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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The pandemic costs: Who bears the risk?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The pandemic costs: Who bears the risk?
One of the criticisms of the 2008 bank bailouts was that banks had privatised the profits but nationalised the losses. It wasn’t entirely accurate: shareholders and plenty of bank staff lost money and jobs. Had banks failed, plenty of other businesses would have failed too. But it was broadly true. Those whose key job it was to manage risk failed abysmally, took insane risks, pocketed unjustifiably high rewards which did not accurately reflect the cost of those risks and left others – far less able to bear the burden – to pay for it all, for a decade or more. The resulting sense of unfairness, resentment, of the costs being borne by the “little people”, of the “Too Big to Fail Haves” who were at fault getting away with it has informed politics ever since, in ways largely unanticipated at the time.
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Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Labour, to replace Rachel Reeves)
Round 1
Darren Jones 256 votes
Angela Eagle 174
Stella Creasy 114
Round 2
Jones 296 (+40)
Eagle 222 (+48)
Standards (Labour, to replace Kate Green)
Chris Bryant 332
Yvonne Fovargue 208
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52556012
Nationally though furlough is likely to continue for some time, even at a reduced rate as the Government continues to pursue watered down social democracy
If there are to be permanent changes then we don't want to sustain zombie companies that are no longer relevant.
However, I still think that this could just be a temporary interlude while we eliminate the virus, so I think there might be merit in some sort of gift-aid style scheme to support businesses that can't operate at the capacity required to be profitable, so that they might survive until the interregnum ends, but only if they can still compete.
Let's spend it on bog roll instead."
And if you don't abide by them you must be a fool
We have the power to control the whole land
You never must question our motives or plans -
cause well outlaw your voices, do anything we want
we've nothing to fear from the nation
Well throw you out of your houses if you get too much
If we have to well destroy your generation
Sunday's speech by Boris is going to be of hug significance but his remarks in the Commons didn't fill me with confidence. As befitting his populist style, he's going to try to have his cake and eat it too as he's more interested in being popular than being right.
I'll cut him some slack - he may have to say some difficult things to some sectors who might have been hoping for an easing of restrictions but I suspect the undercurrent will be it's everyone's "patriotic duty" to go back to work.
Well, quite but expecting everyone to head back the day after his tub-thumping speech is a tad unrealistic. Some organisations are ready for a limited return, many aren't or don't know what to do.
If you want your Big Mac fix and don't mind queuing half the night for the privilege so be it but will parents be more interested in the health of their children (and themselves) than in doing their patriotic duty? It may well be given how subservient we were going into lockdown, Johnson and Cummings think we will be equally subservient coming out of it - we'll see.
Easing restrictions on family members will be popular though not wholly risk free and there's plenty of evidence public transport is far from prepared for a mass return - mandatory wearing of masks anyone?
Today's remarks don't fill me with confidence - marching some sectors up ti the top of the hill and leaving them there isn't what you want. With Sunak pulling the plug on the furlough scheme in July there will be growing and understandable pressure to re-start - perhaps that's the key. The plan is initial carrot followed by later stick.
Though I thought Antifrank overplayed it a bit last evening the current situation is less VE-Day and more the mood after Alamein - less victory and more perhaps the end of the beginning.
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1257793857930121216?s=21
I'd be surprised if any state had done better than the best of our supermarkets. However the fair comparison is against the average of our supermarkets. It'll be closer.
France kicks off on Monday and the three cards at Longchamp, Toulouse and Compiegne have attracted over 1000 entries. I suspect the BHA will be praying Sunday's speech by Johnson will give them the green light for a resumption. Waht they won't want is ambiguity and confusion.
This isn't some sporting league table and come what may there are clearly lessons to learn - what's gone right and what's gone wrong. Social care needs looking at either way and would have even if we'd never heard of COVID19.
Our second meat order arrived today - prompt and looks excellent quality. Mostly but not wholly British as well.
The original Captain Kirk really was an all-American hero, and believably so. I've seen a couple of the recent films and it's just not Captain Kirk, not Spock, nor watchable really.
However I have also seen 'Picard', and we learn there that Jeri Ryan is really the Queen we want.
The wholesalers will be able to keep home deliveries as they'll love the premium they get over restraunts, their customers will love the price/quality over the supermarkets. They'll never have substitution issues as the wholesalers deal in actual stock and don't have the supermarkets fragile JIT structures.
The well heeled middle class never need to bother a supermarket again.
(I do confess though I perhaps missed the humour in the original post.)
They may not bother to return.
Yet if businesses do open up, demand is likely to be low. Partly because people are afraid to go out, partly because they are afraid to spend money.
That means that when we do re-open, it is incredibly unlikely 100% of those furloughed staff will be needed. Perhaps 70% at best. And I'm guessing a whole lot less, at least for the next few months.
In one of my whatsapp groups, my friends laughed at me because I'm still working when they are all enjoying a free holiday on £2500 a month.
So I said, at least it proves my employer knows I'm absolutely necessary to the business. How many of you can say the same? How many of you think you will have jobs to go back to when this ends?
That shut them up.
And there is the problem. When we restart the economy, it will be slow. It may take a year or more to return to previous levels of demand.
Furlough has lulled most people into a false sense of security. Once the rug is pulled out from underneath them, that's when the fun begins.
And I cannot see how it can be done for many in cities or large towns right now. I work from a room above the library. There are literally hundreds of visitors every day.
The government has told us to stay home.
They can't overnight simply say get back to work. People are anxious.
And what will be the effect on businesses which 're open to find precious few customers?
Unfortunately the ones who are out giving and receiving haircuts right now are the ones to be least trusted.
https://davidkatzmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ravirs.katz_.3-22-20.pdf
You may be surprised how many of us oldies do to be fair
We have also had a staff survey of people's attitudes to returning to their office. Or not.
In my case, not.
And the NHS is a national religion whereas sick oldies consuming hoped for inheritances aren't.
Brutal ? Yes, but true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qeppOCEvC0
Click and collect or home delivery for us from now on until we feel safe ir have been vaccinated...
You only have to look at the "we aren't testing enough, we need to be like Germany"...PHE says no for 2-3 weeks...then finally we copy Germany and have a public / private partnership to the problem...and immediately the Guardian goes full government is privatising the NHS.
Whatever the current toll (anywhere between thirty and fifty thousand perhaps) it leaves the residential care sector in a huge mess as you say. Will people be so keen to send their older relatives to such places - will we see a new generation of family housing emerge with self contained accommodation for older relatives? Will we see a cultural shift back to multi-generational households?
The one area which defies easy answers is dementia care - for those with relatives suffering dementia the last few weeks must have been akin to purgatory but dementia care is as full time as it gets and most families can't deal with it whether on a practical or emotional level.
https://twitter.com/philperry01/status/1255257291122790403?s=20
Its also quicker and cheaper than shopping online.
This was to all parents, the PTA is just the conduit. It had been promoted by the DfE for crying it loud. I get that the childless and those without children at home may feel very differently (and polling on this has shown that clearly) but, when it comes down to it, you keep your child safe.
One person familiar with the NHS testing process said that its app was able to work in the background in most cases, except when two iPhones were locked and left unused for around 30 minutes, without any Android devices coming within 60m of the devices. Bringing an Android device running the NHS app close to the iPhone would “wake up” its Bluetooth connection, this person said.
Switching to Google and Apple’s contact technology would avoid such issues but likely mean the UK had to abandon its centralised database, which representatives of the two tech companies have indicated is incompatible with their “decentralised” approach.
WTF....
And Mr Davis, 71, tweeted: 'A bigger issue than Professor Ferguson's private life is the accuracy of his model. When applied to the Swedish policy it forecast 40,000 deaths by now, over 15 times the reality.
'We need the whole model, its assumptions and working in the public domain. We can no longer run our strategy on secret advice and potentially flawed calculations.' (Mail)
We do. Let's see that 13 year old modelling code.
"Imperial finally released a derivative of Ferguson’s code. " - Lockdownsceptics
Most of the people who are about to find out UC is £74 a week probably never thought they were the sort of person who'd be claiming benefits.
They had all the education, all the skills - transferable skills too - and of course all the contacts. They never expected to be out of work for more than a couple of weeks in their life, if they ever expected it at all.
A lot of people are about to find out how the other half lives very soon. And it won't be pretty. Or it will be delicious. Depending on your point of view.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42902684
The entire British economy has been shut down, plus god knows how many deferred operations, cancer scans, GP checks etc etc. for a model that the university will not release.
"A request for the original code has been made 8 days ago but ignored, it will probably take some kind of legal compulsion to make them release it. Clearly Imperial are too embarrassed by the state of it to ever release it of their own free will, which is unacceptable given it was paid for by the taxpayer and belongs to them."
https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/
Once again 20 seconds of research shows it's not as easy as the armchair generals are make things out to be.
Also, it isnt like he hasnt had use for it. He has been called to employ it several tines over the years.
I've been online shopping for groceries for years. Its far quicker and cheaper. Can do the order at home on the sofa while watching a TV show and when the groceries arrives its quicker to bring inside than even unloading the car would have been.
As for cost its cheaper I've found. We paid until this pandemic a delivery pass subscription for Asda that cost about 50p a week - and the online prices and offers match the in store ones. For 50p per week I don't need to drive to the supermarket, don't need to spend time shopping and most importantly don't need to drag children around the supermarket saying "I want this, I want that" so we don't end up with toys or sweets that weren't on the shopping list in the basket.
Far cheaper and far more convenient getting it delivered for me at least. We've cancelled our delivery pass for now though as its more important that those who need delivery slots more can get them.
Wait until you see the global warming models..
It is literally unbelievable that even with a 2 week lead time on my order supermarkets are out of stock of what I ordered.
A rational person would ask how that is at all possible and how any customer could find that acceptable.
And the answer is supermarkets operate and hideously complex logistics chain which is simply incapable of holding stock for a future order.
Anyway, the sink estate kids are left at home to do what they want anyway, that’s the way the working class roll (I should know, that was me as well).