It was supposed to allow the "independent scientific committee" to be composed entirely of independent scientists.
They screwed up the moment they deviated from that.
You are really expecting us to believe these scientists were swayed by the attendence of Cummings, thereby insulting each and every one of them while your real reason for your comments is your pathological hatred of Cummings over brexit
It's not in Cummings DNA to quietly at the back and listen to others. He wouldn't have been there if that is all there was to it, he could have simply read the minutes. You trust that his presence was benign, but I doubt he bothered to go to those meetings without some sort of agenda.. As we saw with the way he ousted the last Chancellor he can achieve the ends he wants by various means.
In all this, there is has been remarkably little commentary on how much has and is being taken on by the MOD & military. Plenty of news reports saying the military is helping but remarkably little from the commentariat or indeed recognition from the public.
So far they seem to be able to get things done as good and swiftly as anybody, if not better.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Top 8%ile for national income pre-tax, at least a couple years ago, maybe top 10%ile now. Dunno how it's taxed compared to regular income though?
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Quite obviously so in objective terms, but people do tend to live up to their income, and find reductions quite a squeeze. We see this sort of squealing whenever tax rises are mooted.
Indeed. He has sought my financial advice, and I have pointed out to him that whilst his direct Gross Pension Income might be modest at circa £27,000 pa, he also has capital in Stocks & Shares ISA etc amounting to circa £400,000 which currently could be invested in Investment Trusts yielding 5.5% to generate a further £22,000 net. Grossed up that takes him to circa £60,000pa
If Coronavirus is a permanent thing, then we should just accept it's an occupational hazard. We should not shut down our social system over it.
It might not be the only permanent thing either. We might have to deal with antibiotic resistant bacteria in the not so distant future, or other similar viruses.
I walked around the churchyard today. It's striking how many of the older graves were of all ages, young people and children.
Until very recently (the last 80 years or so) we lived with far higher levels of infant mortality and disease than anyone would tolerate today.
Of course, through much of the world now, death from childbirth, dysentery, TB, Malaria, HIV and a myriad of other infections is the order of the day and always has been. Yet Nigeria, Ghana, Indonesia, Pakistan, India carry on.
Yes, it may be that c.1940 to c.2020 will, in hindsight, be seen as a uniquely clean and benign period of human history when we were unthreatened by bacteria and serious viruses.
The good news is the fact we've cracked the human genome, DNA sequencing and are developing sophisticated AI - so it may be that future defences are based more on engineering and technology than biological antidotes and vaccines.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
Voting will largely stay the same - at worst, with an in person vote, its no different to going to the supermarket and needs to be done very infrequently.
Yes, the idea there is some need for a mass change is ridiculous, particularly with the other concerns that exist.
My day job is to predict future problems before they happen, ideally to eliminate them or minimise them before they happen.
From the day job we've highlighted future electoral events and their delivery as huge risk to the system.
I'm just glad the French Presidential election is in 2022.
America on the other hand, my biggest fear is the 79 days from election day to inauguration. Were Trump to lose he might cause havoc.
I wrote the same thing about Trump causing havoc and possibly refusing to leave on here a few days ago and got shot down.
He will leave office on the 20th January 2021 if he loses the election no matter what he tries, but it those 79 days between losing the election and the new President being inaugurated is where Trump could cause havoc, especially one so fond of ruling by executive order.
He might decide to bomb Iran or invade Saudi Arabia.
Won't the current set of self-interested Trump enablers drop him like a Covid soaked snot rag? I realise that doesn't eradicate all chance of chaos, but surely it should provide some limits?
In all this, there is has been remarkably little commentary on how much has and is being taken on by the MOD & military. Plenty of news reports saying the military is helping but remarkably little from the commentariat or indeed recognition from the public.
So far they seem to be able to get things done as good and swiftly as anybody, if not better.
One thing that has me very worried is companies who need cash all over Europe may end up being bought in part of fully by Chinese state entities. The government needs to pass emergency legislation to halt any encroachment of China into the economy while companies deal with all of the fallout. We mustn't let China gain an even bigger share of our economic output in this manner.
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Quite obviously so in objective terms, but people do tend to live up to their income, and find reductions quite a squeeze. We see this sort of squealing whenever tax rises are mooted.
Indeed. He has sought my financial advice, and I have pointed out to him that whilst his direct Gross Pension Income might be modest at circa £27,000 pa, he also has capital in Stocks & Shares ISA etc amounting to circa £400,000 which currently could be invested in Investment Trusts yielding 5.5% to generate a further £22,000 net. Grossed up that takes him to circa £60,000pa
What's the logic in grossing up his 'Gross Pension Income' - won't he pay tax on that and on the investment trust yield?
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
If the SNP government ended the lockdown earlier in Scotland than in England your head might explode. They shouldn't take that as a major factor in their reasoning but should definitely take it into consideration.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
South Koreans are fiercely nationalist and don't suffer from people who are embarrassed to be from their country and constantly talk it down or wish it ill. That's very different from here where a huge chunk of the liberal left want to be anything but British and live anywhere but Britain and take any opportunity to talk it down.
Voting will largely stay the same - at worst, with an in person vote, its no different to going to the supermarket and needs to be done very infrequently.
Yes, the idea there is some need for a mass change is ridiculous, particularly with the other concerns that exist.
My day job is to predict future problems before they happen, ideally to eliminate them or minimise them before they happen.
From the day job we've highlighted future electoral events and their delivery as huge risk to the system.
I'm just glad the French Presidential election is in 2022.
America on the other hand, my biggest fear is the 79 days from election day to inauguration. Were Trump to lose he might cause havoc.
I wrote the same thing about Trump causing havoc and possibly refusing to leave on here a few days ago and got shot down.
I certainly think we are going to see unprecedented voter suppression and dodgy electoral practices from the Republicans in this year's elections. Simply the way that states designate far fewer polling stations in poor areas and big cities would be a scandal in most democracies. By many criteria the USA is really sliding into being a quasi-democracy.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
Re "– but [testing] rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Quite obviously so in objective terms, but people do tend to live up to their income, and find reductions quite a squeeze. We see this sort of squealing whenever tax rises are mooted.
Indeed. He has sought my financial advice, and I have pointed out to him that whilst his direct Gross Pension Income might be modest at circa £27,000 pa, he also has capital in Stocks & Shares ISA etc amounting to circa £400,000 which currently could be invested in Investment Trusts yielding 5.5% to generate a further £22,000 net. Grossed up that takes him to circa £60,000pa
What's the logic in grossing up his 'Gross Pension Income' - won't he pay tax on that and on the investment trust yield?
If he keeps it in his ISA envelope then it is tax free. It isn't obvious though why switching to an investment Trust would produce more income than his existing equities.
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Quite obviously so in objective terms, but people do tend to live up to their income, and find reductions quite a squeeze. We see this sort of squealing whenever tax rises are mooted.
Indeed. He has sought my financial advice, and I have pointed out to him that whilst his direct Gross Pension Income might be modest at circa £27,000 pa, he also has capital in Stocks & Shares ISA etc amounting to circa £400,000 which currently could be invested in Investment Trusts yielding 5.5% to generate a further £22,000 net. Grossed up that takes him to circa £60,000pa
What's the logic in grossing up his 'Gross Pension Income' - won't he pay tax on that and on the investment trust yield?
If he keeps it in his ISA envelope then it is tax free. It isn't obvious though why switching to an investment Trust would produce more income than his existing equities.
Good point - missed the mention of it being a stocks and shares ISA. He's still going to pay income tax (but not NI) on that pension though.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
South Koreans are fiercely nationalist and don't suffer from people who are embarrassed to be from their country and constantly talk it down or wish it ill. That's very different from here where a huge chunk of the liberal left want to be anything but British and live anywhere but Britain and take any opportunity to talk it down.
We had a guest article from one of our regulars that exemplified that this morning.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
Re "– but [testing] rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
Loads of privately owned labs geographically distributed well vs few state owned ones in just a few locations.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
That's the argument between the Chinese old guard - "We lost x hundred thousand dead and got N. Korea as the prize"
vs
the young guard - "N. Korea is a pain in the arse. A re-unified Korea couldn't challenge us now, and would be our Canada."
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
Re "– but [testing] rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
Loads of privately owned labs geographically distributed well vs few state owned ones in just a few locations.
Also the way that the German health system is de-centralised. There was no way for a Man in Berlin to tell the doctors *not* too use the labs in question.
If the SNP government ended the lockdown earlier in Scotland than in England your head might explode. They shouldn't take that as a major factor in their reasoning but should definitely take it into consideration.
The SNP haven’t the funds to keep the furlough schemes running for longer.
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Quite obviously so in objective terms, but people do tend to live up to their income, and find reductions quite a squeeze. We see this sort of squealing whenever tax rises are mooted.
Indeed. He has sought my financial advice, and I have pointed out to him that whilst his direct Gross Pension Income might be modest at circa £27,000 pa, he also has capital in Stocks & Shares ISA etc amounting to circa £400,000 which currently could be invested in Investment Trusts yielding 5.5% to generate a further £22,000 net. Grossed up that takes him to circa £60,000pa
What's the logic in grossing up his 'Gross Pension Income' - won't he pay tax on that and on the investment trust yield?
He pays tax on his direct Pension Income - ie on £27,000pa , but not on Dividend Income received via ISAs. Thus ,£22,000 Net Dividends is the equivalent of circa £32,000 received when Grossed Up for Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions. I am suggesting to him that his Net Income is comparable to what might be received by someone earning £60,000pa. On reflection, I may have understated that a bit because such a person would also likely be paying 5% or 6% into a Pension Scheme.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
Re "– but [testing] rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
Loads of privately owned labs geographically distributed well vs few state owned ones in just a few locations.
Also the way that the German health system is de-centralised. There was no way for a Man in Berlin to tell the doctors *not* too use the labs in question.
But a decentralised heath system brings with it lots of other problems. Just lokk at how the US is doing.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Voting will largely stay the same - at worst, with an in person vote, its no different to going to the supermarket and needs to be done very infrequently.
Yes, the idea there is some need for a mass change is ridiculous, particularly with the other concerns that exist.
My day job is to predict future problems before they happen, ideally to eliminate them or minimise them before they happen.
From the day job we've highlighted future electoral events and their delivery as huge risk to the system.
I'm just glad the French Presidential election is in 2022.
America on the other hand, my biggest fear is the 79 days from election day to inauguration. Were Trump to lose he might cause havoc.
I wrote the same thing about Trump causing havoc and possibly refusing to leave on here a few days ago and got shot down.
He will leave office on the 20th January 2021 if he loses the election no matter what he tries, but it those 79 days between losing the election and the new President being inaugurated is where Trump could cause havoc, especially one so fond of ruling by executive order.
He might decide to bomb Iran or invade Saudi Arabia.
He legally leaves office on 20th at noon. But will he leave without bloodshed?
It's not as though America is short on right-wing loonies for him to stir up into doing stupid things.
I have had a lively discussion this evening with a guy about to receive his State Pension. It has emerged that after taking account of all sources of Income - dividends and Occupational Pensions etc - that he will now receive the gross equivalent of circa £60,000pa. I am telling him that he is pretty 'comfortably off' - but he disagrees. Any opinions?
Quite obviously so in objective terms, but people do tend to live up to their income, and find reductions quite a squeeze. We see this sort of squealing whenever tax rises are mooted.
Indeed. He has sought my financial advice, and I have pointed out to him that whilst his direct Gross Pension Income might be modest at circa £27,000 pa, he also has capital in Stocks & Shares ISA etc amounting to circa £400,000 which currently could be invested in Investment Trusts yielding 5.5% to generate a further £22,000 net. Grossed up that takes him to circa £60,000pa
What's the logic in grossing up his 'Gross Pension Income' - won't he pay tax on that and on the investment trust yield?
If he keeps it in his ISA envelope then it is tax free. It isn't obvious though why switching to an investment Trust would produce more income than his existing equities.
I see that point - but have suggested that some Trusts - such as City of London Investment Trust - are likely to be safe and consistently offer a good yield.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Well actually we should because like a huge proportion of the West we have outsourced a huge amount of manufacturing to a country that wants to be a global superpower and is a 100% dictatorship.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
Re "– but [testing] rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
Loads of privately owned labs geographically distributed well vs few state owned ones in just a few locations.
Redundancy and duplication are a feature of private health care systems, particularly in diagnostics and operating theatres. Diagnostics and surgery are where the money is made.
I think there is no problem with that , different regions have different situations, just as London is different from say Cumbria or somewhere else.
Cumbria may not be the best point of contrast. It is quite a Covid hotspot. It isn't obvious why, being rural and not commuter land.
Cumbria has a number of large towns: Barrow, Carlisle - which had the earliest cases (from people who had been to Italy on holiday), Kendal and Penrith. Also Workington, Whitehaven and Keswick.
And plenty of people commute to Barrow and Sellafield from places roundabout. So the rural picture is not quite the complete picture.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
I also liked:
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody? A: I’m not sure.
Re "– but [testing] rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
Loads of privately owned labs geographically distributed well vs few state owned ones in just a few locations.
Also the way that the German health system is de-centralised. There was no way for a Man in Berlin to tell the doctors *not* too use the labs in question.
Which may explain Christian Drosten's other point: "that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany."
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Well actually we should because like a huge proportion of the West we have outsourced a huge amount of manufacturing to a country that wants to be a global superpower and is a 100% dictatorship.
It is not a good combination.
Yes, and we rely on that Chinese export surplus not just materially, but also to buy up all our debt.
We could reshore manufacturing, and learn to live within our means financially, but that would involve austerity far more extreme than the last decade.
We are at the stage of the Opium Wars in reverse. Not a comfortable position.
It was supposed to allow the "independent scientific committee" to be composed entirely of independent scientists.
They screwed up the moment they deviated from that.
You are really expecting us to believe these scientists were swayed by the attendence of Cummings, thereby insulting each and every one of them while your real reason for your comments is your pathological hatred of Cummings over brexit
It is possible Cummings had no effect on the discussion but did give summary reports to ministers or the prime minister. It is possible that Cummings did steer the discussion in one direction or another. It is also possible Cummings did not say anything but his mere presence altered the nature of the discussion by causing scientists to dumb it down for lay persons. We just don't know.
Questions to answer.
@Cyclefree has a good aphorism about people who can't or won't explain things in laymens' terms. I can't remember how it went, but it was along the lines of 'if you can't explain something to a layman, you either don't understand it yourself or you don' t want them to. I seriously doubt Cummings made the discussion any 'dumber' than it ought to have been.
I think there is no problem with that , different regions have different situations, just as London is different from say Cumbria or somewhere else.
Cumbria may not be the best point of contrast. It is quite a Covid hotspot. It isn't obvious why, being rural and not commuter land.
Cumbria has a number of large towns: Barrow, Carlisle - which had the earliest cases (from people who had been to Italy on holiday), Kendal and Penrith. Also Workington, Whitehaven and Keswick.
And plenty of people commute to Barrow and Sellafield from places roundabout. So the rural picture is not quite the complete picture.
The patching of the epidemic is quite striking. Sunderland has it bad, so does Darlington, but Harlepool gets off lightly. Leicester has half the rate of Derby, a quarter that of Brum etc.
I think commuting by car is low risk, it is rail and bus that is high risk. The casualty rate in London Transport shows that. How that works post lockdown is going to be a real problem.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Well actually we should because like a huge proportion of the West we have outsourced a huge amount of manufacturing to a country that wants to be a global superpower and is a 100% dictatorship.
It is not a good combination.
Yes, and we rely on that Chinese export surplus not just materially, but also to buy up all our debt.
We could reshore manufacturing, and learn to live within our means financially, but that would involve austerity far more extreme than the last decade.
We are at the stage of the Opium Wars in reverse. Not a comfortable position.
The belief that only China can manufacture cheaply is simply wrong. It is perfectly possible to manufacture in the West and compete.
China and India have both "used up" the surplus skilled workforce. Their domestic economies are expanding faster than the trained labour pool. Hence wages rocketing.
So, UK anchoring. It just requires a few things.
- Actually allowing factories. Saying we love manufacturing, but don't put that horrid factory near me is horse manure. - Effective management. Which includes engaging with the workforce sensibly. - A tax system that doesn't actually penalise onshore activity. Believe it or not we have tariffs working *against* on-shoring in this country. - A finance system that believes it is possible. Rather than off-shore-everything-now as a default.
International comparisons like that are fraught by methodological differences, as outlined in this thread. It all depends on how you count covid victims.
For those in denial this is what China is up to at the moment:
Is that an increase in activity? That looks fairly standard activity for China.
Those pesky imperialists - oh wait - that can only be Western Democracies
China has been up to no good with low level clashes all over the South China Sea for years now. This article is trying to paint it as a new thing that the coronavirus has let them do. To me it reads as not even close to the most antagonistic things they have done in the recent past.
So they are saying SAGE is unable to do its job, even though it already has to provide advice to the most powerful people in the land?
I maintain this is not about Cummings at all, but about undermining any government defence based on scientific advice it received by saying it cannot be trusted. But where does that leave us? What was the government now supposed to have done - it would be pilloried for not following advice, and it will be pilloried for following advice because the advisers bowed before almighty Cummings?
Cummings is news. You do not need a conspiracy theory to explain why Cummings is news. You might need one to explain why Cummings was there in the first place.
It's not a conspiracy theory. Cummings is a bogeyman because he's a powerful arsehole, so it makes any story juicier, but what is the effect of the story? As seen, it is to claim that the government cannot claim it followed advice, because that advice was undermined in some fashion. That purpose would have occurred without Cummings, he just makes for a convenient hook to the story.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Well actually we should because like a huge proportion of the West we have outsourced a huge amount of manufacturing to a country that wants to be a global superpower and is a 100% dictatorship.
It is not a good combination.
Yes, and we rely on that Chinese export surplus not just materially, but also to buy up all our debt.
We could reshore manufacturing, and learn to live within our means financially, but that would involve austerity far more extreme than the last decade.
We are at the stage of the Opium Wars in reverse. Not a comfortable position.
The belief that only China can manufacture cheaply is simply wrong. It is perfectly possible to manufacture in the West and compete.
China and India have both "used up" the surplus skilled workforce. Their domestic economies are expanding faster than the trained labour pool. Hence wages rocketing.
So, UK anchoring. It just requires a few things.
- Actually allowing factories. Saying we love manufacturing, but don't put that horrid factory near me is horse manure. - Effective management. Which includes engaging with the workforce sensibly. - A tax system that doesn't actually penalise onshore activity. Believe it or not we have tariffs working *against* on-shoring in this country. - A finance system that believes it is possible. Rather than off-shore-everything-now as a default.
Of course European economies can manufacture profitably and with high wages and skills, there are multiple examples of that, plus of course other high wage manufacturing countries like Korea and Japan.
Over the last 40 years we have decided against that though, and rebalancing against services and finance is not a short hop.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Well actually we should because like a huge proportion of the West we have outsourced a huge amount of manufacturing to a country that wants to be a global superpower and is a 100% dictatorship.
It is not a good combination.
Yes, and we rely on that Chinese export surplus not just materially, but also to buy up all our debt.
We could reshore manufacturing, and learn to live within our means financially, but that would involve austerity far more extreme than the last decade.
We are at the stage of the Opium Wars in reverse. Not a comfortable position.
I think nearshoring will increase plus moving out of China to other countries who already have bases in manufacturing such as India & Vietnam.
Yes it may bring a hit but as well as the deep mistrust (justified I suspect) over the Chinese government's honesty over Sars Cov 2 which may change/harden opinion, the concentration of the Western world's collective eggs in the Chinese basket is just plain stupid, diversification is essential. We cant just have everything quite as cheap, tough on us.
China has sizeable domestic demand so you aren't bringing it back to the stone age but it needs reined in and the only way is by striking its economy. It may be a 20 year plan to push more of the supply chain out of China but the West needs to get its act together and do it rather than turning a blind eye.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
The coordination issue is an interesting one - this Spiegel piece from the start of April suggests Germany rapidly ramped up the capacity for testing but the system was very chaotic, one of the reasons for the rather vague "half a millon tests per week" figure that the British media was banding around so much was that actually nobody knew how many tests were even being done (and some German sources estimated may actually have been well below half that figure!).
Suspect this is one of those things where there are classic pros and cons of a more centralised vs a more decentralised system.
Incidentally the Spiegel piece mentions issues that Germany was encountering while testing a similar kind of volume to what Britain is now ramping up to, which I think are going to become very relevant here too. Now we have capacity to test much more than just those people with an obvious and urgent clinical need, who should we aim to include? As is discussed there, it's still too low a figure to just test willy-nilly anybody who wants it. So you don't want to be wasting tests on the "worried well" which is an issue Germany hit. It seems "obvious" we should test medical and care staff, but in what circumstances?
Random testing or mass screening to try picking out the asymptomatic but potentially (so much we still don't know about the virus!) contagious? Probably not a goer at current capacity because of how many people you'd need to keep pushing through the system in order to test them reasonably frequently (bearing in mind there's a decent chance of them getting infected at work).
Someone who has symptoms and wants to check if it's COVID or not? Well in this context the rate of false negatives ought to be a worry - might be better for a potentially infected doctor or nurse or carer to stay at home due to symptoms, rather than get the false reassurance of a negative test and then go to work!
Someone who has no symptoms but lives with eg a family member who does seem infected? Again the risk of false negatives is there, but also we need to consider the problem of "what if they are negative now but contract the disease in the next few days"?
There are some tricky issues to tease out yet and having the expanded capacity, but still not at the level where every key worker can have a regular test, actually raises a lot more questions.
Q: From where you stand, how is the UK handling the situation? A: It’s clear that testing was implemented a little bit too late in the UK. Public Health England was in a position to diagnose the disease very early on – we worked with them to make the diagnostic test – but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK. Now, though, I have the impression that the UK is really gaining momentum in this regard, and that it is coordinating testing efforts better than Germany.
Q: What keeps you awake at night? A: In Germany, people see that the hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they don’t understand why their shops have to shut. They only look at what’s happening here, not at the situation in, say, New York or Spain. This is the prevention paradox, and for many Germans I’m the evil guy who is crippling the economy. I get death threats, which I pass on to the police. More worrying to me are the other emails, the ones from people who say they have three kids and they’re worried about the future. It’s not my fault, but those ones keep me awake at night..
"– but rollout in Germany was driven in part by market forces, which made it fast, and that wasn’t the case in the UK."
Touche.
It is a great article but I most liked that bit.
It's a debate that will go precisely nowhere as the NHS is venerated greater than the Sun God here.
Well in fairness, some good weeks of weather recently notwithstanding, the NHS is a more permanent impactful presence for us than Ra or Amaterasu.
Why has Belgium suffered so badly in this coronavirus pandemic? It's 612 deaths per million is the highest in the world bar San Marino.
The usual factors of NW Europe (high-density living, transport networks, elderly population), but on top of that it really got into the care homes something awful.
On the latter point, they're also being particularly diligent about recording anything that looks like a covid death - not just the care homes, but suspected home deaths also.
So if Kim is dead then it looks like North Korea's answer to Priti Patel takes over.
One of the best arguments against wishing or indeed, performing ill on exceptionally horrible dictators is that their sudden demise almost always causes at least as many problems as it solves.
In this particular case, you wonder if Xi is weighing up the pros and cons of invasion and annexation should Kim have actually snuffed it.
It wouldn’t be a good outcome, but if it could be done quickly and unexpectedly it would probably be a better outcome than the alternatives.
I cannot see it myself. Koreans are not going to accept foreign domination again. Perhaps some sort of Chinese puppet state might be temporarily viable.
Ultimately though China gets on well with South Korea, and sees in the long term runification under Seoul as the solution. They may well facilitate that in exchange for closing US bases.
They'll facilitate it in exchange for the newly reunified Korea being a client state of China, with a pliant and only pseudo-democratic Government *and* no US bases.
South Korea now has a vigorous democracy, but US bases would be obselete if North Korea was no longer a threat. China is South Korea's biggest trading partner, and there is little animosity between the countries now. Plenty of historical animosity for both with Japan though!
China doesn't want strong independent democracies on its doorstep. It wants pliant client states who support or do its bidding.
It's interesting you don't draw any link between the strong Western presence and the vigour of the democracy.
Not Western, just USA. I dont think we have had troops there since the early fifties.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
No, that's casual dismissal of what's going on with a wave of the hand.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
I am not denying that China is a rising power, and that may at times be uncomfortable for its neighbours.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
Well actually we should because like a huge proportion of the West we have outsourced a huge amount of manufacturing to a country that wants to be a global superpower and is a 100% dictatorship.
It is not a good combination.
Yes, and we rely on that Chinese export surplus not just materially, but also to buy up all our debt.
We could reshore manufacturing, and learn to live within our means financially, but that would involve austerity far more extreme than the last decade.
We are at the stage of the Opium Wars in reverse. Not a comfortable position.
The belief that only China can manufacture cheaply is simply wrong. It is perfectly possible to manufacture in the West and compete.
China and India have both "used up" the surplus skilled workforce. Their domestic economies are expanding faster than the trained labour pool. Hence wages rocketing.
So, UK anchoring. It just requires a few things.
- Actually allowing factories. Saying we love manufacturing, but don't put that horrid factory near me is horse manure. - Effective management. Which includes engaging with the workforce sensibly. - A tax system that doesn't actually penalise onshore activity. Believe it or not we have tariffs working *against* on-shoring in this country. - A finance system that believes it is possible. Rather than off-shore-everything-now as a default.
Of course European economies can manufacture profitably and with high wages and skills, there are multiple examples of that, plus of course other high wage manufacturing countries like Korea and Japan.
Over the last 40 years we have decided against that though, and rebalancing against services and finance is not a short hop.
It's actually perfectly possible. Simply allowing a few more factories to be built in this country isn't a "rebalancing" as some kind of over-turning of the way things are done.
But a religious belief has set it that it can't - at every level in finance, local and national government.
I think there is no problem with that , different regions have different situations, just as London is different from say Cumbria or somewhere else.
Cumbria may not be the best point of contrast. It is quite a Covid hotspot. It isn't obvious why, being rural and not commuter land.
Cumbria has a number of large towns: Barrow, Carlisle - which had the earliest cases (from people who had been to Italy on holiday), Kendal and Penrith. Also Workington, Whitehaven and Keswick.
And plenty of people commute to Barrow and Sellafield from places roundabout. So the rural picture is not quite the complete picture.
The patching of the epidemic is quite striking. Sunderland has it bad, so does Darlington, but Harlepool gets off lightly. Leicester has half the rate of Derby, a quarter that of Brum etc.
I think commuting by car is low risk, it is rail and bus that is high risk. The casualty rate in London Transport shows that. How that works post lockdown is going to be a real problem.
Indeed. If the tube is allowed to operate, why keep restaurants, pubs and cafes closed? Few of the latter are as crowded as the tube - or most commuter trains and buses - most days.
A slightly alarming report from the Paediatric Intensive Care group. It may not be as benign in children as thought, just that it presents differently.
Not really that great.....tens of thousands of people are dying...it is kind of emotional....
Of course it is, but while I cannot see past the paywall, there is at least a case that public broadcasting and some other spheres could strike a distant, or stoic approach. I'm on the fence - I've not watched that much news and it is draining, but I haven't felt there was an excess of emotion, but I can see that there are limits to broadcasting and politics if there was constant pouring emotion, not that I'd expect newsreaders to be breaking down in tears or anything.
So I haven't noticed it be a particular problem, but I could see where it might be.
The answer to the goalkeeper question is Pat Jennings.
If you don’t want any other Arsenal or Tottenham players, or George Best in the XI
Personally I’d rather Hoddle, Bergkamp and Southall
Peter Schmeichel to fly the goalkeeping flag for Denmark and Manchester United, thus ruling out Denis Law who is surely one of the greatest Scottish players of all time but perhaps not the best in his role, and also George Best who was no Johan Cruyff from the same era.
For me Messi and Ronaldo are by far the best two players in my lifetime, and if that meant no other Barca, Utd, Juve and Real Madrid Argentinian or Portuguese players, fair enough.
With those two it is not just how good they are, it is just how many years they have done it for. Lots of players might be at the top of the game for 4-5-6 years, those two it is the whole of their careers and still doing well into their 30s.
They were under rated by bookmakers for about the first decade. When each way first goal scorer was introduced, 7/2 1/3 odds first 5 scorers was frequently offered. You were getting 11/10 about them scoring anytime when the true price was 1/2!
One season bet 365 went 9/4 Messi and 5/2 Ronnie La Liga top scorers... 8/13 the pair should have been 1/10
It was supposed to allow the "independent scientific committee" to be composed entirely of independent scientists.
They screwed up the moment they deviated from that.
You are really expecting us to believe these scientists were swayed by the attendence of Cummings, thereby insulting each and every one of them while your real reason for your comments is your pathological hatred of Cummings over brexit
It is possible Cummings had no effect on the discussion but did give summary reports to ministers or the prime minister. It is possible that Cummings did steer the discussion in one direction or another. It is also possible Cummings did not say anything but his mere presence altered the nature of the discussion by causing scientists to dumb it down for lay persons. We just don't know.
Questions to answer.
@Cyclefree has a good aphorism about people who can't or won't explain things in laymens' terms. I can't remember how it went, but it was along the lines of 'if you can't explain something to a layman, you either don't understand it yourself or you don' t want them to. I seriously doubt Cummings made the discussion any 'dumber' than it ought to have been.
Clever people explain things in a way that is understandable to those who are less clever, whereas people whose main goal is to be seen as clever do the opposite.
Big thing in Taiwan when I worked there in the 90s In my first month In was late by half an hour. Traffic bad due to 9 foot God's parading down the street and crowds gathered to watch strippers. Boss shrugged and smiled. Welcome to Taiwan You'll soon get used to if he winked.
A slightly alarming report from the Paediatric Intensive Care group. It may not be as benign in children as thought, just that it presents differently.
A slightly alarming report from the Paediatric Intensive Care group. It may not be as benign in children as thought, just that it presents differently.
"Some of the millions of British workers furloughed during the coronavirus lockdown will be encouraged to take a second job picking fruit and vegetables, the government has said.
Giving the daily COVID-19 briefing, Environment Secretary George Eustice said only a third of the migrant labour needed to help carry out such tasks was in the country."
A slightly alarming report from the Paediatric Intensive Care group. It may not be as benign in children as thought, just that it presents differently.
Clever people explain things in a way that is understandable to those who are less clever, whereas people whose main goal is to be seen as clever do the opposite.
Actually I have if anything the opposite experience. The brilliant lecturers at my university had no clue what normal students found difficult, so they coasted through the material saying things like "This is of course trivial because X". (On one occasion one of them paused and said "Actually X is wrong, so it must be trivial for some other reason!") The less talented researchers were usually the better teachers.
But, more neutrally, I think that the ability to explain stuff is a separate skill, largely independent of whether one's bright or not - though obviously you can't explain something you don't actually understand.
“There is nothing in this world so complicated that someone who really understands it can’t explain it in simple terms. And if they can’t, one of two things is happening: they don’t understand it themselves. Or they’re trying to pull the wool over your eyes.“
Or as Einstein put it: “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”
But I love your aphorism. I am so stealing that when/if I am able to work again.
Clever people explain things in a way that is understandable to those who are less clever, whereas people whose main goal is to be seen as clever do the opposite.
Actually I have if anything the opposite experience. The brilliant lecturers at my university had no clue what normal students found difficult, so they coasted through the material saying things like "This is of course trivial because X". (On one occasion one of them paused and said "Actually X is wrong, so it must be trivial for some other reason!") The less talented researchers were usually the better teachers.
But, more neutrally, I think that the ability to explain stuff is a separate skill, largely independent of whether one's bright or not - though obviously you can't explain something you don't actually understand.
Good teachers often are those who understand the difficulties students may have. Whereas if something is easy or obvious to you, it can be hard to understand why it is not that for others. So it’s not just understanding and knowledge you need but a sort of imaginative empathy with your listener / audience / pupil etc.
Clever people explain things in a way that is understandable to those who are less clever, whereas people whose main goal is to be seen as clever do the opposite.
Actually I have if anything the opposite experience. The brilliant lecturers at my university had no clue what normal students found difficult, so they coasted through the material saying things like "This is of course trivial because X". (On one occasion one of them paused and said "Actually X is wrong, so it must be trivial for some other reason!") The less talented researchers were usually the better teachers.
But, more neutrally, I think that the ability to explain stuff is a separate skill, largely independent of whether one's bright or not - though obviously you can't explain something you don't actually understand.
Good teachers often are those who understand the difficulties students may have. Whereas if something is easy or obvious to you, it can be hard to understand why it is not that for others. So it’s not just understanding and knowledge you need but a sort of imaginative empathy with your listener / audience / pupil etc.
The mark of a good communicator in any field is not how much they know, but what the students/audience know (and have retained) after their time together.
Clever people explain things in a way that is understandable to those who are less clever, whereas people whose main goal is to be seen as clever do the opposite.
Actually I have if anything the opposite experience. The brilliant lecturers at my university had no clue what normal students found difficult, so they coasted through the material saying things like "This is of course trivial because X". (On one occasion one of them paused and said "Actually X is wrong, so it must be trivial for some other reason!") The less talented researchers were usually the better teachers.
But, more neutrally, I think that the ability to explain stuff is a separate skill, largely independent of whether one's bright or not - though obviously you can't explain something you don't actually understand.
Its a well known psychological concept called the Curse of Expert Knowledge...the more you become an expert, the harder it is to remember what it will like no to know and how hard it is to learn it.
Clever people explain things in a way that is understandable to those who are less clever, whereas people whose main goal is to be seen as clever do the opposite.
Actually I have if anything the opposite experience. The brilliant lecturers at my university had no clue what normal students found difficult, so they coasted through the material saying things like "This is of course trivial because X". (On one occasion one of them paused and said "Actually X is wrong, so it must be trivial for some other reason!") The less talented researchers were usually the better teachers.
But, more neutrally, I think that the ability to explain stuff is a separate skill, largely independent of whether one's bright or not - though obviously you can't explain something you don't actually understand.
Maybe I’m comparing someone who knows they are clever with someone who wants people to see that they are? In my opinion the former is cleverer because they realise they don’t need to show it by making other people feel stupid.
I always think of a person I worked with who used to drop in ‘modus operandi’ to teenage starters knowing they had no idea what it meant, and wanting them to ask so he could feel good by explaining. To me that’s not a clever person, it’s insecure
The cleverest person I met was my old boss, who was just silly intelligent but never left you wondering what he meant
One of the biggest cultural divides remains — (after all these years) — between those born before and after the Second World War. The problem is that at the moment a lot of them are being put in the same "over 70s" category which is technically correct but wrong in almost every other way. (Of course I'm not trying to say that people born before the Second World War should be treated as less important than those born after it. It's just that people born in 1950 or thereabouts probably aren't going to put up with things that people born 15 years earlier might have done).
Comments
So far they seem to be able to get things done as good and swiftly as anybody, if not better.
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1254516600302075905?s=21
What a surprise. Boris rides to the rescue.
I see they are quoting windbag.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1254516895774015489?s=20
The good news is the fact we've cracked the human genome, DNA sequencing and are developing sophisticated AI - so it may be that future defences are based more on engineering and technology than biological antidotes and vaccines.
I am increasingly impressed with South Korean culture and industry. Interestingly my Filipino colleagues increasingly look towards Korea as the leading cultural power of the region. They have no love of the Japanese either.
The South Korean economy is 12th biggest in the world. 2/3 the size of ours in PPP terms. Their Armed Forces are 3 times as big as ours, with reserves taking it to 10 times ours, and we'll equipped too. They are very capable of looking after themselves.
China is the big economic power in the region, so will always have influence, as indeed Canada is affected by the USA or UK by the EU. That is just geography.
https://twitter.com/Rachael_Swindon/status/1254436815844540417
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1254488704716091393
Q: Should all countries be testing everybody?
A: I’m not sure.
Look at the article I've just posted upthread. China is using its economic and military might to bully or intimate its near neighbours to give away territory or to surrender resources or materials it wants. I the case of Taiwan, it actively wants to force its incorporation into China proper and would happily have done it by force by now were it not for the fact it's heavily protected by the US.
These are not the actions of a block like the EU or even the US in its most enthusiastic application of the Munroe doctrine. China isn't being defensive, or trying to protect itself, it's trying to dominate: using every method at its disposal.
It's time we rid ourselves of these comfortable but inaccurate myths about China and it's rise being "peaceful" and no different to any other similiar sized economic power in the world just because we'd prefer not to face up to very difficult questions it raises.
That's what usually frustrates it and it's a good rebuff to those who say China cannot be deterred or contained.
I'd genuinely like to know how market forces made the rollout of testing faster in Germany.
vs
the young guard - "N. Korea is a pain in the arse. A re-unified Korea couldn't challenge us now, and would be our Canada."
All wind and piss.
That is not something that we can do much about. We have very little influence in that part of the world anymore.
Just as South Korea has no influence on our Brexit negotiations. Geography and reality make each of our nations spectators.
It is not a good combination.
And plenty of people commute to Barrow and Sellafield from places roundabout. So the rural picture is not quite the complete picture.
We could reshore manufacturing, and learn to live within our means financially, but that would involve austerity far more extreme than the last decade.
We are at the stage of the Opium Wars in reverse. Not a comfortable position.
https://twitter.com/SpookyGhost32/status/1254448944513462272?s=20
I think commuting by car is low risk, it is rail and bus that is high risk. The casualty rate in London Transport shows that. How that works post lockdown is going to be a real problem.
Desperate for the plebs to risk their lives so that the fatcats can keep their snouts in the trough.
I always enjoy that mixed metaphor, btw.
Night all.
China and India have both "used up" the surplus skilled workforce. Their domestic economies are expanding faster than the trained labour pool. Hence wages rocketing.
So, UK anchoring. It just requires a few things.
- Actually allowing factories. Saying we love manufacturing, but don't put that horrid factory near me is horse manure.
- Effective management. Which includes engaging with the workforce sensibly.
- A tax system that doesn't actually penalise onshore activity. Believe it or not we have tariffs working *against* on-shoring in this country.
- A finance system that believes it is possible. Rather than off-shore-everything-now as a default.
https://twitter.com/Care2much18/status/1252819591090155523?s=19
Over the last 40 years we have decided against that though, and rebalancing against services and finance is not a short hop.
I think nearshoring will increase plus moving out of China to other countries who already have bases in manufacturing such as India & Vietnam.
Yes it may bring a hit but as well as the deep mistrust (justified I suspect) over the Chinese government's honesty over Sars Cov 2 which may change/harden opinion, the concentration of the Western world's collective eggs in the Chinese basket is just plain stupid, diversification is essential. We cant just have everything quite as cheap, tough on us.
China has sizeable domestic demand so you aren't bringing it back to the stone age but it needs reined in and the only way is by striking its economy. It may be a 20 year plan to push more of the supply chain out of China but the West needs to get its act together and do it rather than turning a blind eye.
The hospital, based inside the National Exhibition Centre, was intended to take up to 500 coronavirus patients from 23 Midlands hospitals
(Telegraph)
That is brilliant news.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/corona-challenge-germany-reaching-the-upper-limit-of-testing-capacity-a-4d75e7bd-dd0e-41e3-9f09-eb4364c43f2e
Suspect this is one of those things where there are classic pros and cons of a more centralised vs a more decentralised system.
Incidentally the Spiegel piece mentions issues that Germany was encountering while testing a similar kind of volume to what Britain is now ramping up to, which I think are going to become very relevant here too. Now we have capacity to test much more than just those people with an obvious and urgent clinical need, who should we aim to include? As is discussed there, it's still too low a figure to just test willy-nilly anybody who wants it. So you don't want to be wasting tests on the "worried well" which is an issue Germany hit. It seems "obvious" we should test medical and care staff, but in what circumstances?
Random testing or mass screening to try picking out the asymptomatic but potentially (so much we still don't know about the virus!) contagious? Probably not a goer at current capacity because of how many people you'd need to keep pushing through the system in order to test them reasonably frequently (bearing in mind there's a decent chance of them getting infected at work).
Someone who has symptoms and wants to check if it's COVID or not? Well in this context the rate of false negatives ought to be a worry - might be better for a potentially infected doctor or nurse or carer to stay at home due to symptoms, rather than get the false reassurance of a negative test and then go to work!
Someone who has no symptoms but lives with eg a family member who does seem infected? Again the risk of false negatives is there, but also we need to consider the problem of "what if they are negative now but contract the disease in the next few days"?
There are some tricky issues to tease out yet and having the expanded capacity, but still not at the level where every key worker can have a regular test, actually raises a lot more questions.
On the latter point, they're also being particularly diligent about recording anything that looks like a covid death - not just the care homes, but suspected home deaths also.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pass-the-remote-theres-too-much-emotion-on-the-news-lqttjp5v6
But a religious belief has set it that it can't - at every level in finance, local and national government.
https://twitter.com/PICSociety/status/1254508725227982848?s=09
So I haven't noticed it be a particular problem, but I could see where it might be.
Funeral Strippers.
Its a thing. In China. Apparently
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/20/china-wages-war-funeral-strippers/
One season bet 365 went 9/4 Messi and 5/2 Ronnie La Liga top scorers... 8/13 the pair should have been 1/10
In my first month In was late by half an hour. Traffic bad due to 9 foot God's parading down the street and crowds gathered to watch strippers.
Boss shrugged and smiled. Welcome to Taiwan
You'll soon get used to if he winked.
https://twitter.com/matthewahandley/status/1254479009167089664?s=21
https://twitter.com/Desmostylian/status/1254264863100190720
Giving the daily COVID-19 briefing, Environment Secretary George Eustice said only a third of the migrant labour needed to help carry out such tasks was in the country."
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-furloughed-workers-to-be-encouraged-to-take-fruit-picking-jobs-to-help-uk-harvest-11979143
https://twitter.com/johnharris1969/status/1254444045176393728?s=21
And about time.
28 mins in
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h2pc
But, more neutrally, I think that the ability to explain stuff is a separate skill, largely independent of whether one's bright or not - though obviously you can't explain something you don't actually understand.
BTW my aphorism was this:
“There is nothing in this world so complicated that someone who really understands it can’t explain it in simple terms. And if they can’t, one of two things is happening: they don’t understand it themselves. Or they’re trying to pull the wool over your eyes.“
Or as Einstein put it: “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”
But I love your aphorism. I am so stealing that when/if I am able to work again.
I always think of a person I worked with who used to drop in ‘modus operandi’ to teenage starters knowing they had no idea what it meant, and wanting them to ask so he could feel good by explaining. To me that’s not a clever person, it’s insecure
The cleverest person I met was my old boss, who was just silly intelligent but never left you wondering what he meant