What until all those furloughed workers currently enjoying days hanging out at parks and beaches find out that there is no job for them to go back to in September.
Government approval ratings will go through the floor, as people will be screaming from the rooftops they never knew that this was likely and now out of cash, and very difficult to find new employment.
terrifying article of the week:
Britain is sliding into a deflationary death spiral Negative interest rates on Government debt are a harbinger of economic destruction on a vast scale
I disagree. Deflation means we can do QE to boost money supply (and write off government debt).
As I recall from A level Economics in the 1970s, deflation is BAD. Hasn't your solution been tried before...in Zimbabwe?
Yes and no.
Yes deflation is bad, which is why QE is a good idea to prevent deflation. That we resolve our budget deficit with it is the icing on the cake not the only reason to do it.
And no, Zimbabwe never tried QE to avoid deflation. I swear any time you suggest any monetary policy its always "Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe". Zimbabwe is not what the UK with QE looks like.
I thought Mugabe printed Zimbabwean Dollars like a crazed counterfeiter.
Which is not what Quantitative Easing is.
There is a difference between manic printing of currency even when you have high inflation - and some Quantitative Easing during a period of below target inflation.
The Zimbabwean comparison is ridiculous. There is no comparison between the UK, a rich and successful country since the Middle Ages and his regime.
Germany between the wars might be better.
It's worth understanding *why* Germany ended up with hyperinflation. It wasn't because politicians and the Central Bank were ignorant of the risks of printing money. It was because, at every turn, printing money was the path of least resistance.
Politics, absent a truly first class leader, will always follow the path of least resistance.
It's easier to print and spend, and put off any reckoning, until tomorrow.
And nothing bad happened last time.
So every time the boundaries are pushed somewhat. Quantitive Easing worked for the GFC, it worked for CV-19, it'll work for this recession, it'll work to make sure the economy is moving before the election, it'll work because there's nothing else working.
The path of least resistance is moving, inevitably, towards the printing press.
A very wise man pointed out this was the inevitable consequence of establishing the Bank of England
Home secretary Priti Patel to give UK daily briefing at 17:00 BST, outlining new travel restrictions
I thought popcorn time myself. Very sad that the questions are so obviously submitted in advance. Someone needs to get a crafty supplementary in. And someone needs to tell whoever's organising it to change the first half-dozen paragraphs in the Minister's speech. I'm certain that, apart from the numbers, they been the same for weeks. It's insulting. I've got to the stage when I watch it with a pre-dinner drink in the forlorn hope that, as Mr U Says, there'll be a total car crash. And I bet Witty didn't sign up for this. He's looking decreasingly comfortable each time I see him.
This explanation misses an important point about the Weimar hyperinflation, which extends to (I think) all hyperinflations that I’m aware of: Weimar Germany had significant external reparations that were demanded of by the Verseilles WWI treaty that were denominated in non-Mark currencies.
I'm not sure that's true. (Well, it's obviously true that Germany had massive external reparations it had to pay. And that strained the budget, and in particular the collapse in world trade reduced Germany's export earnings, which meant it had no physical goods surplus to re-export as reparations.)
What I mean about it not being true is the assumption that hyperinflation is a consequence of excessive external liabilities.
Let's take recent ones: Zimbabwe (nope), Venezuela (the hyperinflation happened before the external liabilities), Brazil (not really), Argentina (yes most recently, but not really in the late 1970s when the country was running a large commodities export surplus).
The causes of hyperinflation are various: most of the countries to experience it had explicit government policies of import substitution and self-sufficiency, quiet a few had big external debts, almost all saw excessive producer protection, a lot saw a period of above average growth (perhaps due to an export boom) come to an end, and the government sought to pretend the good times would continue to roll...
But, and this is born out by reading histories like Taylor's excellent Downfall of Money about Germany's hyperinflation, I think in every case the government saw printing money as the path of least resistance at every turn.
As I say upthread, the ambiguity from Bozza and Nicola is probably deliberate.
It means lower-risk (young, fit) people expose themselves to greater 'risk' but also more sunshine, fresh air and other things that improve health; and higher risk people (older, fatter, co-morbid) expose themselves to almost no risk of catching the virus or meeting lockdown-shunning fitties.
This is exactly what you want to happen as it builds immunity in the healthy and protects the vulnerable.
The ambiguity appears to have worked in London as its young population (aka 'dickheads' according to PB Lockdownists) have built immunity and got some vitamin D while older, unfit people in areas with more vulnerable demographics have stayed indoors.
Risk segmentation is clearly the way out of this thing. Reconciling safety with social and economic needs.
Maybe London should be opened up first?
Well I'm all for others getting the herd part of the herd immunity for me so knock yourselves out down there 👌
Yes. MY personal CV19 goal is not to contribute to herd immunity. Others' mileage varies.
Again, how old are you? If you are fit and healthy and under 60 years old, the risks to you are tiny.
As I say upthread, the ambiguity from Bozza and Nicola is probably deliberate.
It means lower-risk (young, fit) people expose themselves to greater 'risk' but also more sunshine, fresh air and other things that improve health; and higher risk people (older, fatter, co-morbid) expose themselves to almost no risk of catching the virus or meeting lockdown-shunning fitties.
This is exactly what you want to happen as it builds immunity in the healthy and protects the vulnerable.
The ambiguity appears to have worked in London as its young population (aka 'dickheads' according to PB Lockdownists) have built immunity and got some vitamin D while older, unfit people in areas with more vulnerable demographics have stayed indoors.
Risk segmentation is clearly the way out of this thing. Reconciling safety with social and economic needs.
Maybe London should be opened up first?
Well I'm all for others getting the herd part of the herd immunity for me so knock yourselves out down there 👌
Yes. MY personal CV19 goal is not to contribute to herd immunity. Others' mileage varies.
Again, how old are you? If you are fit and healthy and under 60 years old, the risks to you are tiny.
Does that make you an anti-vaxxer, FF43?
Not at all. But I am anti-nasty diseases. Not too keen on bubonic plague, ebola either and the risk of getting them are "tinier"
Do you drive or walk up and down stairs?
If any particular drive had a one in ten chance of one of my household ending up in hospital, I'd not do that drive, either.
With the best estimates available at the moment, as a male in his late forties who's still rather overweight but without asthma, diabetes, or hypertension, let alone any more serious co-morbidities, my chances of death are probably only about 0.2% if I contract this. Out of the five in my household, I'm the most at risk.
However, the chances of none of us being hospitalised are 90% or so. That's a one in ten chance of at least one of us being so ill we're in hospital.
Deflation is bad is repeated so much, few question it or can explain why
I suspect that one reason inflation is preferred by politicians is that it allows wages to be reduced without people noticing, and then going on strike.
Isn't it simply that deflation drives further deflation. Don't spend now when you can spend less later so the economy grinds to a halt. Too simplistic?
You never know we might get lucky and have asset price deflation as well as general goods inflation at the same time.
Shame about the banks though. They were nice to have
2 weeks quarantine coming back? Nah, thats for plebs.
Johnson will jump at opportunity to go AWOL for another 2 weeks. In fact perhaps that's Dom's cunning plan - send Boris abroad every 2 weeks and he can hide for months on end.
Boris being awol from the 5pm briefing spot that prior to his illness he used to regularly attend is little remarked upon. At least subconsciously in the public mind it acts to downgrade the crisis. As for Johnson it keeps him away from the critical press but is that always to his benefit? I suspect had he been attending and more switched on to sentiment perhaps he wouldn't have been outflanked by Starmer on NHS fees for foreign health workers.
One of them has a half competent cabinet, the other doesn't?
You mean Nicola can depend on her cabinet to get on with other stuff while BJ wants to make sure that there are a series of obvious numpties for the public to identify as blameworthy? Fair enough.
Which stars in the Scottish administration do you particularly admire?
Personally I like Mike Russell. Yousaf can be a bit slick but does seem to knock his pan in, bit early to tell with Kate Forbes but she's hit the ground running, Freeman handles a difficult job fairly well. I think several of the others have admirable qualities.
Now, lets have your top 3 from the ministry of all the talents (sic).
Yup, that is right with Weimar although their debt to their allies were dominated in 1913 gold Marks to get round the devaluation issue. The one advantage for hyperinflation for Weimar Germany on debt was that it effectively wiped out obligations to domestic bondholders such as those who had bought War Loans
Ironically, the same was true of the victor economies - in the aggregate they held significant Mark deposits which were completely devalued by the hyperinflation that their own governments caused. Some economists have calculated that this devaluation (combined with defaults on loans) actually exceeded the value of the reparations that Germany did make: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#Amount_paid_by_Germany
The demand for reparations, whilst understandable, was an astonishingly self-destructive policy in the end - it gained the victor economies next to nothing, whilst destroying the German economy via the whirlwind of hyperinflation.
I used the sentence “The net amount that Germany repaid as a result of Reparations can only be calculated using formulae of Byzantine complexity” in an essay once. It is literally the only thing I remember from my history degree because my tutorial partner mercilessly ripped the shit out of its pretentiousness.
What until all those furloughed workers currently enjoying days hanging out at parks and beaches find out that there is no job for them to go back to in September.
Government approval ratings will go through the floor, as people will be screaming from the rooftops they never knew that this was likely and now out of cash, and very difficult to find new employment.
terrifying article of the week:
Britain is sliding into a deflationary death spiral Negative interest rates on Government debt are a harbinger of economic destruction on a vast scale
I disagree. Deflation means we can do QE to boost money supply (and write off government debt).
As I recall from A level Economics in the 1970s, deflation is BAD. Hasn't your solution been tried before...in Zimbabwe?
Yes and no.
Yes deflation is bad, which is why QE is a good idea to prevent deflation. That we resolve our budget deficit with it is the icing on the cake not the only reason to do it.
And no, Zimbabwe never tried QE to avoid deflation. I swear any time you suggest any monetary policy its always "Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe". Zimbabwe is not what the UK with QE looks like.
I thought Mugabe printed Zimbabwean Dollars like a crazed counterfeiter.
Which is not what Quantitative Easing is.
There is a difference between manic printing of currency even when you have high inflation - and some Quantitative Easing during a period of below target inflation.
The Zimbabwean comparison is ridiculous. There is no comparison between the UK, a rich and successful country since the Middle Ages and his regime.
Germany between the wars might be better.
It's worth understanding *why* Germany ended up with hyperinflation. It wasn't because politicians and the Central Bank were ignorant of the risks of printing money. It was because, at every turn, printing money was the path of least resistance.
Politics, absent a truly first class leader, will always follow the path of least resistance.
It's easier to print and spend, and put off any reckoning, until tomorrow.
And nothing bad happened last time.
So every time the boundaries are pushed somewhat. Quantitive Easing worked for the GFC, it worked for CV-19, it'll work for this recession, it'll work to make sure the economy is moving before the election, it'll work because there's nothing else working.
The path of least resistance is moving, inevitably, towards the printing press.
Isn't that exactly what happened with borrowing too?
Borrowing was considered the easy option and it worked so was pushed more and more until Gordon Brown went reckless and unprecedentedly maxed out borrowing at the height of our growth period prior to the crash so that when the crash did come the deficit after the crash was eye watering.
That's a good comparison, and it reminds me of the famous Hemingway quote:
“How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
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Would it have been too much trouble to mention whether the "difference in number" would be up or down, and by how much? And the "type of updates"? And why not use my name since they have it? Sometimes I despair of this government's communications.
The risk of deflation is the debt trap. People will hold cash if possible if there are negative interest rates, so the real rate of interest for debt in a time of deflation is very high.
This is survivable if you're a business borrowing to invest at a time of rapid technological development, productivity growth and healthy profit margins.
Makes borrowing to buy a house a bit problematic though.
You've nailed the issue: if everyone is overindebted, deflation can hammer spending as the real the value of liabilities rise.
The problem is that we've hit upon the wrong solution. Instead of encouraging people not to borrow too much, we've promised them that we'll bail them out through inflation, and implied that no level of debt is too much.
As I say upthread, the ambiguity from Bozza and Nicola is probably deliberate.
It means lower-risk (young, fit) people expose themselves to greater 'risk' but also more sunshine, fresh air and other things that improve health; and higher risk people (older, fatter, co-morbid) expose themselves to almost no risk of catching the virus or meeting lockdown-shunning fitties.
This is exactly what you want to happen as it builds immunity in the healthy and protects the vulnerable.
The ambiguity appears to have worked in London as its young population (aka 'dickheads' according to PB Lockdownists) have built immunity and got some vitamin D while older, unfit people in areas with more vulnerable demographics have stayed indoors.
Risk segmentation is clearly the way out of this thing. Reconciling safety with social and economic needs.
Maybe London should be opened up first?
Well I'm all for others getting the herd part of the herd immunity for me so knock yourselves out down there 👌
Yes. MY personal CV19 goal is not to contribute to herd immunity. Others' mileage varies.
Again, how old are you? If you are fit and healthy and under 60 years old, the risks to you are tiny.
And if there were five of me, that would indeed be a no-brainer risk to take...
Starmer's numbers looking good compared to every Labour leader since Blair.
The Corbynistas will never forgive him if he wins.
Well then they can jump off a cliff. Anyone that has ever entertained a thought that Corbyn was other than a disingenuous and dangerous lunatic should have been shot long ago.
The risk of deflation is the debt trap. People will hold cash if possible if there are negative interest rates, so the real rate of interest for debt in a time of deflation is very high.
This is survivable if you're a business borrowing to invest at a time of rapid technological development, productivity growth and healthy profit margins.
Makes borrowing to buy a house a bit problematic though.
You've nailed the issue: if everyone is overindebted, deflation can hammer spending as the real the value of liabilities rise.
The problem is that we've hit upon the wrong solution. Instead of encouraging people not to borrow too much, we've promised them that we'll bail them out through inflation, and implied that no level of debt is too much.
The other problem (in the UK) you get with negative interest rates is that it leads to an increase in the value of the pension liabilities that companies have on their books and the (cash) amount they have to pay per annum because of the demands of their pension trustees. Whilst some trustees have allowed payments to be deferred, that will not be for ever. And when it comes back, it will mean that companies have even less cash to invest.
Starmer's numbers looking good compared to every Labour leader since Blair.
The Corbynistas will never forgive him if he wins.
Well then they can jump off a cliff. Anyone that has ever entertained a thought that Corbyn was other than a disingenuous and dangerous lunatic should have been shot long ago.
Jump of a cliff? Shot? You righties and your hilarious metaphors that don't reflect your actual impulses in the slightest!
As I say upthread, the ambiguity from Bozza and Nicola is probably deliberate.
It means lower-risk (young, fit) people expose themselves to greater 'risk' but also more sunshine, fresh air and other things that improve health; and higher risk people (older, fatter, co-morbid) expose themselves to almost no risk of catching the virus or meeting lockdown-shunning fitties.
This is exactly what you want to happen as it builds immunity in the healthy and protects the vulnerable.
The ambiguity appears to have worked in London as its young population (aka 'dickheads' according to PB Lockdownists) have built immunity and got some vitamin D while older, unfit people in areas with more vulnerable demographics have stayed indoors.
Risk segmentation is clearly the way out of this thing. Reconciling safety with social and economic needs.
Maybe London should be opened up first?
Well I'm all for others getting the herd part of the herd immunity for me so knock yourselves out down there 👌
Yes. MY personal CV19 goal is not to contribute to herd immunity. Others' mileage varies.
Again, how old are you? If you are fit and healthy and under 60 years old, the risks to you are tiny.
As I say upthread, the ambiguity from Bozza and Nicola is probably deliberate.
It means lower-risk (young, fit) people expose themselves to greater 'risk' but also more sunshine, fresh air and other things that improve health; and higher risk people (older, fatter, co-morbid) expose themselves to almost no risk of catching the virus or meeting lockdown-shunning fitties.
This is exactly what you want to happen as it builds immunity in the healthy and protects the vulnerable.
The ambiguity appears to have worked in London as its young population (aka 'dickheads' according to PB Lockdownists) have built immunity and got some vitamin D while older, unfit people in areas with more vulnerable demographics have stayed indoors.
Risk segmentation is clearly the way out of this thing. Reconciling safety with social and economic needs.
Maybe London should be opened up first?
Well I'm all for others getting the herd part of the herd immunity for me so knock yourselves out down there 👌
Yes. MY personal CV19 goal is not to contribute to herd immunity. Others' mileage varies.
Again, how old are you? If you are fit and healthy and under 60 years old, the risks to you are tiny.
Does that make you an anti-vaxxer, FF43?
Not at all. But I am anti-nasty diseases. Not too keen on bubonic plague, ebola either and the risk of getting them are "tinier"
Do you drive or walk up and down stairs?
I accept there is some risk of catching Covid-19. I aim to minimise that risk
Starmer's numbers looking good compared to every Labour leader since Blair.
The Corbynistas will never forgive him if he wins.
Well then they can jump off a cliff. Anyone that has ever entertained a thought that Corbyn was other than a disingenuous and dangerous lunatic should have been shot long ago.
Jump of a cliff? Shot? You righties and your hilarious metaphors that don't reflect your actual impulses in the slightest!
...If SSE predictors cannot be identified, then every infectious individual has the opportunity to cause a SSE if exposed to sizable susceptible populations. Therefore, it is crucial to understand types of hotspots and patterns of transmission for each type, as interventions might have to focus on all hotspots at high risk for SSEs and limiting gatherings at these places, and/or through rapid-and-extensive testing and contact tracing (both traditional and digital) to identify pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people. Contact tracing efforts should have an explicit goal to understand types of transmission and hotspots, so that the characterization of transmission could be used to adapt and prioritize other recommendations such as masks and mass gatherings. Further, it thus remains important to be cautious in reopening populations undergoing cordons sanitaires until transmission routes in different types of hotspots are well understood, or when safe and effective COVID-19 treatments and vaccines are available....
You’ve subscribed to get emails about Coronavirus (COVID-19).
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Would it have been too much trouble to mention whether the "difference in number" would be up or down, and by how much? And the "type of updates"? And why not use my name since they have it? Sometimes I despair of this government's communications.
Sometimes, euphemisms can be the end-goal in themselves. It's a bureaucratic Zen sort of thing.
Isn't it simply that deflation drives further deflation. Don't spend now when you can spend less later so the economy grinds to a halt. Too simplistic?
That seems to be a common view but I am unconvinced.
Most tech gear gets better and/or cheaper over time (effective deflation) but we rarely hold off from buying it.
That did make me scratch my head for a bit as you are correct, but I am going to have a go at responding. Please note I am neither an economist nor a psychologist so this could all be twaddle but:
Tech unlike potatoes and houses actually improves quickly so unlike a house or potato where you compare the price now to another time for the same item with Tech you will be comparing two different products. So the relevant comparison is the cost of a non-smart phone then to a smart phone now.
Because once we got smart phones you were never going to go and buy the non-smart phone even though it is cheaper so there is no point in waiting for the price to come down.
I think I have just confused myself, so I will stop now.
Biden is going to steal soooo many Trump votes. If you like an older gentleman who says whatever the fuck he wants with no regard for PC - and clearly many US voters do - then Joe's got you covered.
On this "what about people who hasn't got somewhere to stay" it's astonishingly simple. They should be denied entry. The muppets are offering to accommodate them - looking forward to the "quarantine hell" stories....
Patel says forget the week in Benidorm or Tuscany.
Patel is amongst the most authoritarian in the Cabinet so no surprise there, to be fair to her she also wanted travellers quarantined even before lockdown was announced but Boris overruled her
Yup, that is right with Weimar although their debt to their allies were dominated in 1913 gold Marks to get round the devaluation issue. The one advantage for hyperinflation for Weimar Germany on debt was that it effectively wiped out obligations to domestic bondholders such as those who had bought War Loans
Ironically, the same was true of the victor economies - in the aggregate they held significant Mark deposits which were completely devalued by the hyperinflation that their own governments caused. Some economists have calculated that this devaluation (combined with defaults on loans) actually exceeded the value of the reparations that Germany did make: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#Amount_paid_by_Germany
The demand for reparations, whilst understandable, was an astonishingly self-destructive policy in the end - it gained the victor economies next to nothing, whilst destroying the German economy via the whirlwind of hyperinflation.
I used the sentence “The net amount that Germany repaid as a result of Reparations can only be calculated using formulae of Byzantine complexity” in an essay once. It is literally the only thing I remember from my history degree because my tutorial partner mercilessly ripped the shit out of its pretentiousness.
- did you marry her?
He wasn’t interested...
Damn.
Nothing more seductive than having your bubble burst by somebody kind and alluring.
2 weeks quarantine coming back? Nah, thats for plebs.
Johnson will jump at opportunity to go AWOL for another 2 weeks. In fact perhaps that's Dom's cunning plan - send Boris abroad every 2 weeks and he can hide for months on end.
Boris being awol from the 5pm briefing spot that prior to his illness he used to regularly attend is little remarked upon. At least subconsciously in the public mind it acts to downgrade the crisis. As for Johnson it keeps him away from the critical press but is that always to his benefit? I suspect had he been attending and more switched on to sentiment perhaps he wouldn't have been outflanked by Starmer on NHS fees for foreign health workers.
One of them has a half competent cabinet, the other doesn't?
There are lies and there are lies, you cannot seriously be trying to say Westminster cabinet has any talent never mind more talent than the Scottish government. You would be laughed out of court with that whopper.
Which stars in the Scottish administration do you particularly admire?
I don't admire many , the new financial secretary looks promising mind you. I was more concerned that you thought there was anyone better at Westminster ( Sunak may have promise ) , which would be crazy.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has asked people to "use judgement" when lockdown restrictions are eased from Thursday.
Too confusing...
But no staying alert, right? Can't possibly have the same message as Westminster.
We are not in some 70's disco with John Travolta
We are really splitting hairs over "staying alert" vs "use judgement". They both mean the same thing.
Rob , as per other poster , HMG come out with some great guff, next day they start backtracking , different ones say different things, then they change things due to being unpopular so no-one has a clue what they intended. Sturgeon is crisp clear and gives the position , no-one comes out next day talking different bollox and things move along with one statement and one way to go. Their using different donkeys every day to give out the message is confusing , they have no Leader, he is usually AWOL and planning next holiday ( USA this time ). Sturgeon does it herself and gives her clear concise position, she shows she is the Leader and in full command of her brief..
Sturgeon quite rightly trusts no-one else, because behind her is a big useless void of talent in the SNP. Behind that, there's just a group of bigoted Little Scotlanders.
Another thick Tory trying to pretend the clowns in Westminster have anything other than space between their ears. Oh how we laughed.
He aims. He shoots. He misses again. Amazing how you think deflecting a point about the SNP onto Westminster somehow wins an argument. It might work with other bigoted Little Scotlanders, but it doesn't work outside the cult.
When Salmond was in charge, it was clear Sturgeon was the successor. With Sturgeon, there is no-one behind her. The cupboard is empty. Her SNP colleagues in Holyrood are talentless, clueless and useless.
The Scottish cabinet is useless. TBF, and I'm not a supporter of the SNP, the Johnson cabinet is worse. Not only are they all incompetent, but in too many cases including Johnson himself, deeply dishonest, and in a couple of case actually malevolent.
The SNP Holyrood cabinet make the Lib Dem frontbench look like a team of intellectual giants.
SNP have more talent in Westminster, which in itself is pretty telling.
Partially agree with your second point , there are several excellent talents at Westminster. Your first point again , joke of the century.
Over on twitter i see someone has responded to a Matt Hancock tweet with.
"Currently 91 likes for your tweet Matt. Or more accurately 182 if you use the number of eyes."
I suppose PB Tories would be happy with reporting 910 ie the 910 fingers that were potentially involved.
I hate this. I use purple nitrile gloves. They come in boxes of 100. Not pairs of 50. FFS
I read that the NHS count them singularly too, this isn't just a government wheeze.
As any fule who watches Holby City kno. Oh, hold on, that's the hated BBC. What about House? Was that Netflix? I've got the box set but on Youtube someone has kindly edited them down to five or 10 minutes each.
The highlight of those shows is whether or not gloves are listed in pairs or not on the boxes?
I might give them a miss.
When I buy a box of 100 gloves I immediately know it is 50 pairs and anybody pretending otherwise is doing a Tory.
So I have two gloves on in the lab, one gets damaged. Do I (a) remove both gloves and put two more on as they are obviously from a box of 50 pairs or (b) replace only the damaged glove from my box of 100 identical (i.e. not left and right handed) gloves?
Its not a difficult concept.
Well you would be a clatty get if you were fingering the box of gloves etc with your other contaminated , one of a pair , glove. Any health and safety conscious person would immediately bin the faulty/dirty pair , wash their hands and put on a clean pair. It is simple hygiene practice.
Unbelievable. Clearly you've never worked in a lab. You can tear a glove by accident before being near to any hazard. Not all gloves are for sterile, clinical settings. What is the counting practice in the marvellous Scottish Health Service?
Well we cannot all do jobs at the bottom end, someone needs to do the tough stuff. I have no connection with the NHS and so cannot comment on their practices other than to say the Scottish one beats the English one on every published statistic and so I assume they are better at glove usage also.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has asked people to "use judgement" when lockdown restrictions are eased from Thursday.
Too confusing...
But no staying alert, right? Can't possibly have the same message as Westminster.
We are not in some 70's disco with John Travolta
We are really splitting hairs over "staying alert" vs "use judgement". They both mean the same thing.
Rob , as per other poster , HMG come out with some great guff, next day they start backtracking , different ones say different things, then they change things due to being unpopular so no-one has a clue what they intended. Sturgeon is crisp clear and gives the position , no-one comes out next day talking different bollox and things move along with one statement and one way to go. Their using different donkeys every day to give out the message is confusing , they have no Leader, he is usually AWOL and planning next holiday ( USA this time ). Sturgeon does it herself and gives her clear concise position, she shows she is the Leader and in full command of her brief..
Sturgeon quite rightly trusts no-one else, because behind her is a big useless void of talent in the SNP. Behind that, there's just a group of bigoted Little Scotlanders.
Another thick Tory trying to pretend the clowns in Westminster have anything other than space between their ears. Oh how we laughed.
He aims. He shoots. He misses again. Amazing how you think deflecting a point about the SNP onto Westminster somehow wins an argument. It might work with other bigoted Little Scotlanders, but it doesn't work outside the cult.
When Salmond was in charge, it was clear Sturgeon was the successor. With Sturgeon, there is no-one behind her. The cupboard is empty. Her SNP colleagues in Holyrood are talentless, clueless and useless.
Keep up in the dunces chair, the point was re Westminster supposedly having more talent, a blatant lie and one you cannot substantiate. Your petulant teenager act with the "Little Scotlander " does you few favours, go annoy other pimply youths like yourself rather than talking shite to adults.
Patel says forget the week in Benidorm or Tuscany.
Patel is amongst the most authoritarian in the Cabinet so no surprise there, to be fair to her she also wanted travellers quarantined even before lockdown was announced but Boris overruled her
Well lockdown has reduced arrivals by 99% without the need for quarantine beyond what everyone else is doing, so the PM was onto something.
2 weeks quarantine coming back? Nah, thats for plebs.
Johnson will jump at opportunity to go AWOL for another 2 weeks. In fact perhaps that's Dom's cunning plan - send Boris abroad every 2 weeks and he can hide for months on end.
Boris being awol from the 5pm briefing spot that prior to his illness he used to regularly attend is little remarked upon. At least subconsciously in the public mind it acts to downgrade the crisis. As for Johnson it keeps him away from the critical press but is that always to his benefit? I suspect had he been attending and more switched on to sentiment perhaps he wouldn't have been outflanked by Starmer on NHS fees for foreign health workers.
One of them has a half competent cabinet, the other doesn't?
There are lies and there are lies, you cannot seriously be trying to say Westminster cabinet has any talent never mind more talent than the Scottish government. You would be laughed out of court with that whopper.
Which stars in the Scottish administration do you particularly admire?
I don't admire many , the new financial secretary looks promising mind you. I was more concerned that you thought there was anyone better at Westminster ( Sunak may have promise ) , which would be crazy.
Agree Sunak may be the best of a meagre front bench bunch in Westminster - I think a lot of SNP talent is also in Westminster (not that I like her much, but Cherry) and lost their seats (Robertson, head and shoulders above the Fat Crofter).
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has asked people to "use judgement" when lockdown restrictions are eased from Thursday.
Too confusing...
But no staying alert, right? Can't possibly have the same message as Westminster.
We are not in some 70's disco with John Travolta
We are really splitting hairs over "staying alert" vs "use judgement". They both mean the same thing.
Rob , as per other poster , HMG come out with some great guff, next day they start backtracking , different ones say different things, then they change things due to being unpopular so no-one has a clue what they intended. Sturgeon is crisp clear and gives the position , no-one comes out next day talking different bollox and things move along with one statement and one way to go. Their using different donkeys every day to give out the message is confusing , they have no Leader, he is usually AWOL and planning next holiday ( USA this time ). Sturgeon does it herself and gives her clear concise position, she shows she is the Leader and in full command of her brief..
Sturgeon quite rightly trusts no-one else, because behind her is a big useless void of talent in the SNP. Behind that, there's just a group of bigoted Little Scotlanders.
Another thick Tory trying to pretend the clowns in Westminster have anything other than space between their ears. Oh how we laughed.
He aims. He shoots. He misses again. Amazing how you think deflecting a point about the SNP onto Westminster somehow wins an argument. It might work with other bigoted Little Scotlanders, but it doesn't work outside the cult.
When Salmond was in charge, it was clear Sturgeon was the successor. With Sturgeon, there is no-one behind her. The cupboard is empty. Her SNP colleagues in Holyrood are talentless, clueless and useless.
Keep up in the dunces chair, the point was re Westminster supposedly having more talent, a blatant lie and one you cannot substantiate. Your petulant teenager act with the "Little Scotlander " does you few favours, go annoy other pimply youths like yourself rather than talking shite to adults.
Understand you are getting a bit doddery, but my point didn't mention Westminster. You just can't help yourself with your Little Scotlander act. You have to turn any mention of the SNP, on to Westminster. No-one is allowed to comment on Scotland, but you are free to make comment on England.
You are a caricature of all that is wrong with the grievance, bigoted element of the SNP.
Is that happening? Shame on those people. Patel speaks a lot more clearly than her boss, and doesn't talk any more bollocks than he does.
Cummings is a clear speaker?
I don't know what Cummings sounds like. I believe he's from the NE but went to private school so presumably just sounds like a standard issue posh twat rather than Ant or Dec?
Playing the race AND gender card simultaneously! Talk about your PC shield against scrutiny. Talk about closing down debate of difficult issues such as senior cabinet ministers of only a smidgen above average intelligence.
Over on twitter i see someone has responded to a Matt Hancock tweet with.
"Currently 91 likes for your tweet Matt. Or more accurately 182 if you use the number of eyes."
I suppose PB Tories would be happy with reporting 910 ie the 910 fingers that were potentially involved.
I hate this. I use purple nitrile gloves. They come in boxes of 100. Not pairs of 50. FFS
I read that the NHS count them singularly too, this isn't just a government wheeze.
As any fule who watches Holby City kno. Oh, hold on, that's the hated BBC. What about House? Was that Netflix? I've got the box set but on Youtube someone has kindly edited them down to five or 10 minutes each.
The highlight of those shows is whether or not gloves are listed in pairs or not on the boxes?
I might give them a miss.
When I buy a box of 100 gloves I immediately know it is 50 pairs and anybody pretending otherwise is doing a Tory.
So I have two gloves on in the lab, one gets damaged. Do I (a) remove both gloves and put two more on as they are obviously from a box of 50 pairs or (b) replace only the damaged glove from my box of 100 identical (i.e. not left and right handed) gloves?
Its not a difficult concept.
Well you would be a clatty get if you were fingering the box of gloves etc with your other contaminated , one of a pair , glove. Any health and safety conscious person would immediately bin the faulty/dirty pair , wash their hands and put on a clean pair. It is simple hygiene practice.
Unbelievable. Clearly you've never worked in a lab. You can tear a glove by accident before being near to any hazard. Not all gloves are for sterile, clinical settings. What is the counting practice in the marvellous Scottish Health Service?
Well we cannot all do jobs at the bottom end, someone needs to do the tough stuff. I have no connection with the NHS and so cannot comment on their practices other than to say the Scottish one beats the English one on every published statistic and so I assume they are better at glove usage also.
That is not true. It's true that Scotland has, since 2015, been top of the A&E waiting times charts. A number of cancer waiting time statistics lag behind England though. But of course in your unoverse the saintly Scots do everything better than the devillish English who spend all day plotting how to oppress you personally.
Comments
And someone needs to tell whoever's organising it to change the first half-dozen paragraphs in the Minister's speech. I'm certain that, apart from the numbers, they been the same for weeks. It's insulting.
I've got to the stage when I watch it with a pre-dinner drink in the forlorn hope that, as Mr U Says, there'll be a total car crash.
And I bet Witty didn't sign up for this. He's looking decreasingly comfortable each time I see him.
What I mean about it not being true is the assumption that hyperinflation is a consequence of excessive external liabilities.
Let's take recent ones: Zimbabwe (nope), Venezuela (the hyperinflation happened before the external liabilities), Brazil (not really), Argentina (yes most recently, but not really in the late 1970s when the country was running a large commodities export surplus).
The causes of hyperinflation are various: most of the countries to experience it had explicit government policies of import substitution and self-sufficiency, quiet a few had big external debts, almost all saw excessive producer protection, a lot saw a period of above average growth (perhaps due to an export boom) come to an end, and the government sought to pretend the good times would continue to roll...
But, and this is born out by reading histories like Taylor's excellent Downfall of Money about Germany's hyperinflation, I think in every case the government saw printing money as the path of least resistance at every turn.
And that is what I fear.
With the best estimates available at the moment, as a male in his late forties who's still rather overweight but without asthma, diabetes, or hypertension, let alone any more serious co-morbidities, my chances of death are probably only about 0.2% if I contract this. Out of the five in my household, I'm the most at risk.
However, the chances of none of us being hospitalised are 90% or so. That's a one in ten chance of at least one of us being so ill we're in hospital.
No thanks.
Hamza "trains" Yousaf bringing a "Hate Crime Bill" to you soon
Jeane Freeman: https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/5619962/jeane-freeman-hospital-patients-care-homes/
On the UK Cabinet (which has a fair proportion of dunderheads) I'd rate Gove and Sunak. Hancock has done ok.
Who do you see as Sturgeon's potential successors - or are they not in the administration?
“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Hello,
You’ve subscribed to get emails about Coronavirus (COVID-19).
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Would it have been too much trouble to mention whether the "difference in number" would be up or down, and by how much? And the "type of updates"? And why not use my name since they have it? Sometimes I despair of this government's communications.
The problem is that we've hit upon the wrong solution. Instead of encouraging people not to borrow too much, we've promised them that we'll bail them out through inflation, and implied that no level of debt is too much.
You righties and your hilarious metaphors that don't reflect your actual impulses in the slightest!
Amazin.
Would it be ending QE this calendar year?
A substantial tax rise in 2022 - e.g. NI for oldies or restricting pension relief to the basic rate?
A totemic cut to spending of some sort no later than 2022 - e.g. HS2, or shrinking the university sector, or freezing public sector pay?
Would it be reversing some of our QE by buying the debt back from the BoE?
What's the difficult thing we can do that won't completely screw us in other ways?
Ha. What's the least difficult, difficult thing to do?
No exemption means no F1 British GP.
https://twitter.com/pressjournal/status/1263095909090422784?s=20
https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1263744927638466570
...If SSE predictors cannot be identified, then every infectious individual has the opportunity to cause a SSE if exposed to sizable susceptible populations. Therefore, it is crucial to understand types of hotspots and patterns of transmission for each type, as interventions might have to focus on all hotspots at high risk for SSEs and limiting gatherings at these places, and/or through rapid-and-extensive testing and contact tracing (both traditional and digital) to identify pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people. Contact tracing efforts should have an explicit goal to understand types of transmission and hotspots, so that the characterization of transmission could be used to adapt and prioritize other recommendations such as masks and mass gatherings. Further, it thus remains important to be cautious in reopening populations undergoing cordons sanitaires until transmission routes in different types of hotspots are well understood, or when safe and effective COVID-19 treatments and vaccines are available....
https://twitter.com/thomasknox/status/1263865533096656899?s=20
Tech unlike potatoes and houses actually improves quickly so unlike a house or potato where you compare the price now to another time for the same item with Tech you will be comparing two different products. So the relevant comparison is the cost of a non-smart phone then to a smart phone now.
Because once we got smart phones you were never going to go and buy the non-smart phone even though it is cheaper so there is no point in waiting for the price to come down.
I think I have just confused myself, so I will stop now.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1263862758111678465?s=20
Trump’s going to win again, isn’t he?
Pretty cutting, anyhow.
Send them home I'd hope.
Name and shame!
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1263870458727936000?s=20
On this "what about people who hasn't got somewhere to stay" it's astonishingly simple. They should be denied entry. The muppets are offering to accommodate them - looking forward to the "quarantine hell" stories....
Nothing more seductive than having your bubble burst by somebody kind and alluring.
https://twitter.com/DominicRaab/status/1263862583154683906?s=20
https://twitter.com/realcandaceo/status/1263836836293738502?s=21
You are a caricature of all that is wrong with the grievance, bigoted element of the SNP.
As Samuel Johnson observed, "There is little point to settling the precedence between a louse and a flea"...