The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
What you say is true. However the alternative of sitting on ones hands and pretending everything will be alright in the end is also fraught with danger.
Being crowned 'World King' wasn't supposed to be like this.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
What company assets does a cafe or a restaurant have? What are they going to do? Secure it on a load of plates, a fridge and some forks.
Loans are the wrong answer. All they do is create indebtedness which will kill businesses. Only grants will help them. Make the grants conditional on keeping the employees on.
This is not difficult stuff. It is only made so because people are not understanding what the problem is and how it has been caused.
Not the greatest day in U.K. history is it. Instead of stiff upper lip it’s more defy the advice and go to the pub. If anyone says we’ve done more panic buying than Italy, the truth is there is no such thing as panic buying, this has been greedy thoughtless anti social buying.
Johnson needs to bang the lectern tomorrow and say he’s angry. If he does it doesn’t matter how many doors he is behind in the Downing Street bunker, he will hear the nation applauding.
I am not so sure any of Johnson's options are likely to be tremendously popular. 'World King' isn't all it is cracked up to be.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
True. Realism never the friend of the left. It's never worked so what's changed?
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
Yes they can. If there’s £330 billion available as loan guarantees it is available as grants. And it could be more. The government can print the money. Inflation is not an issue when you have a collapse in demand. And it gives you time to work out how to manage the economy when this is over. The rate they’re going there won’t be an economy to manage.
The government will end up paying far more in lost revenue, output, welfare etc - far more. Boldness is what is needed. What Boris fans always said he had. Where is it?
Not the greatest day in U.K. history is it. Instead of stiff upper lip it’s more defy the advice and go to the pub. If anyone says we’ve done more panic buying than Italy, the truth is there is no such thing as panic buying, this has been greedy thoughtless anti social buying.
Johnson needs to bang the lectern tomorrow and say he’s angry. If he does it doesn’t matter how many doors he is behind in the Downing Street bunker, he will hear the nation applauding.
I agree but that's not academia's way and he's big of science at the moment and why not?
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
What company assets does a cafe or a restaurant have? What are they going to do? Secure it on a load of plates, a fridge and some forks.
Loans are the wrong answer. All they do is create indebtedness which will kill businesses. Only grants will help them. Make the grants conditional on keeping the employees on.
This is not difficult stuff. It is only made so because people are not understanding what the problem is and how it has been caused.
Indeed. There seems to be a fundamental misconception that that the economic problems faced by the frontline service sector are due to the virus. They are not. They are due to the soft quarantine imposed by government. The quarantine is necessary, yet it remains a gigantic downside intervention in the market by the state which has to be counterbalanced by the state.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
Interesting.
There is a surprisingly direct link to the GFC and how it developed in Britain. Over a coffee one day ......
Sunak is bright but he has lived and worked all his life in a bubble with little knowledge of how businesses, especially SMEs, work and what they need. Ditto most, probably, all the Treasury boffins and advisers around him. Even the BoE’s efforts have been criticised in the same way. Groupthink writ large.
They are fighting the last war. Eventually one hopes they will get it right. But by then a lot of damage will have been done.
That damage is avoidable if they listened to - well, not weirdos and misfits - but people with some clear-sightedness, common-sense and actual knowledge of the world beyond Central London and how it works. They could do with listening to their own Tory MPs today who have told them that their loan scheme is pants.
Loans are the wrong answer. All they do is create indebtedness which will kill businesses. Only grants will help them. Make the grants conditional on keeping the employees on.
Yup, the obvious way to do this is to unscrew the payroll taxes and screw them back on back-to-front.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
Well no, you can’t just hand money over to solve the problem, it will be like Kids Company on LSD.
It’s an act of God this is happening. Well mainly. Potential for something going pandy demic has been there for years, so when it’s over inquiries will look into whether planning was taken seriously. Air travel is grounded now, maybe lfe will say that was all too slow. But the unemployment. The scaring of businesses gone for good, act of God.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
What company assets does a cafe or a restaurant have? What are they going to do? Secure it on a load of plates, a fridge and some forks.
Loans are the wrong answer. All they do is create indebtedness which will kill businesses. Only grants will help them. Make the grants conditional on keeping the employees on.
This is not difficult stuff. It is only made so because people are not understanding what the problem is and how it has been caused.
What's frail because it's insubstantial, is easily replaced with something of similar frailty. Wanting start up small business owners to put their money where their mouth is is standard banking practice - owners must share in the risk.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
So what's the clever way?
I don't know, I'm also not paid nearly enough to be one of the people to find a solution.
Perhaps setting up a system where people can register for 50 £20 vouchers that expire in 3 months and can only be used upon producing an ID with a name that matches the name on the voucher. Businesses can then redeem them from the government for up to 6 months after issuing.
While there'd be plenty of loopholes (e.g. swapping the £1000 of vouchers with a local store owner to get £900 cash back), it'd broadly do the job of getting people spending again.
Regardless, we deserve better than the shockingly poor response so far. We laid off 25% of our workforce today (all secondary earners in the household). Loyal, hard working people. But if we do not do it the business will go under if this lasts for 3 months of more. We've run the maths, if we shut down the company today we'd walk away with a fairly low 7 figure sum, be able to pay off the business loan on the house and my mother would be set for a comfortable retirement. Staying open exposes us to a large amount of risk, not least the prospect of losing everything should the economy go into a significant recession and a key clients or two go bust.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
How much are you prepared to chip in for say, a cafe?
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
Well no, you can’t just hand money over to solve the problem, it will be like Kids Company on LSD.
It’s an act of God this is happening. Well mainly. Potential for something going pandy demic has been there for years, so when it’s over inquiries will look into whether planning was taken seriously. Air travel is grounded now, maybe lfe will say that was all too slow. But the unemployment. The scaring of businesses gone for good, act of God.
Wrong.
The virus is an act of god.
The lockdown is a direct downside intervention in the market by government.
The businesses would have ridden out the virus. They have no chance against a government deliberately preventing them trading.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
How much are you prepared to chip in?
You assume that I have anything to chip in. I'm going to default on my rent in 43 days if I cannot work over April, which is when I usually earn about 1/7th of my annual income. June is also wiped out, which is when I earn another 1/7th. My tenancy ends on the 30th of June, at which point I will have a maxed out overdraft, no prospect of earning money soon and no house, despite all that I consider myself a lucky one against some of my peers.
I personally have scaled back all expenses to a minimum and do not plan to buy anything bar food and water until COVID-19 is resolved, as have most of my peers. You know what that usually results in? A prolonged recession, which is why time limited free money is needed.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
Yes they can. If there’s £330 billion available as loan guarantees it is available as grants. And it could be more. The government can print the money. Inflation is not an issue when you have a collapse in demand. And it gives you time to work out how to manage the economy when this is over. The rate they’re going there won’t be an economy to manage.
The government will end up paying far more in lost revenue, output, welfare etc - far more. Boldness is what is needed. What Boris fans always said he had. Where is it?
loan guarantees = grants is absolute crap and shows a complete lack of comprehension about finance. Your judgement, such as it is, is completely clouded by hatred of Boris (I'm no fan)
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
What company assets does a cafe or a restaurant have? What are they going to do? Secure it on a load of plates, a fridge and some forks.
Loans are the wrong answer. All they do is create indebtedness which will kill businesses. Only grants will help them. Make the grants conditional on keeping the employees on.
This is not difficult stuff. It is only made so because people are not understanding what the problem is and how it has been caused.
Indeed. There seems to be a fundamental misconception that that the economic problems faced by the frontline service sector are due to the virus. They are not. They are due to the soft quarantine imposed by government. The quarantine is necessary, yet it remains a gigantic downside intervention in the market by the state which has to be counterbalanced by the state.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
Yes they can. If there’s £330 billion available as loan guarantees it is available as grants. And it could be more. The government can print the money. Inflation is not an issue when you have a collapse in demand. And it gives you time to work out how to manage the economy when this is over. The rate they’re going there won’t be an economy to manage.
The government will end up paying far more in lost revenue, output, welfare etc - far more. Boldness is what is needed. What Boris fans always said he had. Where is it?
Well yes on it being a cost either way, but no, when you consider not the amount but the period. The 330 billion is a pledge, for over a period, much of it almost like a loan guarantee for others available cash, not something available today to be handed out tomorrow. If you were a country with value of 10 quid, and you printed lots of money you won’t be worth ten quid anymore to the point the money printed doesn’t do the job because it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. It needs to be liquid money, like notes in an envelope to hand someone and they go down market can come back with meat. But on this scale that is impossible for the government to rustle up.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
Well no, you can’t just hand money over to solve the problem, it will be like Kids Company on LSD.
It’s an act of God this is happening. Well mainly. Potential for something going pandy demic has been there for years, so when it’s over inquiries will look into whether planning was taken seriously. Air travel is grounded now, maybe lfe will say that was all too slow. But the unemployment. The scaring of businesses gone for good, act of God.
The economy at its base is driven by people spending money...if 5 or 10 or 15 milion people end up unemployed and its looking to me like 5 is the low end then the economy struggles and takes longer to rebound. Measures to keep those people able to spend are needed for a good bounce back
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
So what's the clever way?
I don't know, I'm also not paid nearly enough to be one of the people to find a solution.
Perhaps setting up a system where people can register for 50 £20 vouchers that expire in 3 months and can only be used upon producing an ID with a name that matches the name on the voucher. Businesses can then redeem them from the government for up to 6 months after issuing.
While there'd be plenty of loopholes (e.g. swapping the £1000 of vouchers with a local store owner to get £900 cash back), it'd broadly do the job of getting people spending again.
Regardless, we deserve better than the shockingly poor response so far. We laid off 25% of our workforce today (all secondary earners in the household). Loyal, hard working people. But if we do not do it the business will go under if this lasts for 3 months of more. We've run the maths, if we shut down the company today we'd walk away with a fairly low 7 figure sum, be able to pay off the business loan on the house and my mother would be set for a comfortable retirement. Staying open exposes us to a large amount of risk, not least the prospect of losing everything should the economy go into a significant recession and a key clients or two go bust.
You could have stopped after "I don't know". 'Nuff said.
The economy at its base is driven by people spending money...if 5 or 10 or 15 milion people end up unemployed and its looking to me like 5 is the low end then the economy struggles and takes longer to rebound. Measures to keep those people able to spend are needed for a good bounce back
Not the greatest day in U.K. history is it. Instead of stiff upper lip it’s more defy the advice and go to the pub. If anyone says we’ve done more panic buying than Italy, the truth is there is no such thing as panic buying, this has been greedy thoughtless anti social buying.
Johnson needs to bang the lectern tomorrow and say he’s angry. If he does it doesn’t matter how many doors he is behind in the Downing Street bunker, he will hear the nation applauding.
I agree but that's not academia's way and he's big of science at the moment and why not?
You can believe that if you want to, but I don’t. This isn’t following science, this is culture. Has lobbyist in and out back door of downing street stopped during this. Or gone into hyperdrive. Those powerful in the lobby ensuring liabilities don’t fall to them. In action, wording, timing, science has taken a backseat to culture from the start.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
So what's the clever way?
I don't know, I'm also not paid nearly enough to be one of the people to find a solution.
Perhaps setting up a system where people can register for 50 £20 vouchers that expire in 3 months and can only be used upon producing an ID with a name that matches the name on the voucher. Businesses can then redeem them from the government for up to 6 months after issuing.
While there'd be plenty of loopholes (e.g. swapping the £1000 of vouchers with a local store owner to get £900 cash back), it'd broadly do the job of getting people spending again.
Regardless, we deserve better than the shockingly poor response so far. We laid off 25% of our workforce today (all secondary earners in the household). Loyal, hard working people. But if we do not do it the business will go under if this lasts for 3 months of more. We've run the maths, if we shut down the company today we'd walk away with a fairly low 7 figure sum, be able to pay off the business loan on the house and my mother would be set for a comfortable retirement. Staying open exposes us to a large amount of risk, not least the prospect of losing everything should the economy go into a significant recession and a key clients or two go bust.
You could have stopped after "I don't know". 'Nuff said.
The irony being that if you'd have said 'I don't know' rather than your misinformed bollocks we'd all think a lot more of you right now. If the Govt. takes measures that slashes demand for a short period then the only reasonable response is to try and prop up demand to avoid a small dip becoming a big recession.
Bar mass unemployment, mass evictions, mass social unrest and open generational warfare, what are the upsides of your seemingly preferred option of letting it burn?
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
Well no, you can’t just hand money over to solve the problem, it will be like Kids Company on LSD.
It’s an act of God this is happening. Well mainly. Potential for something going pandy demic has been there for years, so when it’s over inquiries will look into whether planning was taken seriously. Air travel is grounded now, maybe lfe will say that was all too slow. But the unemployment. The scaring of businesses gone for good, act of God.
Wrong.
The virus is an act of god.
The lockdown is a direct downside intervention in the market by government.
The businesses would have ridden out the virus. They have no chance against a government deliberately preventing them trading.
There is no lockdown. How do you know the businesses would have ridden out the virus without the Govt trying to limit the human damage?
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
Well no, you can’t just hand money over to solve the problem, it will be like Kids Company on LSD.
It’s an act of God this is happening. Well mainly. Potential for something going pandy demic has been there for years, so when it’s over inquiries will look into whether planning was taken seriously. Air travel is grounded now, maybe lfe will say that was all too slow. But the unemployment. The scaring of businesses gone for good, act of God.
Wrong.
The virus is an act of god.
The lockdown is a direct downside intervention in the market by government.
The businesses would have ridden out the virus. They have no chance against a government deliberately preventing them trading.
Wrong. The governments course of action is the only choice they have for controlling this. In which case they can’t be blamed for the consequences of it.
Tonight it appears the term "Jam Tomorrow" truly applies for once.
I hope at the very least it is Bonne Maman...
Indeed, definitely the best commercial jam by a long shot.
(Damn, those French are good at food.)
The good people of Tiptree are, as we speak, marching to your home with flaming brands, pitchforks, and forty gallons of their finest Loganberry.......
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
How much are you prepared to chip in?
You assume that I have anything to chip in. I'm going to default on my rent in 43 days if I cannot work over April, which is when I usually earn about 1/7th of my annual income. June is also wiped out, which is when I earn another 1/7th. My tenancy ends on the 30th of June, at which point I will have a maxed out overdraft, no prospect of earning money soon and no house, despite all that I consider myself a lucky one against some of my peers.
I personally have scaled back all expenses to a minimum and do not plan to buy anything bar food and water until COVID-19 is resolved, as have most of my peers. You know what that usually results in? A prolonged recession, which is why time limited free money is needed.
I truly sympathise with your personal predicament but (harshly perhaps) govt has to look beyond that in looking to protect the lives and welfare of the population as a whole. I do really sympathise though I understand why you might not think that to be true.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
No, what they prove is you have no understanding of the fact there is a limit to how much you can commit of taxpayers money, you are just as ideological as anyone from the centre left, as shown by your constant bashing of the financial sector despite the vast smount of revenue it raises.
Even I have not ruled out a UBI if we go to full lockdown but then only for that specific period and not in a way that will clobber businesses large and small with tax and destroy any prospect of economic growth once this virus has eased.
Not the greatest day in U.K. history is it. Instead of stiff upper lip it’s more defy the advice and go to the pub. If anyone says we’ve done more panic buying than Italy, the truth is there is no such thing as panic buying, this has been greedy thoughtless anti social buying.
Johnson needs to bang the lectern tomorrow and say he’s angry. If he does it doesn’t matter how many doors he is behind in the Downing Street bunker, he will hear the nation applauding.
I agree but that's not academia's way and he's big of science at the moment and why not?
You can believe that if you want to, but I don’t. This isn’t following science, this is culture. Has lobbyist in and out back door of downing street stopped during this. Or gone into hyperdrive. Those powerful in the lobby ensuring liabilities don’t fall to them. In action, wording, timing, science has taken a backseat to culture from the start.
That must be wrong unless you think the scientists are stooges.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
So what's the clever way?
I don't know, I'm also not paid nearly enough to be one of the people to find a solution.
Perhaps setting up a system where people can register for 50 £20 vouchers that expire in 3 months and can only be used upon producing an ID with a name that matches the name on the voucher. Businesses can then redeem them from the government for up to 6 months after issuing.
While there'd be plenty of loopholes (e.g. swapping the £1000 of vouchers with a local store owner to get £900 cash back), it'd broadly do the job of getting people spending again.
Regardless, we deserve better than the shockingly poor response so far. We laid off 25% of our workforce today (all secondary earners in the household). Loyal, hard working people. But if we do not do it the business will go under if this lasts for 3 months of more. We've run the maths, if we shut down the company today we'd walk away with a fairly low 7 figure sum, be able to pay off the business loan on the house and my mother would be set for a comfortable retirement. Staying open exposes us to a large amount of risk, not least the prospect of losing everything should the economy go into a significant recession and a key clients or two go bust.
You could have stopped after "I don't know". 'Nuff said.
The irony being that if you'd have said 'I don't know' rather than your misinformed bollocks we'd all think a lot more of you right now. If the Govt. takes measures that slashes demand for a short period then the only reasonable response is to try and prop up demand to avoid a small dip becoming a big recession.
Bar mass unemployment, mass evictions, mass social unrest and open generational warfare, what are the upsides of your seemingly preferred option of letting it burn?
You're very self interested. It prejudices your opinions. Sod everyone else, what about me.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
Yes they can. If there’s £330 billion available as loan guarantees it is available as grants. And it could be more. The government can print the money. Inflation is not an issue when you have a collapse in demand. And it gives you time to work out how to manage the economy when this is over. The rate they’re going there won’t be an economy to manage.
The government will end up paying far more in lost revenue, output, welfare etc - far more. Boldness is what is needed. What Boris fans always said he had. Where is it?
Inflation is an issue when there is a shortage of supply, perhaps try looking at the shelves at your local supermarket tomorrow.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
If there's no direct to consumers helicopter money then we're screwed is the short version of the economic analysis. The loan system is as useful as a marzipan dildo, to quote Mr Tucker.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
How much are you prepared to chip in?
You assume that I have anything to chip in. I'm going to default on my rent in 43 days if I cannot work over April, which is when I usually earn about 1/7th of my annual income. June is also wiped out, which is when I earn another 1/7th. My tenancy ends on the 30th of June, at which point I will have a maxed out overdraft, no prospect of earning money soon and no house, despite all that I consider myself a lucky one against some of my peers.
I personally have scaled back all expenses to a minimum and do not plan to buy anything bar food and water until COVID-19 is resolved, as have most of my peers. You know what that usually results in? A prolonged recession, which is why time limited free money is needed.
I truly sympathise with your personal predicament but (harshly perhaps) govt has to look beyond that in looking to protect the lives and welfare of the population as a whole. I do really sympathise though I understand why you might not think that to be true.
If it was just me then that'd be fine, but we're talking about a large swathe of society, up to about 10 million people who will see their jobs disappear. Those people are simultaneously the ones least helped by current measures and also those that are most likely to lose (or already lost) their job.
It makes zero economic sense to not try and prop up demand for a few months, bar for vindictive idealogical reasons. The priority needs to be to avoid a prolonged recession, how does your approach help that?
Although as one of my more left wing acquaintances has pointed out, if the Govt does decide to let it burn the ensuing chaos will be a good opportunity for some community justice. If Adam Smith and Karl Marx both hate landlords, then a good case can be made that those actions would be a social good.
The economy at its base is driven by people spending money...if 5 or 10 or 15 milion people end up unemployed and its looking to me like 5 is the low end then the economy struggles and takes longer to rebound. Measures to keep those people able to spend are needed for a good bounce back
Your top end is half the workforce!
yes it is but I hope it doesnt go that high however its depends on how far the lockdown goes and for how long.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
I don't think that a blanket converting of the loans to grants would be necessary, but rather make sure that they can only be secured against company assets, not things like houses of the owners, and the interest charged should be nominal.
And yes, I agree on the UBI, it is a necessity, bar much else I know that a very large number of students will be unable to pay their rent in two months.
Scrimping on spending now would be penny wise pound foolish. If managed well this should be a bit of a v-shaped recession, managed badly...
In an ideal world they'd find a clever way of dispensing £1000 a month for every adult for the next 3 months in such a way that it had to be spent before September (vouchers?) to avoid people hoarding it.
So what's the clever way?
I don't know, I'm also not paid nearly enough to be one of the people to find a solution.
Perhaps setting up a system where people can register for 50 £20 vouchers that expire in 3 months and can only be used upon producing an ID with a name that matches the name on the voucher. Businesses can then redeem them from the government for up to 6 months after issuing.
While there'd be plenty of loopholes (e.g. swapping the £1000 of vouchers with a local store owner to get £900 cash back), it'd broadly do the job of getting people spending again.
Regardless, we deserve better than the shockingly poor response so far. We laid off 25% of our workforce today (all secondary earners in the household). Loyal, hard working people. But if we do not do it the business will go under if this lasts for 3 months of more. We've run the maths, if we shut down the company today we'd walk away with a fairly low 7 figure sum, be able to pay off the business loan on the house and my mother would be set for a comfortable retirement. Staying open exposes us to a large amount of risk, not least the prospect of losing everything should the economy go into a significant recession and a key clients or two go bust.
You could have stopped after "I don't know". 'Nuff said.
The irony being that if you'd have said 'I don't know' rather than your misinformed bollocks we'd all think a lot more of you right now. If the Govt. takes measures that slashes demand for a short period then the only reasonable response is to try and prop up demand to avoid a small dip becoming a big recession.
Bar mass unemployment, mass evictions, mass social unrest and open generational warfare, what are the upsides of your seemingly preferred option of letting it burn?
You're very self interested. It prejudices your opinions. Sod everyone else, what about me.
Please explain how the economically optimal outcome of this is to see millions of people become unemployed and scale back spending. Put something forward.
Ironically the "sod everyone else, what about me" generation is the one most endangered by this virus.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
To be fair, to HY and the government, they simply can’t. There isn’t any where near the amount of money either in liquidity or borrowing to stop the lay offs, business collapse, spike in unemployment, especially the service sector. In fact it’s not just temporary, many of the hotels and shops will re emerge as flats. The danger the government must manage is giving the impression they can help the workers a great deal with pay or saving jobs, and tomorrow’s newspapers don’t help with that messaging, if anything that’s where the governments failing, expectation management.
Dangle the provocative picture in front of HY and Rishi as much as you like, their answer has to be there’s limits.
Yes they can. If there’s £330 billion available as loan guarantees it is available as grants. And it could be more. The government can print the money. Inflation is not an issue when you have a collapse in demand. And it gives you time to work out how to manage the economy when this is over. The rate they’re going there won’t be an economy to manage.
The government will end up paying far more in lost revenue, output, welfare etc - far more. Boldness is what is needed. What Boris fans always said he had. Where is it?
Inflation is an issue when there is a shortage of supply, perhaps try looking at the shelves at your local supermarket tomorrow.
Otherwise we will soon have £1000 loo roll
Go and learn some economics. Your comments on this are painfully ignorant and embarrassing.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
No, what they prove is you have no understanding of the fact there is a limit to how much you can commit of taxpayers money, you are just as ideological as anyone from the centre left, as shown by your constant bashing of the financial sector despite the vast smount of revenue it raises.
Even I have not ruled out a UBI if we go to full lockdown but then only for that specific period and not in a way that will clobber businesses large and small with tax and destroy any prospect of economic growth once this virus has eased.
Sweetie, when you’ve learnt some economics and had as much experience of the financial sector as I have you can come and lecture me. Until then you are simply embarrassing yourself.
The government has already provided £300 billion of loans and even if the government paid every person £1000 for 3 months I expect some hospitality businesses would still sack people knowing that would not last for ever and they would face a big rise in their costs and tax bill to pay for it.
The government is not a magician, it cannot make everybody's lives perfect at every time it just has to find the best outcome at each time for the most number. At the moment that is advising avoiding unnecessary travel and visits to restaurants and hotels etc due to the health risks and that will have costs too.
Plus no doubt once this crisis is over even Britannia Hotels will be hiring again
Whether anyone will want to actually work for them though....
That was an extraordinary statement even by HYUFD's obtuse standards.
Yes, I know stating facts has to be howled down with over emotion and abuse by the left but tough, economic reality is economic reality
Thanks for the comments fpt.
What this and the previous thread have proved beyond any reasonable doubt is that @HYUFD has absolutely zero understanding of business, finance or economics.
Unfortunately, Sunak - or his advisors - do not seem much better. Those loans need to be converted to grants PDQ. Some form of UBI needs to be put in place for individuals PDQ too. If the Treasury does not do this then Sunak is another pretty face joining the “didn’t have what it takes” club.
If the government sucks demand out of the economy for health reasons it has to put it back in if it wants to avoid an economically - and socially - catastrophic crash of the economy.
(BTW I know quite a lot about the activities of the hedge fund where the young Mr Sunak worked for a while and made his millions. If that is where he learnt about the economy I am not surprised he has been a little slow on the uptake about what is happening. You can safely assume that what I know about that fund’s activities does not reflect at all well on it.)
No, what they prove is you have no understanding of the fact there is a limit to how much you can commit of taxpayers money, you are just as ideological as anyone from the centre left, as shown by your constant bashing of the financial sector despite the vast smount of revenue it raises.
Even I have not ruled out a UBI if we go to full lockdown but then only for that specific period and not in a way that will clobber businesses large and small with tax and destroy any prospect of economic growth once this virus has eased.
Sweetie, when you’ve learnt some economics and had as much experience of the financial sector as I have you can come and lecture me. Until then you are simply embarrassing yourself.
I have an A grade at economics A level and do not need to be lectured by you thankyou on leftwing economics, you are a regulator not an economist
FPT I'm not too bothered about the pubs being open. Everyone has to make their own decisions, whether distancing, isolating, or complete lockdown. I appreciate that this means the disease will spread faster, but it is at different stages, and there are different levels of risk, all over the country. It's unlikely to be as risky in the village pub at Crinkly-Bottom-On-The-Wold as it is in a packed bar in London, where the health service is also more challenged. Just warning people rather than shutting people down allows these micro-decisions to be made, and allows differing levels of observance throughout the country. It's a pragmatic British fudge, it fully satisfies nobody but is hopefully survivable for most.
Comments
Being crowned 'World King' wasn't supposed to be like this.
Loans are the wrong answer. All they do is create indebtedness which will kill businesses. Only grants will help them. Make the grants conditional on keeping the employees on.
This is not difficult stuff. It is only made so because people are not understanding what the problem is and how it has been caused.
A large amount of the country are two months of no work away from living on the street. Those most vulnerable are those exact people that are getting no help from existing measures, and cannot work from home. We need to keep the system moving, and the only way to do that is to give money to those adults earning less than £50kish/year.
The government will end up paying far more in lost revenue, output, welfare etc - far more. Boldness is what is needed. What Boris fans always said he had. Where is it?
It’s an act of God this is happening. Well mainly. Potential for something going pandy demic has been there for years, so when it’s over inquiries will look into whether planning was taken seriously. Air travel is grounded now, maybe lfe will say that was all too slow. But the unemployment. The scaring of businesses gone for good, act of God.
Perhaps setting up a system where people can register for 50 £20 vouchers that expire in 3 months and can only be used upon producing an ID with a name that matches the name on the voucher. Businesses can then redeem them from the government for up to 6 months after issuing.
While there'd be plenty of loopholes (e.g. swapping the £1000 of vouchers with a local store owner to get £900 cash back), it'd broadly do the job of getting people spending again.
Regardless, we deserve better than the shockingly poor response so far. We laid off 25% of our workforce today (all secondary earners in the household). Loyal, hard working people. But if we do not do it the business will go under if this lasts for 3 months of more. We've run the maths, if we shut down the company today we'd walk away with a fairly low 7 figure sum, be able to pay off the business loan on the house and my mother would be set for a comfortable retirement. Staying open exposes us to a large amount of risk, not least the prospect of losing everything should the economy go into a significant recession and a key clients or two go bust.
The virus is an act of god.
The lockdown is a direct downside intervention in the market by government.
The businesses would have ridden out the virus. They have no chance against a government deliberately preventing them trading.
I personally have scaled back all expenses to a minimum and do not plan to buy anything bar food and water until COVID-19 is resolved, as have most of my peers. You know what that usually results in? A prolonged recession, which is why time limited free money is needed.
Has lobbyist in and out back door of downing street stopped during this. Or gone into hyperdrive. Those powerful in the lobby ensuring liabilities don’t fall to them. In action, wording, timing, science has taken a backseat to culture from the start.
Bar mass unemployment, mass evictions, mass social unrest and open generational warfare, what are the upsides of your seemingly preferred option of letting it burn?
https://twitter.com/MayorOfLA/status/1240801250720927745?s=20
https://twitter.com/noahshachtman/status/1240803599086731265?s=21
Even I have not ruled out a UBI if we go to full lockdown but then only for that specific period and not in a way that will clobber businesses large and small with tax and destroy any prospect of economic growth once this virus has eased.
Otherwise we will soon have £1000 loo roll
It makes zero economic sense to not try and prop up demand for a few months, bar for vindictive idealogical reasons. The priority needs to be to avoid a prolonged recession, how does your approach help that?
Although as one of my more left wing acquaintances has pointed out, if the Govt does decide to let it burn the ensuing chaos will be a good opportunity for some community justice. If Adam Smith and Karl Marx both hate landlords, then a good case can be made that those actions would be a social good.
Ironically the "sod everyone else, what about me" generation is the one most endangered by this virus.