one, I think. Less death means greater confidence
I don't even think Sunak thinks we will be having a bounce back anymore. What say PB Tories?
The economy is royally screwed. I've been saying all along I expect unemployment to top out at around 6m. Annual GDP decline will be in double digits.
But it's not a party political thing. I struggle to think what Labour or the Lib Dems would have done differently to avoid this.
I've said several times I wouldn't have had a lockdown (beyond a brief temporary one to build NHS capacity) and would have followed the Swedish model.
But even countries that remained open will suffer from this staggering global recession, as well as people's reticence to go out (Sweden's model relies on people voluntarily having less contact).
So I think it's odd you're trying to make this a party political thing. Not everything in life is about party politics.
I'm with you on 90% of that, sadly, ones a government program is started it is much harder to stop no matter how bad or counter productive it is.
We could and should just open everything now, most people will still stay in and there is very unlikely to be second wave bigger than the NHS can handal. and if there is going to be a second wave when we reopen, then that would come anyway at whatever point we re-open so unless we are prepared to wait till a vacine is developed, then we might as well have it now and get it over with, rater than courses more harm to the economy with the delay.
If everything was open now and everyone was staying in then the economy would go bust quicker. Hospitality etc would be devastated with even healthy businesses that had paid lots of taxes going bust as their business evaporates.
The second wave won't happen if we squash base load of cases to a low amount and keep R low and have containment policies.
So haw do we keep R low, when we eventually open up?
Washing our hands. Rapid testing, tracing and isolating of the positive so they don't go on to infect people.
We are washing our hands now, and tacking lots of other precautions, and people when identified are getting tested and should be self isolating, you may have faith in the track and trace, but I don't.
irrespective of that some places have opened up already without big problems e.g. in the UK Georgia or Denmark
Yes we are and we need to continue doing those sensible things even as we ease out of the lockdown and get back to normal.
Some places have but their case numbers when they did were lower than ours are. The lower we can get the case numbers, the easier it will be to contain this. The better we contain this the more we can get back to normal. Do you understand that logic?
I understand your logic, I just disagree, the delay in the reopening is doing immense pain to our economy and our freedoms. could the delay you are suggesting save 'some lives' yes possibly but the number is IMHO small. there is an ongoing argument about the 'cost of a life' and its hard to argue when we don't know for defiant ether number, so I will not go down that rabbit hole.
I;m also prity confidant that Georgia had more active ceases per million than than us.
I'm not suggesting a delay will save lives, I'm suggesting eliminating the virus as a threat will save the economy.
I'm saying economically we will get back to normal[ish] much faster if people are confident and people will be confident if people aren't dying.
People die all the time, that does not stop those who live going on with there lives. to eleminat the virus as a threaat we need herad imunity , idealy thouhg a vacsine, but as an imtrim though a level of recovarys. the R number may be seasanal, not fullky known but esamateded to change by 25% by season, if we stop everbody getting it now, we have a higher chanse of a big secodnwave in the sinter and go though this all again.
At the moment there are lots of people who want go get back to normal, if only they where alawd, and some who wish to stay locked in there homes at all costs. the exact number might change a smidgen if we wait another month or two, but the thing that will change moor people attitude is watching others going about there business as normal,
When ever we open there will be some who go out directly and more or wait a week or so.
You're mistakenly acting as if herd immunity is the only way to eliminate the virus. It isn't.
You can eliminate the virus via containment. That is another option.
Will people get back more to normal if they're terrified and the virus is raging? Or if the virus is contained and they're eager to get out of the house now?
Containment is great, until it is not, and requires a big transfer of power to the government i'm not happy with. if it also lease to complacency then it is back to intermittent out-brackes, as in Japan and South Korea. and look at New Zealand, no cases but also no tourist industry.
I believe a certain poster suggested that descent from Wotan is the benchmark for pride in ancestry.
It's a shame people don't have the balls to claim descent from deities anymore. Poor Wotan and Amaterasu, among others, must be feeling neglected.
King Cleomenes of Sparta was once barred from entering the temple of Athena on the Acropolis by its priestess, on the grounds that no Dorian was permitted to set foot in it. 'I am no Dorian, woman, but an Achaean', he replied haughtily, his point being that whereas the regular Spartiates had arrived in the Dorian invasions, the Spartan kings were descended from the Achaean Heracles, and thus ultimately from Zeus himself...
It's comparable to the domino-effect disaster which the financial crisis would have become if the Brown/Darling government hadn't rescued the creditors of the banks, albeit not quite so extreme (because at least some sectors in the current crisis are relatively or entirely unaffected). But it's worse that what the financial crisis was with that rescue, and I don't think there's anything much the government can do* beyond what it is already doing, which is only short-term support.
* Well of course there is one thing they could do to help things somewhat, but this government of ultra-Brexit loons won't do it.
There are lots of things the government could do to get the economy moving:
- reduce planning regulations to boost development - make competition policy much more active - scrap foreign aid and cut payroll taxes or income taxes with the money saved - scrap the climate change act - etc. etc.
... If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice? ....
Exactly, They need to know what they are supposed to be transitioning to. They need to know that roughly six months before it happens. So in normal circumstances they would need to know in the next five weeks or so, in detail.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
Yes they need to know what they are transitioning to, that is possible next month. Either we agree CFTA and we transition to that, or we don't and we transition to WTO, either way we get six month to transition.
Either way we have certainty and it is uncertainty that is most damaging. Dragging on uncertainty in perpetuity is not wise.
Now in this area I totally agree, would also be good to agree as many other FTA as possible in the next month or so, so that businesses can prepare, the FTA with 4 South American nations that the EU turned down last year would be a good start and the 'Trans Pacific partnership ' would be very simple to sine up to.
Indeed, I hope the government looks very strongly at the Trans Pacific Partnership post-Brexit.
The whole concept is a bit weird, why do we expect to be world beating at contract tracing?
Countries that have better technology and/or more authoritarian surveillance have an in built advantage. UAE and Singapore probably hit the sweet spots for expected world leaders here.
We need to get used to doing things that are right for us, not expecting to be the best at everything (or randomly proclaiming to be the best).
Being early and organised beats fancy technology anyway. And most of it isn’t about tech.
“The human element is central. If you have a web-based system or an app those are things that add value but they don’t replace the human capital. They are good when tracing becomes difficult like if a confirmed case has got on a bus. That’s where an app can identify potential contacts.
“The other thing very important is to make it convenient. And at the moment the systems here [in the UK] seem to be set up for convenience of the system and operators, not the users.”...
I believe a certain poster suggested that descent from Wotan is the benchmark for pride in ancestry.
It's a shame people don't have the balls to claim descent from deities anymore. Poor Wotan and Amaterasu, among others, must be feeling neglected.
King Cleomenes of Sparta was once barred from entering the temple of Athena on the Acropolis by its priestess, on the grounds that no Dorian was permitted to set foot in it. 'I am no Dorian, woman, but an Achaean', he replied haughtily, his point being that whereas the regular Spartiates had arrived in the Dorian invasions, the Spartan kings were descended from the Achaean Heracles, and thus ultimately from Zeus himself...
Its anecdotes like that that keep me coming back to this site
It's comparable to the domino-effect disaster which the financial crisis would have become if the Brown/Darling government hadn't rescued the creditors of the banks, albeit not quite so extreme (because at least some sectors in the current crisis are relatively or entirely unaffected). But it's worse that what the financial crisis was with that rescue, and I don't think there's anything much the government can do* beyond what it is already doing, which is only short-term support.
* Well of course there is one thing they could do to help things somewhat, but this government of ultra-Brexit loons won't do it.
There are lots of things the government could do to get the economy moving:
- reduce planning regulations to boost development - make competition policy much more active - scrap foreign aid and cut payroll taxes or income taxes with the money saved - scrap the climate change act - etc. etc.
Not sure what you mean by competition policy more active, but agree with all the other suggestions.
I believe a certain poster suggested that descent from Wotan is the benchmark for pride in ancestry.
It's a shame people don't have the balls to claim descent from deities anymore. Poor Wotan and Amaterasu, among others, must be feeling neglected.
King Cleomenes of Sparta was once barred from entering the temple of Athena on the Acropolis by its priestess, on the grounds that no Dorian was permitted to set foot in it. 'I am no Dorian, woman, but an Achaean', he replied haughtily, his point being that whereas the regular Spartiates had arrived in the Dorian invasions, the Spartan kings were descended from the Achaean Heracles, and thus ultimately from Zeus himself...
A lot of finance ministers around the world would like to know the answer to that.
Well Philip is right that first people have to feel safe, otherwise there cannot be a recovery - and that means confidence that any outbreak can be contained.
Government is going to have to work out smart ways of both creating demand, and incentivising productive employment (as opposed to the current funding of inactivity, necessary though that might be). And interventions will have to be sizeable.
I believe a certain poster suggested that descent from Wotan is the benchmark for pride in ancestry.
It's a shame people don't have the balls to claim descent from deities anymore. Poor Wotan and Amaterasu, among others, must be feeling neglected.
King Cleomenes of Sparta was once barred from entering the temple of Athena on the Acropolis by its priestess, on the grounds that no Dorian was permitted to set foot in it. 'I am no Dorian, woman, but an Achaean', he replied haughtily, his point being that whereas the regular Spartiates had arrived in the Dorian invasions, the Spartan kings were descended from the Achaean Heracles, and thus ultimately from Zeus himself...
Did he get let in then?
I think he forced his way, but he got his comeuppance in the end.
... If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice? ....
Exactly, They need to know what they are supposed to be transitioning to. They need to know that roughly six months before it happens. So in normal circumstances they would need to know in the next five weeks or so, in detail.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
Yes they need to know what they are transitioning to, that is possible next month. Either we agree CFTA and we transition to that, or we don't and we transition to WTO, either way we get six month to transition.
Either way we have certainty and it is uncertainty that is most damaging. Dragging on uncertainty in perpetuity is not wise.
Now in this area I totally agree, would also be good to agree as many other FTA as possible in the next month or so, so that businesses can prepare, the FTA with 4 South American nations that the EU turned down last year would be a good start and the 'Trans Pacific partnership ' would be very simple to sine up to.
Indeed, I hope the government looks very strongly at the Trans Pacific Partnership post-Brexit.
... If companies are going to have to adapt to the post-COVID world then they should adapt in a way that suits our post-Brexit arrangements too. There is no point having companies adapt to post-COVID only to then have to go through all the rigmarole of adapting to post-transition too. Why go through that adaptation twice? ....
Exactly, They need to know what they are supposed to be transitioning to. They need to know that roughly six months before it happens. So in normal circumstances they would need to know in the next five weeks or so, in detail.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
Yes they need to know what they are transitioning to, that is possible next month. Either we agree CFTA and we transition to that, or we don't and we transition to WTO, either way we get six month to transition.
Either way we have certainty and it is uncertainty that is most damaging. Dragging on uncertainty in perpetuity is not wise.
Now in this area I totally agree, would also be good to agree as many other FTA as possible in the next month or so, so that businesses can prepare, the FTA with 4 South American nations that the EU turned down last year would be a good start and the 'Trans Pacific partnership ' would be very simple to sine up to.
Indeed, I hope the government looks very strongly at the Trans Pacific Partnership post-Brexit.
It is a good example of what the EU should be.
Ten thousand miles away from us?
And fast growing economically and an area used to trade over distance.
I believe a certain poster suggested that descent from Wotan is the benchmark for pride in ancestry.
It's a shame people don't have the balls to claim descent from deities anymore. Poor Wotan and Amaterasu, among others, must be feeling neglected.
King Cleomenes of Sparta was once barred from entering the temple of Athena on the Acropolis by its priestess, on the grounds that no Dorian was permitted to set foot in it. 'I am no Dorian, woman, but an Achaean', he replied haughtily, his point being that whereas the regular Spartiates had arrived in the Dorian invasions, the Spartan kings were descended from the Achaean Heracles, and thus ultimately from Zeus himself...
I don't know about Greek mythology or whatever, but that story reminds me of an incident in the 1950s in which the Shadow Minister for Colonies went to Kenya to investigate allegations of Mau-Mau detainees being mistreated by British colonial authorities, but she wasn't allowed in:
Official: "I cannot allow that. These men are dangerous. A woman must not be with them alone." Barbara Castle: "I am not a woman, I am a Member of Parliament." Official: "Madam, I can only go by appearances."
It's also quite possible that - without a lockdown - then Birmingham or Manchester or Leeds or Glasgow could have been another Milan or New York.
What we do know is that stopping international travel and possible super spreader events earlier would have had a big impact, and might have resulted in far less need for a major lockdown.
But it didn't happen.
That, rather than the existence of the lockdown, is on the government's head.
Seeing as Amy Klobuchar is best-priced at 4/1 to become the Democratic V-P Nominee, then on an "only a heartbeat away" basis she simply has to be great value at Ladbrokes' odds-boosted 250/1 to become the next POTUS. DYOR.
... The key, of course, is that a crash (like the one we've had) doesn't actually actually affect the productive power of the economy. It might mean you lose the time, money and hard work you sunk into your business. But - to take the example of a restaraunt - it has not made the tables, chairs, cookers, pots and pans disappear.
Hmm, not so sure about that one. Those tables, chairs, cookers etc are likely to be sold off (i.e. dispersed) or scrapped completely, as will many aeroplanes for example. Many sectors rely on an entire ecosystem of support services and supply chains, built up over years or in some cases decades. Once those get disrupted they are gone.
The point here is that this is not like a normal recession, where you get a proportion of the weaker players in a given sector going out of business or being taken over by stronger rivals at a knockdown price; it's whole sectors - healthy, profitable sectors until the shutters came down on them virtually overnight - being clobbered.
It seems to me that the financial markets and pundits are underestimating the scale of the disaster. It's going to be a long, slow crawl out of this.
The financial markets and the real economy often go out of kilter.....
The financial markets are doing well because there is a shed load of cash sloshing around and no good options. And it is populated by short term speculators.
But....the real economy is fucked....really fucked...properly fucked everywhere, globally....this is not the financial crash, this is not even a world war where industry could mobilise....this is unlike anything that we have ever seen. It's a slow strangulation....or slow crawl....the same
The speculators point is off the mark. A lot of people are in the market for yield, given the almost complete absence of it anywhere else. If the dividends keep flowing they aren’t worrying about buying and selling, so certainly not speculation.
The problem for the markets is that dividends are about to stop flowing.
... The key, of course, is that a crash (like the one we've had) doesn't actually actually affect the productive power of the economy. It might mean you lose the time, money and hard work you sunk into your business. But - to take the example of a restaraunt - it has not made the tables, chairs, cookers, pots and pans disappear.
Hmm, not so sure about that one. Those tables, chairs, cookers etc are likely to be sold off (i.e. dispersed) or scrapped completely, as will many aeroplanes for example. Many sectors rely on an entire ecosystem of support services and supply chains, built up over years or in some cases decades. Once those get disrupted they are gone.
The point here is that this is not like a normal recession, where you get a proportion of the weaker players in a given sector going out of business or being taken over by stronger rivals at a knockdown price; it's whole sectors - healthy, profitable sectors until the shutters came down on them virtually overnight - being clobbered.
It seems to me that the financial markets and pundits are underestimating the scale of the disaster. It's going to be a long, slow crawl out of this.
If the chairs are sold off, they have new owners who sit on them.
If you are scrapping an aeroplane, it's because there are purchasers for the bits who will presumably find useful ways of using them.
The chairs probably end up in a barn somewhere gathering dust, and the aeroplane is sold for scrap. The value is destroyed.
In any case much of the original worth of a modern business is intangible, and will simply evaporate.
Yes, there is the issue of human capital.
But more fundamental for leisure, travel and hospitality businesses is whether the customers will ever return in the same numbers.
Comments
I;m also prity confidant that Georgia had more active ceases per million than than us.
I agree the sequencing was bonkers but we are where we are now. The future is in Europe's hands somewhat, there are free trade agreements that the UK is prepared to use off the shelf, basing on CFTA etc. Barnier for some unknown reason is keen to say that all of that is not precedent and this has to be negotiated from scratch based on the PD. That is not good faith negotiating and if it doesn't change by the end of next month then we have a destination: Shake hands, walk away and we adapt and recover post-COVID to post-Brexit simultaneously.
In the future we can negotiate a FTA when people are more willing to take it seriously.
I'm saying economically we will get back to normal[ish] much faster if people are confident and people will be confident if people aren't dying.
In these non-normal circumstances, with their businesses in chaos and many of their staff furloughed, and with the cash draining out of the business rapidly, they are in the weakest possible condition to adapt to anything. It is just piling a man-made catastrophe on a natural disaster.
Either way we have certainty and it is uncertainty that is most damaging. Dragging on uncertainty in perpetuity is not wise.
At the moment there are lots of people who want go get back to normal, if only they where alawd, and some who wish to stay locked in there homes at all costs. the exact number might change a smidgen if we wait another month or two, but the thing that will change moor people attitude is watching others going about there business as normal,
When ever we open there will be some who go out directly and more or wait a week or so.
You can eliminate the virus via containment. That is another option.
Will people get back more to normal if they're terrified and the virus is raging? Or if the virus is contained and they're eager to get out of the house now?
- reduce planning regulations to boost development
- make competition policy much more active
- scrap foreign aid and cut payroll taxes or income taxes with the money saved
- scrap the climate change act
- etc. etc.
It is a good example of what the EU should be.
And most of it isn’t about tech.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/covid-19-track-and-trace-what-can-uk-learn-from-countries-got-it-right
... Whitworth also said countries that have been successful have deployed large amounts of human resources quickly and effectively, such as Germany’s “contact scouts” and South Korea’s rapid-reporting system.
“The human element is central. If you have a web-based system or an app those are things that add value but they don’t replace the human capital. They are good when tracing becomes difficult like if a confirmed case has got on a bus. That’s where an app can identify potential contacts.
“The other thing very important is to make it convenient. And at the moment the systems here [in the UK] seem to be set up for convenience of the system and operators, not the users.”...
Government is going to have to work out smart ways of both creating demand, and incentivising productive employment (as opposed to the current funding of inactivity, necessary though that might be).
And interventions will have to be sizeable.
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1263580335729594368
World
Has
Gone
Mad.
Official: "I cannot allow that. These men are dangerous. A woman must not be with them alone."
Barbara Castle: "I am not a woman, I am a Member of Parliament."
Official: "Madam, I can only go by appearances."
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus
It's also quite possible that - without a lockdown - then Birmingham or Manchester or Leeds or Glasgow could have been another Milan or New York.
What we do know is that stopping international travel and possible super spreader events earlier would have had a big impact, and might have resulted in far less need for a major lockdown.
But it didn't happen.
That, rather than the existence of the lockdown, is on the government's head.
Seeing as Amy Klobuchar is best-priced at 4/1 to become the Democratic V-P Nominee, then on an "only a heartbeat away" basis she simply has to be great value at Ladbrokes' odds-boosted 250/1 to become the next POTUS.
DYOR.
The problem for the markets is that dividends are about to stop flowing.
But more fundamental for leisure, travel and hospitality businesses is whether the customers will ever return in the same numbers.