"A preliminary calculation by a US expert suggests that tens of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution may have been avoided by the cleaner air in China, far higher than the 3,208 coronavirus deaths."
It is perfectly possible to get the rough sleepers inside - well, most of them. Hence the hostel spaces for them in winter. *Keeping* them inside is a different thing - in most cases rough sleeping is a symptom of their situation, not the core issue.
This is true. However in Finland, giving all homeless people homes has unexpectedly solved many core issues.
If it has cured drug and alcohol issues multiplied by mental health - I would be astonished.
For decades, large numbers of intelligent, caring people have tried to improve the situation for the rough sleepers. If it was as simple as giving them a home....
This isn't just a Finnish thing, it's a public policy called usually called Housing First that's increasingly being applied worldwide including within the UK. To quote wiki:
Housing First is a relatively recent innovation in human service programs and social policy regarding treatment of people who are homeless and is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions. Rather than moving homeless individuals through different "levels" of housing, whereby each level moves them closer to "independent housing" (for example: from the streets to a public shelter, and from a public shelter to a transitional housing program, and from there to their own apartment in the community), Housing First moves the homeless individual or household immediately from the streets or homeless shelters into their own accommodation.
Housing First approaches are based on the concept that a homeless individual or household's first and primary need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the household can and should be addressed once housing is obtained. In contrast, many other programs operate from a model of "housing readiness" — that is, that an individual or household must address other issues that may have led to the episode of homelessness prior to entering housing.
The problem with the more transactional "stepped" model of "you give up the booze/drugs/brawling and we'll help you move through a series of increasingly nicer temporary, supported accommodation until you are able to live independently" is the number of people who drop out along the way and return to square one. Housing policy bods at the University of York reckon that evaluations of Housing First tend to suggest it's cost-effective to the government by reducing service use, particularly (expensive!) hospital care, but that doesn't mean it fixes these people's complex needs completely. It's primarily for long-term rough sleepers - a relatively small proportion of homelessness in the UK - and needs integration with health/social care.
Shelter are in favour and argue that people with a secure home start engaging with services (eg accessing the benefits system so less incentive to commit crime, seeing a GP instead of going to hospital) and begin taking more control over their life and health.
Housing First England has some evaluations and policy reports if you're interested. If you just want to see their selection of obviously-chosen-to-pull-heartstrings-and-make-you-believe-this-might-just-work personal stories, you might find this page changes your mind (but stories of those it completely failed to work for, are mysteriously absent). Even when they're presenting their "best faces forward" a lot of these profiles are still pretty tragic, some examples who still overdo drugs and alcohol, skip psychiatric medication, even refusing to see the doctor again after getting a cancer diagnosis... but I can believe that on average they're living less disruptive lives than when they were on the streets.
I don't think anybody denies that the upfront cost of Housing First makes it a very expensive policy to pursue, the hope is the long-term reduction in costs to other budgets (especially health and the justice system) make it worthwhile.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/march/16/the-coronavirus-hoax/ ... The chief fearmonger of the Trump Administration is without a doubt Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Fauci is all over the media, serving up outright falsehoods to stir up even more panic. He testified to Congress that the death rate for the coronavirus is ten times that of the seasonal flu, a claim without any scientific basis.
On Face the Nation, Fauci did his best to further damage an already tanking economy by stating, “Right now, personally, myself, I wouldn’t go to a restaurant.” He has pushed for closing the entire country down for 14 days.
Over what? A virus that has thus far killed just over 5,000 worldwide and less than 100 in the United States? By contrast, tuberculosis, an old disease not much discussed these days, killed nearly 1.6 million people in 2017. Where’s the panic over this?...
Some of the official figures aren't credible IMO, especially those from Russia, India and Pakistan. 12 people have died in those countries according to the published statistics. Total population = 1.68 billion. (I'm not saying there's a deliberate cover-up, it may just be that the means of collecting data isn't up to the job).
Russia was iirc quite proactive in stopping flights from hotspots and requiring at first testing and later quarantine of passengers from elsewhere.
On topic: What, no, his city is about to go to shit, even if his popularity were to survive that he doesn't have time to run for president.
Sounds about right, and even if Cuomo were to gain traction on Covid-19 (and Biden and Sanders somehow disappear) President Trump could tweet an extra $500 billion and two aircraft carriers to fight the virus, and snuff out Cuomo's advantage.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
Hmmm ...
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
Trump can still win because as president, he has the power to actually do stuff, hence the recent uptick in approval ratings after various measures were announced.
Weinstein was having a bad few weeks anyway.
Boris is a twerp and he really did say he'd see his dear old mum, immediately after he'd just explained why this was a bad idea. But we all knew that anyway and I'd be surprised if any voters will care in two days' time. More concerning is the stream of announcements that seem half-cocked and not thought through but the Great British Public has more important things to worry about. A neutral rather than bad week for the PM.
Dominic Cummings has been eclipsed. For all that his UK-ARPA and Superforecasters might have been dead handy in fighting this pandemic, none of it got off the drawing board in time and the Establishment is back running the show -- the Civil Service, Chief Quack and Top Boffin. And do we believe it is Dom's SpAds devising the Chancellor's interventions, and not Treasury civil servants? Cummings is the mid-March loser.
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
Hmmm ...
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
In all likelihood stocks will bottom a long time before the economy does. My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
What a creep you are but I'd take no satisfaction whatsoever in you catching a dangerous disease.
De Blasio, in a virtual press conference Sunday, said he's trying to avoid more draconian measures aimed at curbing the virus’ spread — hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier Sunday gave the mayor 24 hours to come up with a plan to reduce the number of people gathering in public spaces....
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
Hmmm ...
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
In all likelihood stocks will bottom a long time before the economy does. My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
Agreed on both counts. The third factor is the likelihood of an inflationary spike. Normally you’d want to holding stocks, or some other asset, as that works through.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
What a creep you are .
Is that exactly necessary? I know people are cooped up (well supposedly) but there's really no need for nasty comments of that nature. It demeans you, demeans the site and is really rather hurtful.
The remarkable thing is how quickly we went from a few isolated clusters - Torbay, Kensington - to London being the nexus of the problem. Some combination of transmission into London being so much easier from its interchange with rUK and the world, and transmission within London being so much easier with its transport, social activity and crowding.
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
Hmmm ...
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
In all likelihood stocks will bottom a long time before the economy does. My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
Agreed. But I do think they have a long long way still to fall. There will be false dawns, probably through the summer, but I don't think we'll hit stock market floor until towards the end of this year, probably into next.
As you may know, I've predicted the FTSE 100 will fall below 2000 before it begins the long and possibly very slow climb.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
What a creep you are .
Is that exactly necessary? I know people are cooped up (well supposedly) but there's really no need for nasty comments of that nature. It demeans you, demeans the site and is really rather hurtful.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
What a creep you are .
Is that exactly necessary? I know people are cooped up (well supposedly) but there's really no need for nasty comments of that nature. It demeans you, demeans the site and is really rather hurtful.
Oh the irony - try looking in the mirror.
Give me a break. You don't know anything about me. I try not to be invective on here and there's simply no need for it. Go and have a cup of tea and return a nicer person.
Robert it's a shame in my opinion you don't operate a 'sin bin' i.e. yellow card. Time out for a few days, or a week, is a great way to stop that sort of quite unnecessary and hurtful post from Felix. Gosh, there's an irony in the name.
On Friday, I posted about a five-minute standoff on a bus which remained stationery while two young men yelled blood-curdling threats at each other and the remaining passengers tried to keep them apart.
It is easy for disputes to escalate because we are all on edge, and especially on the internet where nuance is hard to convey, and posts cannot be edited after a short time.
The point is, you don't have to have the last word. This will soon be yesterday's thread and tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper.
Interesting to see how this virus seems to be flushing out the bad eggs.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
What a creep you are .
Is that exactly necessary? I know people are cooped up (well supposedly) but there's really no need for nasty comments of that nature. It demeans you, demeans the site and is really rather hurtful.
Oh the irony - try looking in the mirror.
Give me a break. You don't know anything about me. I try not to be invective on here and there's simply no need for it. Go and have a cup of tea and return a nicer person.
'out-and-out shits' is your opinion of a PM who has followed expert scientific advice throughout this crisis and you lecture others on being 'nice' - give me a break.
Edit: And I notice the way you cut off the rest of my post in your spiteful attempt to justify banning free speech. Real classy.
On Friday, I posted about a five-minute standoff on a bus which remained stationery while two young men yelled blood-curdling threats at each other and the remaining passengers tried to keep them apart.
It is easy for disputes to escalate because we are all on edge, and especially on the internet where nuance is hard to convey, and posts cannot be edited after a short time.
The point is, you don't have to have the last word. This will soon be yesterday's thread and tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper.
You use PB threads as fish and chip wrapper? Sounds messy. How do you bend the screen?
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
Hmmm ...
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
In all likelihood stocks will bottom a long time before the economy does. My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
Agreed. But I do think they have a long long way still to fall. There will be false dawns, probably through the summer, but I don't think we'll hit stock market floor until towards the end of this year, probably into next.
As you may know, I've predicted the FTSE 100 will fall below 2000 before it begins the long and possibly very slow climb.
That is overegging things considerably, particularly if we do get a dose of inflation along the way.
As a Robert says, in previous crises the bottom has come while the real world is still deep in the mire, and is difficult to spot at the time.
The reason for today’s drop is the political game-playing in the US over the rescue package. There’ll be a jump when this is resolved. There’ll be a jump when it appears clear that we have turned the corner in terms of stemming the inexorable rise in cases. There’ll be a jump when they decide to relax the economic restrictions. There’ll also be a jump with any good news on a vaccine or cure. And lots of people are fishing for the bottom, having seen how quickly this century’s precious apparently world changing events passed through the markets.
Underlying all these recovery points will be the deep drag on valuations as a result of thr ultimately deflationary suspension of so much economic activity. Worst case, there isn’t any progress on a vaccine and herd immunity takes a long time to achieve. If we end up in confinement for the best part of a year then your target might become real. Governments will be bankrupt, as sustaining people’s wages through that long a period is an impossible burden.
Expect financial pressure on local authorities to become a thing rising up the agenda pretty rapidly (are they able to exploit the Govt’s “worker guarantee” if necessary?). With cuts in Govt grant in recent years and restrictions on Council tax, they have become increasingly dependent on other sources of income in recent years. And most of that, income from sports and leisure, parking, property etc etc is likely to be either rapidly drying up, or reducing as people struggle to pay and/or start asking for assistance. As well as arrears on core rents and Council tax income soaring.
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
I genuinely wonder if there will be an election, as we understand it.
If sunshine doesn’t kill the virus, or it returns for a Spanish Flu style second wave....
The election will almost certainly happen. The US constitution makes it incredibly difficult to change the date. Indeed, elections carried on throughout WII and the civil war, both of which were greater national crises. Of course it is possible (in the sense that a constitutional amendment could, in theory, be rushed through) but I think it very unlikely, for two reasons. The first is logistics. The second is pure partisan considerations - the Democrats want Trump out and they won’t want to give him a longer term of office.
Yes I agree with that. What I meant by ‘as we understand it’ was: personal voting in booths may not happen, it will all be online or postal (if the virus is still raging)
This is bleak but interesting, and accords with my corona rule of thumb, which is: imagine a reasonable worst case scenario, because that is what will happen. It’s been pretty good so far.
The US is an absolute mess as far as CV-19 response goes. The national government and the states were extremely slow to respond to the problems. The evidence is that New York is going to be worse than Italy.
And while some places (like California and New York) have shut down, they are the exception, not the rule.
Large parts of the US are still in denial about the seriousness of this. In New Hampshire, a Republican lawmaker is suing the Republican Governor over the very minor restrictions he'd put in place.
But the good news is that Europe is getting a grip on this.
And in a week or two, the US will finally get the message.
Death rates in the US will be significantly worse than Europe. The crisis will be worse because of poor public health provision and poor leadership. But the US will have the advantage of getting to watch Europe get better. They will do the right thing, once they have exhausted the alternatives.
In that scenario, with the US humiliated on the world stage with a worse outcome than either communist China or ‘socialist’ Europe, it would be remarkable (and ludicrous) for Trump to be re-elected (assuming normal process)
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
The mysteries of how the Germans almost always manage to win always winds up the British, you should know that ;]
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
Hmmm ...
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
In all likelihood stocks will bottom a long time before the economy does. My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
Agreed on both counts. The third factor is the likelihood of an inflationary spike. Normally you’d want to holding stocks, or some other asset, as that works through.
What level does the FTSE100 have to hit before they do represent value?
Robert it's a shame in my opinion you don't operate a 'sin bin' i.e. yellow card. Time out for a few days, or a week, is a great way to stop that sort of quite unnecessary and hurtful post from Felix. Gosh, there's an irony in the name.
If there was such a system you'd get one for your disgusting post the other day saying that it's a bit rich to ask young people to protect the elderly and vulnerable because Brexit.
I don't think I've read something on here that low in a long time.
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
Germany is so far off other nations that it needs special analysis.
I think the German healthcare system is good but I don't think it's *that* good, so there must be something else going on.
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
Germany is so far off other nations that it needs special analysis.
I think the German healthcare system is good but I don't think it's *that* good, so there must be something else going on.
I may be wrong but it is my understanding that the Germans only attribute coronavirus as the cause of death when there is no underlying health condition present. In other words, they see a distinction between those who die with the virus and those who die because of it.
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
The mysteries of how the Germans always manage to win always winds up the British, you should know that ;]
The odd thing is no-one (for some values of no-one) in power seems to wonder what Germany does right and we do wrong. It has won more World Cups than us, has more prosperous industries and lower crime rates.
I think a lockdown is inevitable, if only because many people appear to be infecting others without realising it.
If my understanding is correct, some 50% of the ‘not so young’ Diamond Princess passengers who tested positive were asymptomatic. It is also my understanding that children and young people are often asymptomatic. Elsewhere I read that people who do develop symptoms are asymptomatic during the preceding 24 hours, but they are shedding viruses by that point.
Everybody is avoiding the guy with a cough, but I get the impression that your are more likely to be infected by somebody who appears to be perfectly healthy.
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
The mysteries of how the Germans always manage to win always winds up the British, you should know that ;]
The odd thing is no-one (for some values of no-one) in power seems to wonder what Germany does right and we do wrong. It has won more World Cups than us, has more prosperous industries and lower crime rates.
I think a lockdown is inevitable, if only because many people appear to be infecting others without realising it.
If my understanding is correct, some 50% of the ‘not so young’ Diamond Princess passengers who tested positive were asymptomatic. It is also my understanding that children and young people are often asymptomatic. Elsewhere I read that people who do develop symptoms are asymptomatic during the preceding 24 hours, but they are shedding viruses by that point.
Everybody is avoiding the guy with a cough, but I get the impression that your are more likely to be infected by somebody who appears to be perfectly healthy.
This is a clear explanation of the maths, which along the way seems to confirm what you understand:
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
Germany is so far off other nations that it needs special analysis.
I think the German healthcare system is good but I don't think it's *that* good, so there must be something else going on.
I'm not sure if you are joking, but if not even when given examples of countries with a similar rate you still claim Germany is so far off there must be something else going on. For sure there are other factors but Germany is not exceptional and the main reason is relatively high testing.
If you understand German I highly recommend the daily podcasts by Christian Drosten on NDR
German death rate 0.38% (297 confirmed cases per million people ) Austria 0.45% (398 cpm) Norway 0.29% (440 cpm) Australia 0.43% (64 cpm) Czechia 0.09% (105 cpm) Israel 0.09% (124 cpm) Out of the the countries with over 1000 cases, from worldometers.
If I wasn't completely broke I'd make a killing investing towards the end of April.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on Modest too.
In all likelihood stocks will bottom a long time before the economy does. My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
Agreed on both counts. The third factor is the likelihood of an inflationary spike. Normally you’d want to holding stocks, or some other asset, as that works through.
What level does the FTSE100 have to hit before they do represent value?
Well that's a piece of string question, before you get on to the index itself being narrow and mostly of foreign earnings.
To even think about it you need a base medical case and an inflation case. Obviously, if we all end up locked away for a year and economic activity effectively ceases, there isn't any medium term value in existing companies.
My medical scenario would be that we turn the corner in the spring and, like the Chinese, are able to resume economic activity quicker than it might now appear. Likely there'll be a second wave and we have to go through the whole cycle again in the autumn.
My inflation case would be that in the short run there will be a spike. Supply chains and production are disrupted, and governments are dropping billions of real money into the economy.
Subject to these, the FTSE is probably close to value now, with the Dow having further to fall having been pumped up by the Trump boom.
But you'd expect markets to fall below value before returning toward it.
It's not really any mystery why the German death rate is relatively low. They've done a lot of testing. Several other countries have similar numbers - Austria, Norway, Australia etc. South Korea had a very low mortality rate when they started testing lots of people, it's now crept up to over 1% as deaths start to catch up.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
The mysteries of how the Germans always manage to win always winds up the British, you should know that ;]
The odd thing is no-one (for some values of no-one) in power seems to wonder what Germany does right and we do wrong. It has won more World Cups than us, has more prosperous industries and lower crime rates.
Sometimes it’s not quite as simple as looking at what some countries do right and some do wrong. Every country is different and often what appear to be be successful approaches in one are simply not replicable (either theoretically or practically) in another. Whether for reasons of demography, geography or, bluntly, history. The U.K. is often a prisoner of its history in many ways that other countries are not. It is not a coincidence that many of the successful countries of the modern day were the ones who’s societies were so destroyed by the wars of the 20th century. Many countries had a blank slate and a strong motivation and indeed, obligation, to pursue a new course that the U.K. never had.
We have a national infrastructure which dates back to the world wars, the Industrial revolution, the civil war, Magna Carta, even 1066. With every layer built upon another, and rarely a point to be able to start again with a blank state.
Comments
One of the hipsters, who aren't taking this seriously, literally is seen with a shoulder bag that reads 'Too many humans'.
I kid you not.
"A preliminary calculation by a US expert suggests that tens of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution may have been avoided by the cleaner air in China, far higher than the 3,208 coronavirus deaths."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/17/air-pollution-likely-to-increase-coronavirus-death-rate-warn-experts
Housing First is a relatively recent innovation in human service programs and social policy regarding treatment of people who are homeless and is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions. Rather than moving homeless individuals through different "levels" of housing, whereby each level moves them closer to "independent housing" (for example: from the streets to a public shelter, and from a public shelter to a transitional housing program, and from there to their own apartment in the community), Housing First moves the homeless individual or household immediately from the streets or homeless shelters into their own accommodation.
Housing First approaches are based on the concept that a homeless individual or household's first and primary need is to obtain stable housing, and that other issues that may affect the household can and should be addressed once housing is obtained. In contrast, many other programs operate from a model of "housing readiness" — that is, that an individual or household must address other issues that may have led to the episode of homelessness prior to entering housing.
Shelter are in favour and argue that people with a secure home start engaging with services (eg accessing the benefits system so less incentive to commit crime, seeing a GP instead of going to hospital) and begin taking more control over their life and health.
Housing First England has some evaluations and policy reports if you're interested. If you just want to see their selection of obviously-chosen-to-pull-heartstrings-and-make-you-believe-this-might-just-work personal stories, you might find this page changes your mind (but stories of those it completely failed to work for, are mysteriously absent). Even when they're presenting their "best faces forward" a lot of these profiles are still pretty tragic, some examples who still overdo drugs and alcohol, skip psychiatric medication, even refusing to see the doctor again after getting a cancer diagnosis... but I can believe that on average they're living less disruptive lives than when they were on the streets.
I don't think anybody denies that the upfront cost of Housing First makes it a very expensive policy to pursue, the hope is the long-term reduction in costs to other budgets (especially health and the justice system) make it worthwhile.
FTSE close last Friday 5,190.
Massive fall coming when opens this morning.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/march/16/the-coronavirus-hoax/
... The chief fearmonger of the Trump Administration is without a doubt Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Fauci is all over the media, serving up outright falsehoods to stir up even more panic. He testified to Congress that the death rate for the coronavirus is ten times that of the seasonal flu, a claim without any scientific basis.
On Face the Nation, Fauci did his best to further damage an already tanking economy by stating, “Right now, personally, myself, I wouldn’t go to a restaurant.” He has pushed for closing the entire country down for 14 days.
Over what? A virus that has thus far killed just over 5,000 worldwide and less than 100 in the United States? By contrast, tuberculosis, an old disease not much discussed these days, killed nearly 1.6 million people in 2017. Where’s the panic over this?...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/disease-x-dummy-run-world-health-experts-prepare-deadly-pandemic/
"Coronaviruses: The Next Disease X? Nov 5, 2019"
https://thenativeantigencompany.com/coronaviruses-the-next-disease-x/
And Boris, Rishi and Dom perhaps also that Churchill was a House of Commons man who did not prefer to make announcements in press conferences instead.
Dominic Cummings has been exposed as a Psychopath: no need for the 'career' adjective - just psychopath.
Donald Trump has been stripped naked. Not a pleasant sight.
Boris Johnson is the bumbling idiot we all thought and as far from the real Winston Churchill as the insurance firm.
Even Harvey Weinstein has caught it.
Unfortunately thousands of innocent, often lovely, people have also contracted it and many more will do so. But if I die from this I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some out-and-out shits have been exposed.
Jeremy Hunt. Obvs. The standout statesman so far. It's now clear that he would have been a brilliant PM in this crisis.
Rishi Sunak. Not too bad but likely to go down with the ship if he's not careful.
Er, that's it. Anyone else?
The key to making a killing is to pick the bottom or near the bottom and so far every single prediction on pb.com about the imminence of that has proved bollocks.
Any End of April pick up will not be rooted in economic reality. As the OECD have just said, the impact of this will be felt for years to come. We're not anywhere near stemming the tide in the west and if we see an improvement in the Far East it's because they are way more stringent. The US and UK are going to cop it badly for weeks and months to come.
So I would hold onto your pennies if I were you until a vaccine is in sight. Don't get onto the stock market this side of November and probably not until end of April 2021.
Brought to you by the person who has been spot-on
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52000219
Weinstein was having a bad few weeks anyway.
Boris is a twerp and he really did say he'd see his dear old mum, immediately after he'd just explained why this was a bad idea. But we all knew that anyway and I'd be surprised if any voters will care in two days' time. More concerning is the stream of announcements that seem half-cocked and not thought through but the Great British Public has more important things to worry about. A neutral rather than bad week for the PM.
Dominic Cummings has been eclipsed. For all that his UK-ARPA and Superforecasters might have been dead handy in fighting this pandemic, none of it got off the drawing board in time and the Establishment is back running the show -- the Civil Service, Chief Quack and Top Boffin. And do we believe it is Dom's SpAds devising the Chancellor's interventions, and not Treasury civil servants? Cummings is the mid-March loser.
My issue is that - using traditional valuation metrics - they weren't cheap before, and they're not particularly cheap now.
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2020/03/22/de-blasio-stops-short-of-imposing-california-like-restrictions-on-new-yorkers-1268665
NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has lagged other state and local leaders in imposing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, is calling on New Yorkers to make the right decisions about social distancing.
De Blasio, in a virtual press conference Sunday, said he's trying to avoid more draconian measures aimed at curbing the virus’ spread — hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier Sunday gave the mayor 24 hours to come up with a plan to reduce the number of people gathering in public spaces....
As you may know, I've predicted the FTSE 100 will fall below 2000 before it begins the long and possibly very slow climb.
It is easy for disputes to escalate because we are all on edge, and especially on the internet where nuance is hard to convey, and posts cannot be edited after a short time.
The point is, you don't have to have the last word. This will soon be yesterday's thread and tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper.
Edit: And I notice the way you cut off the rest of my post in your spiteful attempt to justify banning free speech. Real classy.
As a Robert says, in previous crises the bottom has come while the real world is still deep in the mire, and is difficult to spot at the time.
The reason for today’s drop is the political game-playing in the US over the rescue package. There’ll be a jump when this is resolved. There’ll be a jump when it appears clear that we have turned the corner in terms of stemming the inexorable rise in cases. There’ll be a jump when they decide to relax the economic restrictions. There’ll also be a jump with any good news on a vaccine or cure. And lots of people are fishing for the bottom, having seen how quickly this century’s precious apparently world changing events passed through the markets.
Underlying all these recovery points will be the deep drag on valuations as a result of thr ultimately deflationary suspension of so much economic activity. Worst case, there isn’t any progress on a vaccine and herd immunity takes a long time to achieve. If we end up in confinement for the best part of a year then your target might become real. Governments will be bankrupt, as sustaining people’s wages through that long a period is an impossible burden.
Conversely, the US death rate started high, but has come down to 1.3% as they have started to test a lot more.
I'm a bit surprised at the claims of German "cheating" here and in real life, which seem to be based on absolutely nothing except total ignorance of the German health system and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the Germans might have tested a higher proportion of infected people than the British have. It seems to be a specifically anti German prejudice, the same things are not said about Norway or Australia.
Mr. B2, *always*?
I don't think I've read something on here that low in a long time.
I think the German healthcare system is good but I don't think it's *that* good, so there must be something else going on.
Clinton will be at silly odds until the end - Pulpstar is right.
Unfortunately I need the cash so have (annoyingly) had to wave £180 in profit goodbye and pulled my reds on her.
The German rate will probably end up lower because they're stricter in their definition of what is a CV death, so their numerator will be lower.
Doing tests does not cure the disease. It's informative, as will be the antibody test when it's available.
If my understanding is correct, some 50% of the ‘not so young’ Diamond Princess passengers who tested positive were asymptomatic. It is also my understanding that children and young people are often asymptomatic. Elsewhere I read that people who do develop symptoms are asymptomatic during the preceding 24 hours, but they are shedding viruses by that point.
Everybody is avoiding the guy with a cough, but I get the impression that your are more likely to be infected by somebody who appears to be perfectly healthy.
https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1241859943017349126?s=21
If you understand German I highly recommend the daily podcasts by Christian Drosten on NDR
German death rate 0.38% (297 confirmed cases per million people )
Austria 0.45% (398 cpm)
Norway 0.29% (440 cpm)
Australia 0.43% (64 cpm)
Czechia 0.09% (105 cpm)
Israel 0.09% (124 cpm)
Out of the the countries with over 1000 cases, from worldometers.
To even think about it you need a base medical case and an inflation case. Obviously, if we all end up locked away for a year and economic activity effectively ceases, there isn't any medium term value in existing companies.
My medical scenario would be that we turn the corner in the spring and, like the Chinese, are able to resume economic activity quicker than it might now appear. Likely there'll be a second wave and we have to go through the whole cycle again in the autumn.
My inflation case would be that in the short run there will be a spike. Supply chains and production are disrupted, and governments are dropping billions of real money into the economy.
Subject to these, the FTSE is probably close to value now, with the Dow having further to fall having been pumped up by the Trump boom.
But you'd expect markets to fall below value before returning toward it.
locked down because of breaches of the rules by a minority.
We have a national infrastructure which dates back to the world wars, the Industrial revolution, the civil war, Magna Carta, even 1066. With every layer built upon another, and rarely a point to be able to start again with a blank state.