One of the reasons the GFC was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because Brown had so mismanaged the economy prior to the crash. He didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK economy suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
The UK was the last of the G7 countries - and the last of the G20 countries - to come out of recession after the financial crisis. And measuring in terms of public debt is meaningless when Brown had transferred vast amounts of debt off the books through PFI agreements that still left us on the hook but made it look like our debt was less than it really was.
The World Bank figures I posted really don't show the UK doing much worse than other countries in terms of GDP growth following the crash. Maybe the recession was longer by a few months, but it was also shallower. PFI, fair point. I am not sure what the liabilities are compared with on-balancesheet liabilities.The UK had a slightly smaller increase in the national debt compared with say the US, and definitely so compared with Japan. Only Germany comes out strongly on debt management - maybe too much so.
I am not proposing the opposite - that Gordon Brown was a brilliant manager of public finances and the economy; simply that there isn't the evidence to show that he was a particularly bad one.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
Your devotion to Gordon Brown's legacy is quite touching.
If wholly misplaced.
Up until the Crash, why do you think the Conservatives (i) pledged to match Labour spending and (ii) argued for even looser regulation of the City?
Actually they didn't and Cameron briefly pledged to match it to neutralise the issue after losing the third consecutive election. A pledge that was politically rather than economically motivated.
Brown was the one making the decisions and the one responsible for blowing up our deficit in an historically unprecedented manner prior to the bust.
The deficit was lower under Brown than it had been under the preceding Conservative governments so what was "historically unprecedented" about it?
Your devotion to Gordon Brown's legacy is quite touching.
If wholly misplaced.
Up until the Crash, why do you think the Conservatives (i) pledged to match Labour spending and (ii) argued for even looser regulation of the City?
Actually they didn't and Cameron briefly pledged to match it to neutralise the issue after losing the third consecutive election. A pledge that was politically rather than economically motivated.
Brown was the one making the decisions and the one responsible for blowing up our deficit in an historically unprecedented manner prior to the bust.
The deficit was lower under Brown than it had been under the preceding Conservative governments so what was "historically unprecedented" about it?
[Citation Needed]
In which comparable years following a long period of growth and preceding a downturn was the deficit higher?
Those asking about "reinfection", seems it is more to do with the length at which you stay "positive" even when recovered and false negatives in the meantime.
Your devotion to Gordon Brown's legacy is quite touching.
If wholly misplaced.
Up until the Crash, why do you think the Conservatives (i) pledged to match Labour spending and (ii) argued for even looser regulation of the City?
Actually they didn't and Cameron briefly pledged to match it to neutralise the issue after losing the third consecutive election. A pledge that was politically rather than economically motivated.
Brown was the one making the decisions and the one responsible for blowing up our deficit in an historically unprecedented manner prior to the bust.
The deficit was lower under Brown than it had been under the preceding Conservative governments so what was "historically unprecedented" about it?
Only because he performed the ultimate con job and shifted huge amounts of debt off the books. The man was a fraud.
The FTSE 100 has revcovered to only 6.5% down I see. Going to be interesting to see how the DJ fares when it opens.
Futures markets have been pretty stable at 24.5k for several hours, so I'd go with that unless something major happens between now and the opening bell.
3% is not modest. Especially not after 16 years of growth and no downturn since it was a surplus.
Had there been a small surplus instead of an historically high 3% deficit going into the recession then the deficit would have spiked to 7% not 10%, far more manageable.
A factor dwarfed in importance by the bloated, corrupt, incompetent, poorly regulated banking sector.
If the deficit was not seen as modest one needs to ask why (pre-Crash) the Conservatives were pledged to match Labour's spending levels.
And of course they supported even looser regulation of the City.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
So why was France vs Scotland a good idea yesterday but France vs Ireland not a good idea today?
Who says yesterday was a good idea?
England fans who saw the result.
I can't complain about the result at Murrayfield or Old trafford but I do wonder if we are taking control of this virus nearly seriously enough. God knows how many Londoners were infecting Manchester yesterday!
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
But why's it only 20% it should be closer to 80% to save money
Agreed, this should be the beginning not the end of a relocation. The government should be aiming to get as close to 100% of the civil service out of London.
One of the reasons the GFC was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because Brown had so mismanaged the economy prior to the crash. He didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK economy suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
The UK was the last of the G7 countries - and the last of the G20 countries - to come out of recession after the financial crisis. And measuring in terms of public debt is meaningless when Brown had transferred vast amounts of debt off the books through PFI agreements that still left us on the hook but made it look like our debt was less than it really was.
The World Bank figures I posted really don't show the UK doing much worse than other countries in terms of GDP growth following the crash. Maybe the recession was longer by a few months, but it was also shallower. PFI, fair point. I am not sure what the liabilities are compared with on-balancesheet liabilities.The UK had a slightly smaller increase in the national debt compared with say the US, and definitely so compared with Japan. Only Germany comes out strongly on debt management - maybe too much so.
I am not proposing the opposite - that Gordon Brown was a brilliant manager of public finances and the economy; simply that there isn't the evidence to show that he was a particularly bad one.
The immediate PFI liabilities prior to the crash were £110 billion. God only knows what they were by the time he was done.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
I remember a quote from a cockney in Auf Wiedersehn Pet, while working in Middlesbrough having a call back home:
"Mum, growing up I always thought we were working class. Now I am up here I realise we were always middle class!"
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
But why's it only 20% it should be closer to 80% to save money
Agreed, this should be the beginning not the end of a relocation. The government should be aiming to get as close to 100% of the civil service out of London.
Yep - mind you I would be moving Government out of London full stop - Parliament needs to be rebuilt so now is the perfect time to shift everything up North or even to Birmingham / Nottingham..
So why was France vs Scotland a good idea yesterday but France vs Ireland not a good idea today?
Who says yesterday was a good idea?
England fans who saw the result.
I can't complain about the result at Murrayfield or Old trafford but I do wonder if we are taking control of this virus nearly seriously enough. God knows how many Londoners were infecting Manchester yesterday!
Personally speaking I hope the Londoners can have a good result against Manchester on Wednesday, then a good result on Merseyside this weekend could mark the official end of the Premier League season for all I care.
So why was France vs Scotland a good idea yesterday but France vs Ireland not a good idea today?
Do you read the papers or listen to the news
France/Scotland was probably not a good idea yesterday. (Gratifying though the result was.)
Probably not but having it in France next week given the numbers there it is more sensible cancelling that one than the game yesterday. More worrying is that UK airports are not checking anyone coming in never mind ones from Milan, is is crazy.
Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has criticised the UK Government's response to Coronavirus.
In a speech ahead of Wednesday's Budget, Mr McDonnell said: “I regret that we have not seen that leadership, commitment, indeed political, diplomatic and indeed managerial ability from either the prime minister or the chancellor.
What does he think we should have been doing?
Holding COBRA in public ... ?
A few points of interest -
1) The tweet the other day by Damien "Red Rag" McBride. Complained that the government wasn't spinning the crisis enough - none of the things he identified were actual... actions. I certainly do not believe that a Cabinet Office unit to criminally libel all the opposition parties has been set up. An incredible oversight. 2) I haven't seen criticism of the UK government policy by those experts-on-science types.... you know, scientists. 3) I get the impression that some commentators are actually upset that the government is heavily using scientific advice. As opposed to taking scientific advice and then carrying out their (the commentators) favourite ideas. 4) Still no mention of the biggest questions of all - when the apocalypse actually breaks... Will the SLRs issued to the traffic wardens have wooden furniture or plastic? What will the government do about the issue of female (self identified) traffic wardens - will they have to carry SLRs as well. Or will they be issued Small Metal Guns? Would that be sexist?
Futures markets have been pretty stable at 24.5k for several hours, so I'd go with that unless something major happens between now and the opening bell.
20,000 before 30,000 IMO.
I expect DOW down to 20 000 at some point this month.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
3% is not modest. Especially not after 16 years of growth and no downturn since it was a surplus.
Had there been a small surplus instead of an historically high 3% deficit going into the recession then the deficit would have spiked to 7% not 10%, far more manageable.
A factor dwarfed in importance by the bloated, corrupt, incompetent, poorly regulated banking sector.
If the deficit was not seen as modest one needs to ask why (pre-Crash) the Conservatives were pledged to match Labour's spending levels.
And of course they supported even looser regulation of the City.
I've already answered that, because the Tories had just lost a third heavy election defeat on the bounce and were trying to neutralise the issue politically, not due to economic concerns.
Regulation of the City wasn't the problem. Recessions happen. The problem was going into a recession with an unprecedentedly large deficit that had unprecedentedly grown in the years BEFORE the crash.
Don't know how accurate this might be, but interesting.
China optimizes treatment for novel coronavirus disease https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2003063629/ China has expanded and optimized the utilization of drugs and therapies in the treatment of the novel coronavirus disease to block the conversion of mild cases to severe cases and save critically ill patients.
Tocilizumab, with the common brand name Actemra, has been included in China's latest version of diagnosis and treatment guidelines on COVID-19.
Zhou Qi, deputy secretary-general and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at a press conference Friday that the drug Tocilizumab has been found effective to block the inducement of the inflammatory storm.
In an initial clinical trial, Tocilizumab was used in 20 severe COVID-19 cases. And the body temperatures of all the patients dropped within one day. Nineteen of the patients were discharged from the hospital within two weeks, and one got better, according to Zhou.
Currently, the drug is under clinical trials in 14 hospitals in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, Zhou said.
As of March 5, a total of 272 severe patients had been treated with Tocilizumab....
I think this touches on an absolutely key point. Whether or not that particular drug proves to be effective, what will matter a lot is whether some combination of anti-viral drugs can be found to be effective in preventing cases spiralling into the need for intensive care. If so, then clearly the impact of the pandemic will be much less serious, both in economic terms and of course for the patients affected.
There has been much discussion about vaccines, but those won't be available before at least a year, maybe more. However, research on using existing anti-virals is also proceeding, and since these are already licensed as safe to use, can be deployed much more quickly, if we're lucky that they prove to be effective. Fingers crossed on that one, it's probably the best hope of limiting this scourge.
My understanding since this began has been that appropriate anti-virals not (despite media attention) vaccination is the key to what happens with this wave, at least with regards to fatality rate. But the thing I'm not sure about and would appreciate an expert answer to is - how easy would it be to step up production of whichever anti-virals prove most effective? Demand for anything which seems to make a difference is surely going to jump through the roof globally - I presume a lot of traditional effectiveness and cost-effectiveness assessments would be rushed through, procedures skipped if necessary. Would there be capacity to meet this kind of demand? Would certain countries get priority? Opinion of @Charles or another subject expert would be greatly appreciated.
It depends...
If they are little white pills then relatively easy to triple capacity by moving to 3 shift production (most pharma companies don’t operate 24/7). Skilled staff can be tricky but I suspect they could get secondees from other firms
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Darlo is nice, some parts of it are very swish.
Are those the parts that recently got leccy and the t'interweb?
I am obviously kidding. I haven't actually been to Darlington for probably 10-15 years and maybe I only visited the less swish areas.
You will definitely have a harder job convincing me on Middlesbrough though.
Glad i have been out of equities for some time all be it for BREXIT rather than CV reasons. I would need FTSE at 4000 and DOW at under 15000 before i would consider serious investment
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Darlo is nice, some parts of it are very swish.
The part I'm sat in is very nice - not the poshest part of town but that's because I have a choice of travel routes, an easy left turn to get to the motorway and a separate quicker route if I want to get into town (which would otherwise be a painful right turn)...
Plus house prices the early arrivals will absolutely love (4 bed detached - £280k or so).
American indices have gone ‘limit down’, inhibiting the ability to sell them, and there is talk of possible market suspension today if stock selling looks like it might get out of hand.
Pretty bad stuff.
Between a President who has set so much store on shiny stock-market boosterism, a bit like a televangelist huckster, and an opponent in questionable mental condition, who knows what's going to happen this autumn.
BIden's VP being President by the end of the year might not be a bad bet.
Glad i have been out of equities for some time all be it for BREXIT rather than CV reasons. I would need FTSE at 4000 and DOW at under 15000 before i would consider serious investment
American indices have gone ‘limit down’, inhibiting the ability to sell them, and there is talk of possible market suspension today if stock selling looks like it might get out of hand.
Pretty bad stuff.
Between a President who has set so much store on shiny stock-market boosterism, a bit like a televangelist huckster, and an opponent in questionable mental condition, who knows what's going to happen this autumn.
BIden's VP being President by the end of the year might not be a bad bet.
Actually they didn't and Cameron briefly pledged to match it to neutralise the issue after losing the third consecutive election. A pledge that was politically rather than economically motivated.
Brown was the one making the decisions and the one responsible for blowing up our deficit in an historically unprecedented manner prior to the bust.
They judged Labour's spending to be ruinous but pledged to match it out of pure political opportunism?
Jeez, those Tories.
And why were they arguing for even looser regulation of the City when it was clear it was too lax already?
Same thing? Just going with the flow?
Or was that more because "hands off" the City was a naturally Tory type thing to believe in?
Interesting hint of the political battle to come this morning in R4 this morning. How well prepared are we for Coronavirus? Did austerity help by impacting deficit or did it hinder by degrading our health and social care capability?
The political legacy may be a reverse of the credit crunch. Labour spent a bit too much and took their eyes of the ball but were mostly unfairly blamed for what was a global issue for a decade.
It could easily play the same way for the right over coronavirus, whatever they had done in terms of austerity probably wouldnt have made much difference on this issue, but its an obvious (if unfair and largely incorrect) conclusion to make that austerity is to blame.
That only works if the UK deaths are worse than say Germany or France.
In a global event, the obvious thing to do is compare the UK to other similar countries.
The Tories have an enormous advantage that the UK are behind Italy, France and Germany in terms of timescale.
Only if the UK death rate is say double the German or French one will it pan out as you say.
How much did the public compare what happened in the UK re credit crunch with the rest of the world? If your in charge when it happens (and the build up to it) you get the blame. You are assigning the great British public far too much rationality.
Greatly. The public rightly recognised that what happened in the UK was much worse than what happened in the rest of the world thanks to Gordon Brown's mismanagement and blamed him accordingly.
Not sure much of southern Europe would agree with you.
Yes they would. Much of Southern Europe's governments had also mismanaged their economies like Gordon Brown had mismanaged Britain's. The voters of those nations paid attention and ejected their governments like we did ours, while voters in nations that hadn't mismanaged the economy unlike Brown were less likely to eject their government in response. See for example Canada.
Gordon Brown did not mismanage the economy. Southern Europe was screwed by Germany and the Euro. Canada's rapid recovery was largely due to exports to China and the United States, aided by a drop in exchange rates. See also Australia.
Gordon Brown did mismanage the economy. Are you a deficit denier still? Its hard to imagine they still exist, its like meeting a climate change denier.
The deficit exists, is important but rarely the most important thing. You might also recall that before the global financial crisis, our deficit was low by international standards and also low by our own historical standards. Osborne's focus on the deficit flatlined the recovery he inherited from Labour; stimulating growth would have been a better way to reduce the deficit. It is ironic that Osborne's austerity was a factor in losing the Brexit referendum and ending his own political career.
One of the reasons the GFC was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because Brown had so mismanaged the economy prior to the crash. He didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK economy suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
Let's hope we're not reading this in 10 year's time:
One of the reasons the Covid-19 crisis was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because the Conservatives had so starved the NHS of cash prior to the crisis. They didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
That might well be the case though I hope not of course. Not because I care about Boris and his Government but because of the people who will have died as a result.
But of course the difference between yours and mine is that mine is a matter of historic fact whereas yours is currently a bit of speculative fiction.
Indeed, one is undeniably in the past and the other is ahead of us; hard to avoid speculation when talking about the future.
I notice you say nothing of the damage caused to our recovery by the Cameron/Osborne ideological determination to cut spending deeply (rather than tax those who could afford to pay, and who in many indstances had benefitted from the boom years ahead of the GFC).
Because I don't recognise that it did damage our recovery. If anything we didn't cut deeply enough.
I know we'll never agree but I like to hear why apparently intelligent people take such perverse views...
Where should we have cut deeper?
No we shouldn't have cut deeper, we should have taxed more.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Darlo is nice, some parts of it are very swish.
Are those the parts that recently got leccy and the t'interweb?
I am obviously kidding. I haven't actually been to Darlington for probably 10-15 years and maybe I only visited the less swish areas.
You will definitely have a harder job convincing me on Middlesbrough though.
And that's the issue, decent transport links rapidly disappear.
Now I'm biased but the fact I can get to Schiphol within 2 hours of leaving my door is something you can't do from many places - it was always fun on a Monday when I would be sat at the client's office at 8:45 asking when xyz was planning to arrive..
Those asking about "reinfection", seems it is more to do with the length at which you stay "positive" even when recovered and false negatives in the meantime.
IIRC there are quite a lot of false negatives because swabs come from relatively high up the airway but virus is mostly deep in the lungs. Hence why a "two false negatives" rule might be sensible for people leaving isolation and has been used in some places. And a positive negative positive sequence of test results doesn't necessarily mean cure then reinfection.
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
It is wrong, why wait for the inevitable the sooner you do it the sooner the impact. The only reason can be that there is no clustering as yet but I am surprised they are not doing far more extensive airport and rail station temperature tests. Over 1000 in Spain 27 deaths all with serious previous medical conditions. They are also not reacting strongly enough. If you wait till it gets to Italy proportions it’s too late.
3% is not modest. Especially not after 16 years of growth and no downturn since it was a surplus.
Had there been a small surplus instead of an historically high 3% deficit going into the recession then the deficit would have spiked to 7% not 10%, far more manageable.
A factor dwarfed in importance by the bloated, corrupt, incompetent, poorly regulated banking sector.
If the deficit was not seen as modest one needs to ask why (pre-Crash) the Conservatives were pledged to match Labour's spending levels.
And of course they supported even looser regulation of the City.
I've already answered that, because the Tories had just lost a third heavy election defeat on the bounce and were trying to neutralise the issue politically, not due to economic concerns.
Regulation of the City wasn't the problem. Recessions happen. The problem was going into a recession with an unprecedentedly large deficit that had unprecedentedly grown in the years BEFORE the crash.
The financial sector was heavily regulated - just in a farcical way. Every single trader who was buying CDO had had his/her desk junior complete all the compliance multiple choice tests on their behalf.
I still remember a very left wing friend who worked with me commenting, after he was first introduced to the nonsense - "You are right - this is useless". Previously, he had thought I was just a de-regulation mad righty.
Security Theatre, as Bruce Schneier might say.
Real regulation is hard and involves qualitative judgement and applying personal judgement - and putting that judgement on the line. Hence it is much easier to count the number of traders who have allegedly clicked though their course on "How not to leave documents on your desk".
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Is it the raw numbers that matter much at this stage, given all the imported cases? Suspect the experts will be paying more attention to the suspected community transmission figures.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Darlo is nice, some parts of it are very swish.
Are those the parts that recently got leccy and the t'interweb?
I am obviously kidding. I haven't actually been to Darlington for probably 10-15 years and maybe I only visited the less swish areas.
You will definitely have a harder job convincing me on Middlesbrough though.
"We're relocating you all to Loftus"
"Loftus Road, oh Shepherd's Bush, that'll be great"
"No I don't think you understand" said Cummings, "You're off to Loftus to get in touch with red wall switchers"
Coach arrives in Loftus to relocate the team "Oh fuck"
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Is it the raw numbers that matter much at this stage, given all the imported cases? Suspect the experts will be paying more attention to the suspected community transmission figures.
Yes, and it does seem it is still very high proportion of imported cases from Italy.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Darlo is nice, some parts of it are very swish.
Are those the parts that recently got leccy and the t'interweb?
I am obviously kidding. I haven't actually been to Darlington for probably 10-15 years and maybe I only visited the less swish areas.
You will definitely have a harder job convincing me on Middlesbrough though.
Don't worry, I wouldn't even bother. Same with Hartlepool. They are really not nice areas to live in.
3% is not modest. Especially not after 16 years of growth and no downturn since it was a surplus.
Had there been a small surplus instead of an historically high 3% deficit going into the recession then the deficit would have spiked to 7% not 10%, far more manageable.
A factor dwarfed in importance by the bloated, corrupt, incompetent, poorly regulated banking sector.
If the deficit was not seen as modest one needs to ask why (pre-Crash) the Conservatives were pledged to match Labour's spending levels.
And of course they supported even looser regulation of the City.
I've already answered that, because the Tories had just lost a third heavy election defeat on the bounce and were trying to neutralise the issue politically, not due to economic concerns.
Regulation of the City wasn't the problem. Recessions happen. The problem was going into a recession with an unprecedentedly large deficit that had unprecedentedly grown in the years BEFORE the crash.
No unprecedented deficit existed. We had the lowest in G7 0,5% OF GDP
Daily new cases of coronavirus are decreasing in China and South Korea, but increasing in most countries in Europe including the UK. Some Chinese students in UK universities are said to be unhappy with the government's response to the crisis and are returning to China.
Boris Johnson has recommended frequent handwashing but has also been shaking hands with many people at a sporting event. Surely this is contradictory behaviour and maybe there is politics behind it. The government should look at what other countries are doing that is working, if we are not doing the same things, before the situation gets much worse and take the required action.
What makes you think they are not doing that?
According to the report in The Times a few days ago, these Chinese students have been concerned that the government has not been advocating the use of face masks. I have not heard the government give an explanation about its policy about face masks. Are they supposed to be of use in restricting the transmission of coronavirus or not? Some countries do support their use.
This is one issue. Another issue is the strategy of sloganisation, e.g. "Containment", "Delay", ..., and "Catch It. Bin It. Kill It.". The public will judge the government on its success in controlling the virus, and I am not sure that these slogans will be enough to explain the government's response to the virus to the public.
Interesting hint of the political battle to come this morning in R4 this morning. How well prepared are we for Coronavirus? Did austerity help by impacting deficit or did it hinder by degrading our health and social care capability?
The political legacy may be a reverse of the credit crunch. Labour spent a bit too much and took their eyes of the ball but were mostly unfairly blamed for what was a global issue for a decade.
It could easily play the same way for the right over coronavirus, whatever they had done in terms of austerity probably wouldnt have made much difference on this issue, but its an obvious (if unfair and largely incorrect) conclusion to make that austerity is to blame.
That only works if the UK deaths are worse than say Germany or France.
In a global event, the obvious thing to do is compare the UK to other similar countries.
The Tories have an enormous advantage that the UK are behind Italy, France and Germany in terms of timescale.
Only if the UK death rate is say double the German or French one will it pan out as you say.
How much did the public compare what happened in the UK re credit crunch with the rest of the world? If your in charge when it happens (and the build up to it) you get the blame. You are assigning the great British public far too much rationality.
Greatly. The public rightly recognised that what happened in the UK was much worse than what happened in the rest of the world thanks to Gordon Brown's mismanagement and blamed him accordingly.
Not sure much of southern Europe would agree with you.
Yes they would. Much of Southern Europe's governments had also mismanaged their economies like Gordon Brown had mismanaged Britain's. The voters of those nations paid attention and ejected their governments like we did ours, while voters in nations that hadn't mismanaged the economy unlike Brown were less likely to eject their government in response. See for example Canada.
Gordon Brown did not mismanage the economy. Southern Europe was screwed by Germany and the Euro. Canada's rapid recovery was largely due to exports to China and the United States, aided by a drop in exchange rates. See also Australia.
Gordon Brown did mismanage the economy. Are you a deficit denier still? Its hard to imagine they still exist, its like meeting a climate change denier.
The deficit exists, is important but rarely the most important thing. You might also recall that before the global financial crisis, our deficit was low by international standards and also low by our own historical standards. Osborne's focus on the deficit flatlined the recovery he inherited from Labour; stimulating growth would have been a better way to reduce the deficit. It is ironic that Osborne's austerity was a factor in losing the Brexit referendum and ending his own political career.
One of the reasons the GFC was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because Brown had so mismanaged the economy prior to the crash. He didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK economy suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
Let's hope we're not reading this in 10 year's time:
One of the reasons the Covid-19 crisis was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because the Conservatives had so starved the NHS of cash prior to the crisis. They didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
That might well be the case though I hope not of course. Not because I care about Boris and his Government but because of the people who will have died as a result.
But of course the difference between yours and mine is that mine is a matter of historic fact whereas yours is currently a bit of speculative fiction.
Indeed, one is undeniably in the past and the other is ahead of us; hard to avoid speculation when talking about the future.
I notice you say nothing of the damage caused to our recovery by the Cameron/Osborne ideological determination to cut spending deeply (rather than tax those who could afford to pay, and who in many indstances had benefitted from the boom years ahead of the GFC).
Because I don't recognise that it did damage our recovery. If anything we didn't cut deeply enough.
I know we'll never agree but I like to hear why apparently intelligent people take such perverse views...
Where should we have cut deeper?
No we shouldn't have cut deeper, we should have taxed more.
American indices have gone ‘limit down’, inhibiting the ability to sell them, and there is talk of possible market suspension today if stock selling looks like it might get out of hand.
Pretty bad stuff.
Between a President who has set so much store on shiny stock-market boosterism, a bit like a televangelist huckster, and an opponent in questionable mental condition, who knows what's going to happen this autumn.
BIden's VP being President by the end of the year might not be a bad bet.
I suspect that some normally non-investing ordinary American folk have been encouraged into the market through faith in Trump and having watched its seemingly inexorable rise. Pushing up the political cost for Trump if the bubble bursts and his people lose out.
Glad i have been out of equities for some time all be it for BREXIT rather than CV reasons. I would need FTSE at 4000 and DOW at under 15000 before i would consider serious investment
Interesting hint of the political battle to come this morning in R4 this morning. How well prepared are we for Coronavirus? Did austerity help by impacting deficit or did it hinder by degrading our health and social care capability?
The political legacy may be a reverse of the credit crunch. Labour spent a bit too much and took their eyes of the ball but were mostly unfairly blamed for what was a global issue for a decade.
It could easily play the same way for the right over coronavirus, whatever they had done in terms of austerity probably wouldnt have made much difference on this issue, but its an obvious (if unfair and largely incorrect) conclusion to make that austerity is to blame.
That only works if the UK deaths are worse than say Germany or France.
In a global event, the obvious thing to do is compare the UK to other similar countries.
The Tories have an enormous advantage that the UK are behind Italy, France and Germany in terms of timescale.
Only if the UK death rate is say double the German or French one will it pan out as you say.
How much did the public compare what happened in the UK re credit crunch with the rest of the world? If your in charge when it happens (and the build up to it) you get the blame. You are assigning the great British public far too much rationality.
Greatly. The public rightly recognised that what happened in the UK was much worse than what happened in the rest of the world thanks to Gordon Brown's mismanagement and blamed him accordingly.
Not sure much of southern Europe would agree with you.
Yes they would. Much of Southern Europe's governments had also mismanaged their economies like Gordon Brown had mismanaged Britain's. The voters of those nations paid attention and ejected their governments like we did ours, while voters in nations that hadn't mismanaged the economy unlike Brown were less likely to eject their government in response. See for example Canada.
Gordon Brown did not mismanage the economy. Southern Europe was screwed by Germany and the Euro. Canada's rapid recovery was largely due to exports to China and the United States, aided by a drop in exchange rates. See also Australia.
Gordon Brown did mismanage the economy. Are you a deficit denier still? Its hard to imagine they still exist, its like meeting a climate change denier.
The deficit exists, is important but rarely the most important thing. You might also recall that before the global financial crisis, our deficit was low by international standards and also low by our own historical standards. Osborne's focus on the deficit flatlined the recovery he inherited from Labour; stimulating growth would have been a better way to reduce the deficit. It is ironic that Osborne's austerity was a factor in losing the Brexit referendum and ending his own political career.
One of the reasons the GFC was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because Brown had so mismanaged the economy prior to the crash. He didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK economy suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
Let's hope we're not reading this in 10 year's time:
One of the reasons the Covid-19 crisis was so damaging to Britain - longer and deeper than almost every other country in the developed world - was because the Conservatives had so starved the NHS of cash prior to the crisis. They didn't cause the crash but he made sure the UK suffered more than many others and for longer than was necessary.
That might well be the case though I hope not of course. Not because I care about Boris and his Government but because of the people who will have died as a result.
But of course the difference between yours and mine is that mine is a matter of historic fact whereas yours is currently a bit of speculative fiction.
Indeed, one is undeniably in the past and the other is ahead of us; hard to avoid speculation when talking about the future.
I notice you say nothing of the damage caused to our recovery by the Cameron/Osborne ideological determination to cut spending deeply (rather than tax those who could afford to pay, and who in many indstances had benefitted from the boom years ahead of the GFC).
Because I don't recognise that it did damage our recovery. If anything we didn't cut deeply enough.
I know we'll never agree but I like to hear why apparently intelligent people take such perverse views...
Where should we have cut deeper?
No we shouldn't have cut deeper, we should have taxed more.
We shouldnt have cut deeper or taxed more, we should have saved hundreds of billions with less QE and bank nationalisation subsidies.
I haven't seen anyone suggest a novel anti-viral was likely any time soon, whereas earlier in the epidemic I did see some over-optimistic speculation about vaccination coming over the hill to save us. My limited understanding was that there were several known anti-viral s either, either in use now or which had been developed for previous pandemics and passed safety trials, that had been deemed worth exploring, and even if no combination of them forms a magic bullet, there had been realistic (?) hopes of a clinically significant effect. Public health measures are going to determine how many people get this thing, but it would be nice if there were more treatment options for those who do!
According to this article, there are thousands of potential compounds (used in existing medicines) to be evaluated, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research on their potential effectiveness:
3% is not modest. Especially not after 16 years of growth and no downturn since it was a surplus.
Had there been a small surplus instead of an historically high 3% deficit going into the recession then the deficit would have spiked to 7% not 10%, far more manageable.
A factor dwarfed in importance by the bloated, corrupt, incompetent, poorly regulated banking sector.
If the deficit was not seen as modest one needs to ask why (pre-Crash) the Conservatives were pledged to match Labour's spending levels.
And of course they supported even looser regulation of the City.
I've already answered that, because the Tories had just lost a third heavy election defeat on the bounce and were trying to neutralise the issue politically, not due to economic concerns.
Regulation of the City wasn't the problem. Recessions happen. The problem was going into a recession with an unprecedentedly large deficit that had unprecedentedly grown in the years BEFORE the crash.
No unprecedented deficit existed. We had the lowest in G7 0,5% OF GDP
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
The message coming through the journalists' briefing session appears to be one of "masterful inactivity". That's Johnson's stock-in-trade, but it doesn't feel like the correct response for an epidemic.
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In terms of efficiently spreading this virus to as many other people as possible, what would be the worst job to have? A ticket inspector on an intercity train must be up there.
I can see we are heading for a situation where because short traders cant sell down the Dow, they are going to be using other indices like the FTSE as proxies, which will - if genuine selling sends the Dow down - magnify the effect on our own market this afternoon.
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
Daily new cases of coronavirus are decreasing in China and South Korea, but increasing in most countries in Europe including the UK. Some Chinese students in UK universities are said to be unhappy with the government's response to the crisis and are returning to China.
Boris Johnson has recommended frequent handwashing but has also been shaking hands with many people at a sporting event. Surely this is contradictory behaviour and maybe there is politics behind it. The government should look at what other countries are doing that is working, if we are not doing the same things, before the situation gets much worse and take the required action.
What makes you think they are not doing that?
According to the report in The Times a few days ago, these Chinese students have been concerned that the government has not been advocating the use of face masks. I have not heard the government give an explanation about its policy about face masks. Are they supposed to be of use in restricting the transmission of coronavirus or not? Some countries do support their use.
This is one issue. Another issue is the strategy of sloganisation, e.g. "Containment", "Delay", ..., and "Catch It. Bin It. Kill It.". The public will judge the government on its success in controlling the virus, and I am not sure that these slogans will be enough to explain the government's response to the virus to the public.
For some reason face masks have been popular with people from east Asia from long before Covid-19. The WHO recommendation is they are only required by those who have symptoms or are caring for those with the illness:
- If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection. - Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing. - Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water. - If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly.
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In terms of efficiently spreading this virus to as many other people as possible, what would be the worst job to have? A ticket inspector on an intercity train must be up there.
Actually they didn't and Cameron briefly pledged to match it to neutralise the issue after losing the third consecutive election. A pledge that was politically rather than economically motivated.
Brown was the one making the decisions and the one responsible for blowing up our deficit in an historically unprecedented manner prior to the bust.
They judged Labour's spending to be ruinous but pledged to match it out of pure political opportunism?
Jeez, those Tories.
And why were they arguing for even looser regulation of the City when it was clear it was too lax already?
Same thing? Just going with the flow?
Or was that more because "hands off" the City was a naturally Tory type thing to believe in?
Because getting rid of much of the nonsense box ticking nonsense that Brown considered to be regulation would have improved regulations, not worsened it.
I haven't seen anyone suggest a novel anti-viral was likely any time soon, whereas earlier in the epidemic I did see some over-optimistic speculation about vaccination coming over the hill to save us. My limited understanding was that there were several known anti-viral s either, either in use now or which had been developed for previous pandemics and passed safety trials, that had been deemed worth exploring, and even if no combination of them forms a magic bullet, there had been realistic (?) hopes of a clinically significant effect. Public health measures are going to determine how many people get this thing, but it would be nice if there were more treatment options for those who do!
According to this article, there are thousands of potential compounds (used in existing medicines) to be evaluated, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research on their potential effectiveness:
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Is it the raw numbers that matter much at this stage, given all the imported cases? Suspect the experts will be paying more attention to the suspected community transmission figures.
Yes, and it does seem it is still very high proportion of imported cases from Italy.
Italy apart (given it's now basically in lockdown) - does anyone have stats of daily numbers of travel from the UK to/from other countries? If the import route is still primary (which seems just about reasonable as an assumption given the - to date - lack of hotspots) then the number of new cases should stabilise based on number of transfers. I just have no idea what the daily number of transfers to/from any countries actually is...
The FTSE 100 has revcovered to only 6.5% down I see. Going to be interesting to see how the DJ fares when it opens.
Futures markets have been pretty stable at 24.5k for several hours, so I'd go with that unless something major happens between now and the opening bell.
Cos they is frozen, innit?
Good point.
ETFs suggest closer to 24k, assuming I've interpreted correctly.
Daily new cases of coronavirus are decreasing in China and South Korea, but increasing in most countries in Europe including the UK. Some Chinese students in UK universities are said to be unhappy with the government's response to the crisis and are returning to China.
Boris Johnson has recommended frequent handwashing but has also been shaking hands with many people at a sporting event. Surely this is contradictory behaviour and maybe there is politics behind it. The government should look at what other countries are doing that is working, if we are not doing the same things, before the situation gets much worse and take the required action.
What makes you think they are not doing that?
According to the report in The Times a few days ago, these Chinese students have been concerned that the government has not been advocating the use of face masks. I have not heard the government give an explanation about its policy about face masks. Are they supposed to be of use in restricting the transmission of coronavirus or not? Some countries do support their use.
This is one issue. Another issue is the strategy of sloganisation, e.g. "Containment", "Delay", ..., and "Catch It. Bin It. Kill It.". The public will judge the government on its success in controlling the virus, and I am not sure that these slogans will be enough to explain the government's response to the virus to the public.
For some reason face masks have been popular with people from east Asia from long before Covid-19...
Thanks to the bloody awful atmospheric pollution. (aka 'fine dust' in Korea...)
American indices have gone ‘limit down’, inhibiting the ability to sell them, and there is talk of possible market suspension today if stock selling looks like it might get out of hand.
My put options are looking wonderful, sadly my share portfolio looking terrible! At least mostly mitigated the losses, might sneak ahead if there is another big drop.
Those asking about "reinfection", seems it is more to do with the length at which you stay "positive" even when recovered and false negatives in the meantime.
IIRC there are quite a lot of false negatives because swabs come from relatively high up the airway but virus is mostly deep in the lungs. Hence why a "two false negatives" rule might be sensible for people leaving isolation and has been used in some places. And a positive negative positive sequence of test results doesn't necessarily mean cure then reinfection.
I guess you mean a "two negative" policy. "Two false negatives" imply that the patient is still positive and should not be let out, and anyway how can you tell it's a false negative?
Regarding the HM Treasury move. We've got fabulous high quality office accommodation available NOW in Thornaby-on-Tees. Its built on the site of Head Wrightson's Steelworks where Fatcha had her famous "walk in the wilderness" in 1987. An office campus literally built by the Tories, riverside town centre location, chuffa train station right next door with (very soon) direct rail link back to that London.
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Is it the raw numbers that matter much at this stage, given all the imported cases? Suspect the experts will be paying more attention to the suspected community transmission figures.
Yes, and it does seem it is still very high proportion of imported cases from Italy.
If you look at the number of Brits who seem to have got infected In Italy, then backproject that to figure out how many Italians are likely to be infected, I bet you get a completely different figure than Italy's own estimate of the situation there.
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In terms of efficiently spreading this virus to as many other people as possible, what would be the worst job to have? A ticket inspector on an intercity train must be up there.
Sex worker?
Sex workers are good at transmitting HIV, but they do not breathe on that many people.
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In terms of efficiently spreading this virus to as many other people as possible, what would be the worst job to have? A ticket inspector on an intercity train must be up there.
Air steward/ess on a still busy airline, perhaps connecting Italy to Iran.
Those asking about "reinfection", seems it is more to do with the length at which you stay "positive" even when recovered and false negatives in the meantime.
IIRC there are quite a lot of false negatives because swabs come from relatively high up the airway but virus is mostly deep in the lungs. Hence why a "two false negatives" rule might be sensible for people leaving isolation and has been used in some places. And a positive negative positive sequence of test results doesn't necessarily mean cure then reinfection.
I guess you mean a "two negative" policy. "Two false negatives" imply that the patient is still positive and should not be let out, and anyway how can you tell it's a false negative?
Yes sorry "two negatives". I'd blame typing on my phone but don't think I can fault autocorrect for this one!
Regarding the HM Treasury move. We've got fabulous high quality office accommodation available NOW in Thornaby-on-Tees. Its built on the site of Head Wrightson's Steelworks where Fatcha had her famous "walk in the wilderness" in 1987. An office campus literally built by the Tories, riverside town centre location, chuffa train station right next door with (very soon) direct rail link back to that London.
Thornaby! Less shit than Loftus.
And its next to HM Revenue and Customs. Existing offices available to rent. Prime riverside empty plot available to build on. Come on Tories, you've now got a Tory MP here. Gizzajob etc
I can see we are heading for a situation where because short traders cant sell down the Dow, they are going to be using other indices like the FTSE as proxies, which will - if genuine selling sends the Dow down - magnify the effect on our own market this afternoon.
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
I think this is the week of big retail panic. Last couple of weeks was the more informed slighty smarter investor getting ahead of the curve.
Why is the BBC referring to today's meeting as "cobra", there is no "A" - it is short for Cabinet Office briefing rooms "COBR"
COBRA sounds way cooler.
That is only for Breifing Room 'A' - maybe they were in 'B'? COBRB does not roll of the tongue quite as easily
Just make it like Air Force One. By definition POTUS can't fly in Air Force Two because any plane that POTUS is on is automatically designated Air Force One.
So say that any Cabinet Office Briefing Room that the PM is in is Room A. Then any PM COBR meeting would automatically be a COBRA meeting regardless of where it is.
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In terms of efficiently spreading this virus to as many other people as possible, what would be the worst job to have? A ticket inspector on an intercity train must be up there.
Looks like the restaurant staff member at the French National Assembly has been very efficient.
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Is it the raw numbers that matter much at this stage, given all the imported cases? Suspect the experts will be paying more attention to the suspected community transmission figures.
Yes, and it does seem it is still very high proportion of imported cases from Italy.
Italy apart (given it's now basically in lockdown) - does anyone have stats of daily numbers of travel from the UK to/from other countries? If the import route is still primary (which seems just about reasonable as an assumption given the - to date - lack of hotspots) then the number of new cases should stabilise based on number of transfers. I just have no idea what the daily number of transfers to/from any countries actually is...
Wiki started to track the origin of each case at the start of this but for obvious reasons seems to have given up.
I can see we are heading for a situation where because short traders cant sell down the Dow, they are going to be using other indices like the FTSE as proxies, which will - if genuine selling sends the Dow down - magnify the effect on our own market this afternoon.
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
I think this is the week of big retail panic. Last couple of weeks was the more informed slighty smarter investor getting ahead of the curve.
The FTSE has already given back its morning recovery, and is waiting for Wall St open in five minutes, the US now being on its summer time.
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In terms of efficiently spreading this virus to as many other people as possible, what would be the worst job to have? A ticket inspector on an intercity train must be up there.
Sex worker?
Sex workers are good at transmitting HIV, but they do not breathe on that many people.
Doctor (GP) is the obvious answer. Especially if they do for their colleagues in the practice as well.
I haven't seen anyone suggest a novel anti-viral was likely any time soon, whereas earlier in the epidemic I did see some over-optimistic speculation about vaccination coming over the hill to save us. My limited understanding was that there were several known anti-viral s either, either in use now or which had been developed for previous pandemics and passed safety trials, that had been deemed worth exploring, and even if no combination of them forms a magic bullet, there had been realistic (?) hopes of a clinically significant effect. Public health measures are going to determine how many people get this thing, but it would be nice if there were more treatment options for those who do!
According to this article, there are thousands of potential compounds (used in existing medicines) to be evaluated, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research on their potential effectiveness:
As it's one of the world's most common drugs (it's an antimalarial that was discovered seventy years ago), it's not exactly supply constrained.
It was one of the compounds which displayed activity against SARS (nb this was in cell culture, not patients): Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/ We report, however, that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage. In addition to the well-known functions of chloroquine such as elevations of endosomal pH, the drug appears to interfere with terminal glycosylation of the cellular receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. This may negatively influence the virus-receptor binding and abrogate the infection, with further ramifications by the elevation of vesicular pH, resulting in the inhibition of infection and spread of SARS CoV at clinically admissible concentrations.
I can see we are heading for a situation where because short traders cant sell down the Dow, they are going to be using other indices like the FTSE as proxies, which will - if genuine selling sends the Dow down - magnify the effect on our own market this afternoon.
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
I think this is the week of big retail panic. Last couple of weeks was the more informed slighty smarter investor getting ahead of the curve.
The FTSE has already given back its morning recovery, and is waiting for Wall St open in five minutes, the US now being on its summer time.
6000 seems fair enough value for the FTSE but expecting it to go a long way below fair. I am a buyer (re-investor) somewhere around 5000-5700 range.
Following Rishi Sunak’s Sunday announcement that he intends to move 20% of the Treasury out of London, Guido understands the new Chancellor’s personal top spot for the new campus is Teesside.
There are going to be some London types who will get a massive culture shock if this goes ahead.
I remember going on a 2 week course there and it was a massive shock for me and I grew up in Stoke!
Think of it as multi-culturism in action.....
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
It should really be placed in Hartlepool or Redcar so that people can see what the real world is like.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
I would love to be there to see the faces of all those Oxbridge PPE graduates getting off the train in Darlo and being told this if your new home.
Darlo is nice, some parts of it are very swish.
Are those the parts that recently got leccy and the t'interweb?
I am obviously kidding. I haven't actually been to Darlington for probably 10-15 years and maybe I only visited the less swish areas.
You will definitely have a harder job convincing me on Middlesbrough though.
"We're relocating you all to Loftus"
"Loftus Road, oh Shepherd's Bush, that'll be great"
"No I don't think you understand" said Cummings, "You're off to Loftus to get in touch with red wall switchers"
Coach arrives in Loftus to relocate the team "Oh fuck"
I can see we are heading for a situation where because short traders cant sell down the Dow, they are going to be using other indices like the FTSE as proxies, which will - if genuine selling sends the Dow down - magnify the effect on our own market this afternoon.
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
I think this is the week of big retail panic. Last couple of weeks was the more informed slighty smarter investor getting ahead of the curve.
The FTSE has already given back its morning recovery, and is waiting for Wall St open in five minutes, the US now being on its summer time.
6000 seems fair enough value for the FTSE but expecting it to go a long way below fair. I am a buyer (re-investor) somewhere around 5000-5700 range.
I can see we are heading for a situation where because short traders cant sell down the Dow, they are going to be using other indices like the FTSE as proxies, which will - if genuine selling sends the Dow down - magnify the effect on our own market this afternoon.
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
I think this is the week of big retail panic. Last couple of weeks was the more informed slighty smarter investor getting ahead of the curve.
The FTSE has already given back its morning recovery, and is waiting for Wall St open in five minutes, the US now being on its summer time.
6000 seems fair enough value for the FTSE but expecting it to go a long way below fair. I am a buyer (re-investor) somewhere around 5000-5700 range.
Great time to buy and getting better if you are in for the long haul.
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Is it the raw numbers that matter much at this stage, given all the imported cases? Suspect the experts will be paying more attention to the suspected community transmission figures.
Yes, and it does seem it is still very high proportion of imported cases from Italy.
Italy apart (given it's now basically in lockdown) - does anyone have stats of daily numbers of travel from the UK to/from other countries? If the import route is still primary (which seems just about reasonable as an assumption given the - to date - lack of hotspots) then the number of new cases should stabilise based on number of transfers. I just have no idea what the daily number of transfers to/from any countries actually is...
Curious sort of lockdown with Milan Malpensa Airport (to name only one) still flying all over the world with a departure every few minutes.
Comments
I am not proposing the opposite - that Gordon Brown was a brilliant manager of public finances and the economy; simply that there isn't the evidence to show that he was a particularly bad one.
Does anyone else remember the hilarious Guardian column written by an ultra-woke lady who described her time among the proles on an estate in terms that Sanders Of The River would have thought OTT?
(Gratifying though the result was.)
A member of staff at Transport for London has tested positive for coronavirus.
In which comparable years following a long period of growth and preceding a downturn was the deficit higher?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGRl5ekAqo0
If the deficit was not seen as modest one needs to ask why (pre-Crash) the Conservatives were pledged to match Labour's spending levels.
And of course they supported even looser regulation of the City.
I actually suspect it's going to Darlo (and I suspect it's going to very close to the Student Loan Company)...
"Mum, growing up I always thought we were working class. Now I am up here I realise we were always middle class!"
More worrying is that UK airports are not checking anyone coming in never mind ones from Milan, is is crazy.
1) The tweet the other day by Damien "Red Rag" McBride. Complained that the government wasn't spinning the crisis enough - none of the things he identified were actual... actions. I certainly do not believe that a Cabinet Office unit to criminally libel all the opposition parties has been set up. An incredible oversight.
2) I haven't seen criticism of the UK government policy by those experts-on-science types.... you know, scientists.
3) I get the impression that some commentators are actually upset that the government is heavily using scientific advice. As opposed to taking scientific advice and then carrying out their (the commentators) favourite ideas.
4) Still no mention of the biggest questions of all - when the apocalypse actually breaks... Will the SLRs issued to the traffic wardens have wooden furniture or plastic? What will the government do about the issue of female (self identified) traffic wardens - will they have to carry SLRs as well. Or will they be issued Small Metal Guns? Would that be sexist?
I can only presume that the testing numbers today are going to look ok and so decided not to pull the emergency break, but seems totally wrong.
Might even be this week
Regulation of the City wasn't the problem. Recessions happen. The problem was going into a recession with an unprecedentedly large deficit that had unprecedentedly grown in the years BEFORE the crash.
If they are little white pills then relatively easy to triple capacity by moving to 3 shift production (most pharma companies don’t operate 24/7). Skilled staff can be tricky but I suspect they could get secondees from other firms
If they are MAbs it could be tough.
I am obviously kidding. I haven't actually been to Darlington for probably 10-15 years and maybe I only visited the less swish areas.
You will definitely have a harder job convincing me on Middlesbrough though.
Plus house prices the early arrivals will absolutely love (4 bed detached - £280k or so).
Between a President who has set so much store on shiny stock-market boosterism, a bit like a televangelist huckster, and an opponent in questionable mental condition, who knows what's going to happen this autumn.
BIden's VP being President by the end of the year might not be a bad bet.
Jeez, those Tories.
And why were they arguing for even looser regulation of the City when it was clear it was too lax already?
Same thing? Just going with the flow?
Or was that more because "hands off" the City was a naturally Tory type thing to believe in?
Now I'm biased but the fact I can get to Schiphol within 2 hours of leaving my door is something you can't do from many places - it was always fun on a Monday when I would be sat at the client's office at 8:45 asking when xyz was planning to arrive..
I still remember a very left wing friend who worked with me commenting, after he was first introduced to the nonsense - "You are right - this is useless". Previously, he had thought I was just a de-regulation mad righty.
Security Theatre, as Bruce Schneier might say.
Real regulation is hard and involves qualitative judgement and applying personal judgement - and putting that judgement on the line. Hence it is much easier to count the number of traders who have allegedly clicked though their course on "How not to leave documents on your desk".
"Loftus Road, oh Shepherd's Bush, that'll be great"
"No I don't think you understand" said Cummings, "You're off to Loftus to get in touch with red wall switchers"
Coach arrives in Loftus to relocate the team "Oh fuck"
(You're welcome.)
No unprecedented deficit existed. We had the lowest in G7 0,5% OF GDP
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_deficit_analysis
This is one issue. Another issue is the strategy of sloganisation, e.g. "Containment", "Delay", ..., and "Catch It. Bin It. Kill It.". The public will judge the government on its success in controlling the virus, and I am not sure that these slogans will be enough to explain the government's response to the virus to the public.
Telegraph:
“Italy should be a warning to everybody, everywhere,” says Professor Massimo Galli, head of infectious diseases at the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan.
He is scathing about those still playing down the threat. “It was never anything like flu. People uttering such things are sowing confusion
The US must be hoping that everyone who has been looking for the exit has already sold and is seeking to head off speculators like me.
- If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.
- Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
- Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
- If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
ETFs suggest closer to 24k, assuming I've interpreted correctly.
(aka 'fine dust' in Korea...)
Thornaby! Less shit than Loftus.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.5629606,-1.3110984,999m/data=!3m1!1e3
So say that any Cabinet Office Briefing Room that the PM is in is Room A. Then any PM COBR meeting would automatically be a COBRA meeting regardless of where it is.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/17/c_138792545.htm
As it's one of the world's most common drugs (it's an antimalarial that was discovered seventy years ago), it's not exactly supply constrained.
It was one of the compounds which displayed activity against SARS (nb this was in cell culture, not patients):
Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
We report, however, that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage. In addition to the well-known functions of chloroquine such as elevations of endosomal pH, the drug appears to interfere with terminal glycosylation of the cellular receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. This may negatively influence the virus-receptor binding and abrogate the infection, with further ramifications by the elevation of vesicular pH, resulting in the inhibition of infection and spread of SARS CoV at clinically admissible concentrations.
HMG should fill its boots
https://twitter.com/EricSylvers/status/1236997972031832064?s=20
https://twitter.com/IGcom/status/1237008114249015297