@Leon I met a 96 year old chap on my round today who said he’d met Princess Elizabeth when she was training for the ATS. He’s half deaf, half blind (and waiting for a cataract operation), but was cooking himself a beef casserole and had a couple of beers in the fridge to enjoy it with
I’d prefer it if you delivered the coup de grace
I'm going to sound hideously cruel - and I apologise - but your lovely old geezer is an example of what I mean
Why are we paying for a 96 year old to have a cataract operation? We cannot afford this any more. We are impoverishing future generations - who will literally die younger, and after bleaker lives, because of our misdirected if well-meaning generosity today
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
5. Don’t heat the buildings…
You can't legally do that - rooms have to hit at least a minimum temperature.
And a lot of school boilers will be inefficient but there definitely won't be the money to replace them..
The circle Ministers have to square. They need to reassure the markets. But what they propose for the markets must also be politically sustainable. Otherwise the markets will simply say "this isn't politically sustainable, they can't deliver it". Which brings us back to 45p... https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1575161737082732546
As far as I can see Barty Thompson appears to have disappeared as well. Perhaps they are closeted in a secret meeting with his heroine devising a solution to the crisis. God help us all!
In that case it shall be the planning permission everywhere for everyone angle. The free market will do the rest.
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
The fed has caused a global fx and bond crisis with its bone headedness, weve exacerbated it here but the contagion is in the system and will just attack the weakest spots until something gives, and then everything gives. Central banks are out of road. The criminal money printing from the gfc is coming home to roost. Its a minute to midnight. And so we hear the drumbeats of war.........
They need to put a costed plan out asap. That is what people need. The 45% is a red herring and was probably put in there to troll the Guardian.
People need to see how it's going to be paid for.
Betting bit: if they come out with something half decent (and why wouldn't they) then Cable goes to 1.15. If nothing else just with relief that they aren't going to fire up the helicopters.
For what it's worth - probably best post of this thread. At the moment many seem to be running around shouting "panic" at what are, and the end of the day, tax cuts. As if they're inherently bad and will lead to the total collapse of the UK economy.
If they are on the back of a fag packet un-costed calculations then the Govt deserve all that will be coming to them electorally. However, If Truss is genuinely trying to re-shape the economy with a "bold plan" then a few weeks turbulence from markets is to be expected. And ridden-out. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.
I do wonder whether some posters on here are not actually concerned with the economy "crashing" due to the budget; they're more concerned that it might actually work. It's amusing to read comments from those who trumpeted Corbyn's economic plan - and are now worried about the GBP rate, mortgage rates, pension funds and the Gilt market.
But yes - a costed plan and one soon is what is needed.
Nothing to be published until the 23rd of next month. Absurd.
The 23rd November - isn't next month it's 8 weeks away
They need to put a costed plan out asap. That is what people need. The 45% is a red herring and was probably put in there to troll the Guardian.
People need to see how it's going to be paid for.
Betting bit: if they come out with something half decent (and why wouldn't they) then Cable goes to 1.15. If nothing else just with relief that they aren't going to fire up the helicopters.
For what it's worth - probably best post of this thread. At the moment many seem to be running around shouting "panic" at what are, and the end of the day, tax cuts. As if they're inherently bad and will lead to the total collapse of the UK economy.
If they are on the back of a fag packet un-costed calculations then the Govt deserve all that will be coming to them electorally. However, If Truss is genuinely trying to re-shape the economy with a "bold plan" then a few weeks turbulence from markets is to be expected. And ridden-out. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.
I do wonder whether some posters on here are not actually concerned with the economy "crashing" due to the budget; they're more concerned that it might actually work. It's amusing to read comments from those who trumpeted Corbyn's economic plan - and are now worried about the GBP rate, mortgage rates, pension funds and the Gilt market.
But yes - a costed plan and one soon is what is needed.
Nothing to be published until the 23rd of next month. Absurd.
To be fair, whatever they publish would be absurd as well. They need to be told no by rebel Tory MPs.
This is basically the opposite of the 2019 pitch upon which the Tories won the GE, certainly in places round here. Aside from Brexit, the offer had public services - cops, hospitals, visibly improved communities - at its core https://twitter.com/samcoatessky/status/1575157707421601799
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
One of the reasons the Fed was, err, annoyed at the government last night is that investors taking fright from sovereign debt of one advanced nation doesn't come without knock on effects for everyone else. If the markets deem that the UK is insolvent, then loads of European countries and maybe even the US isn't far behind. The UK being punished by markets for borrowing for fiscal stimulus will make it tougher for every other nation that might want to do the same and the UK has the second lowest (soon to be lowest) indebtedness of the G7.
The room for manoeuvre for everyone is limited and the UK government may have inadvertently found that the limit is much lower than we'd have liked.
This is an almost impossibly bleak moment for Britain - and the world
It's arguably worse than Covid
We have all run out of money, and a madman stalks the globe, waving nukes
much worse than covid covid was never a threat to young healthy people despite govt propaganda nuclear war is
COVID was a threat to young people in 4 ways -
1) it killed a fair number of them 2) it gave a fair number of them serious, life changing effects 3) it killed their grannies. Many young people regard a threat to their grannies as a threat to themselves. Empathy, I think they call it. 4) by killing grannies in huge numbers, it threatened to collapse medical services. Which would, in turn kill quite a lot of young people needing other medical services.
The very curious, complacent but also defensive tone struck by the PM programme earlier, is a textbook example of what's gone wrong with BBC News in recent years. It's seeking to reassure, rather than curiously investigate.
Evan : It's important not to overstate the scale of the crisis, as there are all sort of political forces wanting to tell us it's as bad as possible, but also not to underplay it. So what do our guests Lord Jim O' Neil and financial adviser think.
Lord O'Neill : The bank has just given the government a bit of room to stop and reconsider. They're acting like a government in Latin America.
Evan : Would we say it's roughly like Black Wednesday, then ?
Financial analyst woman : It's more on the level of the GFC, unless this government and others turn it round quickly.
This also reminds me of the coverage of Brexit - incurious, apparently nervous of the government and not wanting to upset the applecart , in some way odd.
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
The fed has caused a global fx and bond crisis with its bone headedness, weve exacerbated it here but the contagion is in the system and will just attack the weakest spots until something gives, and then everything gives. Central banks are out of road. The criminal money printing from the gfc is coming home to roost. Its a minute to midnight. And so we hear the drumbeats of war.........
Yep. This is rapidly turning into another huge global crisis (on top of Covid and war and climate and everything else). There is simply too much debt. From that same FT article:
"Fixed income investors’ nerves have been frayed by a series of events most commonly seen during market crises. Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy, last week stepped in to defend the yen after the currency rapidly tumbled to a 24-year low against the dollar. Just days later, plans for big tax cuts by the UK government ignited a historic sell-off in Britain’s currency and sovereign debt markets"
Japan already has national debt equivalent to 258% of its GDP
We are fucked. We need the war to end very quick and even then we are still fucked, but maybe we can slowly unfuck things. If the war drags on, and worsens....
Chancellor going nowhere, his team says. No10 say flat no to recalling Parliament and both Kwarteng and Truss are focused on delivering their economic plan with supply side reforms "coming fast" in next couple of weeks. Doubling down in wake of BoE today. https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1575147986505666564
Well, focused on delivering their economic plan, but more focused on the preparations for the party conference. No biggie.
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
The fed has caused a global fx and bond crisis with its bone headedness, weve exacerbated it here but the contagion is in the system and will just attack the weakest spots until something gives, and then everything gives. Central banks are out of road. The criminal money printing from the gfc is coming home to roost. Its a minute to midnight. And so we hear the drumbeats of war.........
I'd not much worry about the drumbeats of war, but you're quite right in that the Fed has been hopeless. The BoE a little worse.
It surely can't be that hard to retain the services of a pragmatic economist.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
5. Don’t heat the buildings…
You can't legally do that - rooms have to hit at least a minimum temperature.
And a lot of school boilers will be inefficient but there definitely won't be the money to replace them..
Also legally you have to balance the budget. So it's merely a question of which bit of the law you want to fall foul of.
This is an almost impossibly bleak moment for Britain - and the world
It's arguably worse than Covid
We have all run out of money, and a madman stalks the globe, waving nukes
much worse than covid covid was never a threat to young healthy people despite govt propaganda nuclear war is
COVID was a threat to young people in 4 ways -
1) it killed a fair number of them 2) it gave a fair number of them serious, life changing effects 3) it killed their grannies. Many young people regard a threat to their grannies as a threat to themselves. Empathy, I think they call it. 4) by killing grannies in huge numbers, it threatened to collapse medical services. Which would, in turn kill quite a lot of young people needing other medical services.
Nuclear war is, nonetheless, orders of magnitude worse than any of that
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
One of the reasons the Fed was, err, annoyed at the government last night is that investors taking fright from sovereign debt of one advanced nation doesn't come without knock on effects for everyone else. If the markets deem that the UK is insolvent, then loads of European countries and maybe even the US isn't far behind. The UK being punished by markets for borrowing for fiscal stimulus will make it tougher for every other nation that might want to do the same and the UK has the second lowest (soon to be lowest) indebtedness of the G7.
The room for manoeuvre for everyone is limited and the UK government may have inadvertently found that the limit is much lower than we'd have liked.
It's a good job we don't get 'annoyed' with them in public every time one of their twatty self-centered moves lands us in the shit; we'd be in a permanent state of high dudgeon. They caused bloody covid ffs!
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
The fed has caused a global fx and bond crisis with its bone headedness, weve exacerbated it here but the contagion is in the system and will just attack the weakest spots until something gives, and then everything gives. Central banks are out of road. The criminal money printing from the gfc is coming home to roost. Its a minute to midnight. And so we hear the drumbeats of war.........
Yep. This is rapidly turning into another huge global crisis (on top of Covid and war and climate and everything else). There is simply too much debt. From that same FT article:
"Fixed income investors’ nerves have been frayed by a series of events most commonly seen during market crises. Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy, last week stepped in to defend the yen after the currency rapidly tumbled to a 24-year low against the dollar. Just days later, plans for big tax cuts by the UK government ignited a historic sell-off in Britain’s currency and sovereign debt markets"
Japan already has national debt equivalent to 258% of its GDP
We are fucked. We need the war to end very quick and even then we are still fucked, but maybe we can slowly unfuck things. If the war drags on, and worsens....
BRRR
400 billion to facilitate the ridiculous criminal lockdown policy. And thats just here. Youll own nothing and be happy. Its coming.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
5. Don’t heat the buildings…
You can't legally do that - rooms have to hit at least a minimum temperature.
And a lot of school boilers will be inefficient but there definitely won't be the money to replace them..
It want a serious suggestion. Just pointing out that compatible. for some, heating them and remaining solvent aren’t going to be particularly compatible.
@Leon I met a 96 year old chap on my round today who said he’d met Princess Elizabeth when she was training for the ATS. He’s half deaf, half blind (and waiting for a cataract operation), but was cooking himself a beef casserole and had a couple of beers in the fridge to enjoy it with
I’d prefer it if you delivered the coup de grace
I'm going to sound hideously cruel - and I apologise - but your lovely old geezer is an example of what I mean.
Why are we paying for a 96 year old to have a cataract operation? We cannot afford this any more. We are impoverishing future generations - who will literally die younger, and after bleaker lives, because of our misdirected if well-meaning generosity today.
Perhaps we could have a stab at a fairer distribution of wealth before we resort to killing off all the old people?
@Leon I met a 96 year old chap on my round today who said he’d met Princess Elizabeth when she was training for the ATS. He’s half deaf, half blind (and waiting for a cataract operation), but was cooking himself a beef casserole and had a couple of beers in the fridge to enjoy it with
I’d prefer it if you delivered the coup de grace
I'm going to sound hideously cruel - and I apologise - but your lovely old geezer is an example of what I mean.
Why are we paying for a 96 year old to have a cataract operation? We cannot afford this any more. We are impoverishing future generations - who will literally die younger, and after bleaker lives, because of our misdirected if well-meaning generosity today.
Perhaps we could have a stab at a fairer distribution of wealth before we resort to killing off all the old people?
As a centrist may I suggest killing off those more than 20% away from median wealth perhaps meets both your objectives?
Maybe someone here can explain: why are the actuaries saying that life expectancy has fallen because of Covid? I thought life expectancy was defined as the average length of life expected for someone born today. The fact that some (mainly old) people have died from Covid in the last couple of years strikes me as completely irrelevant to that, unless they are factoring in some model of repeated bouts of Covid deaths (and I can't see how they could model that).
What have I missed?
Obviously life expectancy has to be calculated on historical data. What else could it be calculated on?
Well, as a suggestion, relevant historical data.
But I suspect you're right: maybe this is a completely mechanical calculation, in which case it's totally meaningless at a time when Covid has distorted the picture, and will soon reverse.
As an actuary (albeit one whose knowledge of mortality projections is second-hand) could I say that you're asking all the right questions.
First - there is no single measure of 'life expectancy'. The phrase always has to be qualified to specify what cohort of lives you're referring to (people born today or born at some previous point in time) and what age of individual you are referring to (do you mean the expected future lifetime of someone at birth or at some other age - for instance the age of the average living person at some point in time). Journalists always skate over these issues and never define their terms properly, but there are different tables and different ways of reading them which will give different answers depending upon the precise definition.
Second - yes improvements (or declines) in life expectancy are based on models produced by the Institute of Actuaries' Continuous Mortality Investigation and are updated annually. They are in one respect mechanical but as with any model human judgment forms the bases of these models and the assumptions which underlie them
Third - In particular, in the latest report from the CMI, the authors make clear that the data is skewed by the unusual mortality associated with COVID in 2020 and 2021 and that the core version of the latest model therefore places no weight on the data for those years. So relevant historical data is indeed what was used. I've no idea why the original poster says that 'actuaries are saying that life expectancy has fallen due to COVID'. It's very clear from the rubric to the CMI report that that's exactly what they're not saying.
Ukrainian Ministry of Justice announced a new program that will allow every russian soldier captured by Ukrainian forces to contact their family and relatives for up to 15 minutes every couple of days using Voice over IP, improving their mental health and overall state.
Comments
Why are we paying for a 96 year old to have a cataract operation? We cannot afford this any more. We are impoverishing future generations - who will literally die younger, and after bleaker lives, because of our misdirected if well-meaning generosity today
Yorkshire - one win (courtesy of some very ordinary umpiring)
Not been a great season for them.
Now to see if they are force relegated by the ECB or not.
And a lot of school boilers will be inefficient but there definitely won't be the money to replace them..
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1575161737082732546
Central banks are out of road. The criminal money printing from the gfc is coming home to roost. Its a minute to midnight.
And so we hear the drumbeats of war.........
https://twitter.com/samcoatessky/status/1575157707421601799
The room for manoeuvre for everyone is limited and the UK government may have inadvertently found that the limit is much lower than we'd have liked.
1) it killed a fair number of them
2) it gave a fair number of them serious, life changing effects
3) it killed their grannies. Many young people regard a threat to their grannies as a threat to themselves. Empathy, I think they call it.
4) by killing grannies in huge numbers, it threatened to collapse medical services. Which would, in turn kill quite a lot of young people needing other medical services.
Evan : It's important not to overstate the scale of the crisis, as there are all sort of political forces wanting to tell us it's as bad as possible, but also not to underplay it. So what do our guests Lord Jim O' Neil and financial adviser think.
Lord O'Neill : The bank has just given the government a bit of room to stop and reconsider. They're acting like a government in Latin America.
Evan : Would we say it's roughly like Black Wednesday, then ?
Financial analyst woman : It's more on the level of the GFC, unless this government and others turn it round quickly.
This also reminds me of the coverage of Brexit - incurious, apparently nervous of the government and not wanting to upset the applecart , in some way odd.
"Fixed income investors’ nerves have been frayed by a series of events most commonly seen during market crises. Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy, last week stepped in to defend the yen after the currency rapidly tumbled to a 24-year low against the dollar. Just days later, plans for big tax cuts by the UK government ignited a historic sell-off in Britain’s currency and sovereign debt markets"
Japan already has national debt equivalent to 258% of its GDP
We are fucked. We need the war to end very quick and even then we are still fucked, but maybe we can slowly unfuck things. If the war drags on, and worsens....
BRRR
It surely can't be that hard to retain the services of a pragmatic economist.
Rob Merrick
@Rob_Merrick
·
1h
Liz Truss has spoken today to Ukraine's president about the ongoing crisis
Zelensky promised to provide all the assistance he could
Youll own nothing and be happy. Its coming.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/28/keir-starmer-no-10-liz-truss-labour
First - there is no single measure of 'life expectancy'. The phrase always has to be qualified to specify what cohort of lives you're referring to (people born today or born at some previous point in time) and what age of individual you are referring to (do you mean the expected future lifetime of someone at birth or at some other age - for instance the age of the average living person at some point in time). Journalists always skate over these issues and never define their terms properly, but there are different tables and different ways of reading them which will give different answers depending upon the precise definition.
Second - yes improvements (or declines) in life expectancy are based on models produced by the Institute of Actuaries' Continuous Mortality Investigation and are updated annually. They are in one respect mechanical but as with any model human judgment forms the bases of these models and the assumptions which underlie them
Third - In particular, in the latest report from the CMI, the authors make clear that the data is skewed by the unusual mortality associated with COVID in 2020 and 2021 and that the core version of the latest model therefore places no weight on the data for those years. So relevant historical data is indeed what was used. I've no idea why the original poster says that 'actuaries are saying that life expectancy has fallen due to COVID'. It's very clear from the rubric to the CMI report that that's exactly what they're not saying.
https://www.actuaries.org.uk/learn-and-develop/continuous-mortality-investigation/cmi-working-papers/mortality-projections/cmi-working-paper-160
It is also quite an incentive to surrender.