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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » How Bernie Sanders complicates the betting on November’s US Senate elections

The other really big election taking place in the United States on November 2nd is for the US Senate where currently the Republicans have 53 of the 100 seats. If indeed Trump is ousted on that day the Democratic victory will only be really meaningful if the party takes the Senate as well. This is going to be far from easy.

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MarqueeMark

Who got in ahead of me then?

eristdoof

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

kle4

We're still talking about Bernie?!

kle4

OldKingCole said:

kle4 said:

nichomar said:

kle4 said:

I see Parliament continues to fall to bits. Perhaps as the cash will be thrown around they will stop dragging their feet and fully authorise the spend to begin proper renovations.

But it feels like itll burn down before that happens

Sooner the better then we can have a proper legislative home fit for the modern world

It's a historical site worthy of restoration even if it's not used for a legislature. We wont bulldoze salisbury cathedral because church attendances are decreasing, and these days at least we dont destroy old sites just because they are not used . In fact it is not permitted to let such things run down deliberately

Westminster Hall is a ' historical site worthy of restoration' unquestionably, and there's a lot to be said for the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben, but the rest is Victorian Gothic and if it's unsafe......

Hence the need to restore it. And is 19th century not historical anymore? It's a world heritage site, I cannot believe because people hate it they think that means it can just be let to fall down. You arent allowed to neglect an old winter garden under the rules, and if you do they dont let you knock it down under the law.

It simply isnt a solution to the issue of restoration cost to talk about moving parliament- the building would need a lot of work regardless.

Philip_Thompson

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

kle4

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

What's going on with their filibuster rules - weren't there various votes that for some reason they need 60 votes to pass?

Philip_Thompson

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Volume rather than area is a tricky one. Is that with some of those homes floating in midair above other homes?

eristdoof

NerysHughes said:

Chris said:

NerysHughes said:

rottenborough said:

Ex-head of CDC:


"There is currently little concrete evidence that Covid-19 is a seasonal illness."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/second-wave-unhelpful-concept-top-infectious-disease-expert/

The fact that Arizona,( where the average daily maximum temperature is well over 40 degrees C) is really suffering now shows this.

Are people really stupid enough to believe that a virus spreading in the Summer shows that its transmissibility doesn't have any seasonal variation?

I am yes, flu, which is a virus dies out in the summer. This virus continues to spread with great effect even in the hottest climates.

Ah that old it must be black or it must be white problem
It's not a case of spreads or doesn't spread in summer.

Philip_Thompson

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

What's going on with their filibuster rules - weren't there various votes that for some reason they need 60 votes to pass?

It take a simple majority to change filibuster rules but neither party were prepared to do that (regarded as the nuclear option) but I believe the GOP have done it recently to prevent Democrats filibustering judicial appointments so the Democrats should return the favour to ensure those two extra States are admitted.

eristdoof

Philip_Thompson said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Volume rather than area is a tricky one. Is that with some of those homes floating in midair above other homes?

Yes, but they don't need to be floating, just built on top of one another.

TOPPING

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Is that true? Jeez how big is the Grand Canyon?? Well of course you have just told me but well I never!!

Sandpit

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Companies and politicians play around with the use of units all the time, it can make big things seem very small and small things very big.

Possibly the worst example was a mobile phone data roaming contract that was £10 for a gigabyte bought up front, and “only 1p per kilobyte” otherwise. 1p per kilobyte is £10,000 per gigabyte, and was the reason for all the massive and unexpected phone bills reported a few years ago.

RobD

Philip_Thompson said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

What's going on with their filibuster rules - weren't there various votes that for some reason they need 60 votes to pass?

It take a simple majority to change filibuster rules but neither party were prepared to do that (regarded as the nuclear option) but I believe the GOP have done it recently to prevent Democrats filibustering judicial appointments so the Democrats should return the favour to ensure those two extra States are admitted.

You have that the wrong way around. It was the Democrats that removed the filibuster in 2013 for all appointments apart from the supreme court.

StuartDickson

Shame political betting is dominated by US politics. I find the whole scene depressing and dull as ditchwater. When are we going to get a juicy market on the outcome of the Highland Council election in May?

Philip_Thompson

eristdoof said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Volume rather than area is a tricky one. Is that with some of those homes floating in midair above other homes?

Yes, but they don't need to be floating, just built on top of one another.

Tricky but not impossible if they're all detached . . .

eristdoof

TOPPING said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Is that true? Jeez how big is the Grand Canyon?? Well of course you have just told me but well I never!!

Yes it is huge, it's 4.17 trillion cubic meters. That figure is so huge I sought a second source for the volume.

Philip_Thompson

RobD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

What's going on with their filibuster rules - weren't there various votes that for some reason they need 60 votes to pass?

It take a simple majority to change filibuster rules but neither party were prepared to do that (regarded as the nuclear option) but I believe the GOP have done it recently to prevent Democrats filibustering judicial appointments so the Democrats should return the favour to ensure those two extra States are admitted.

You have that the wrong way around. It was the Democrats that removed the filibuster in 2013 for all appointments apart from the supreme court.

Thanks. So then lets change what I wrote, they have precedence for changing it once before so can change it once again to ensure those two states are admitted.

Big_G_NorthWales

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

eristdoof

Philip_Thompson said:

eristdoof said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Volume rather than area is a tricky one. Is that with some of those homes floating in midair above other homes?

Yes, but they don't need to be floating, just built on top of one another.

Tricky but not impossible if they're all detached . . .

Ah, yes I get you. I was using detached to describe the size, as british people don't use floor area for house sizes.

Sandpit

eristdoof said:

TOPPING said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Is that true? Jeez how big is the Grand Canyon?? Well of course you have just told me but well I never!!

Yes it is huge, it's 4.17 trillion cubic meters. That figure is so huge I sought a second source for the volume.

It’s the depth that does it. It’s twice as deep on average (1,600m, one mile), as the world’s tallest building is tall (828m). A building inside it would be nearly 400 floors high.

TOPPING

eristdoof said:

TOPPING said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Is that true? Jeez how big is the Grand Canyon?? Well of course you have just told me but well I never!!

Yes it is huge, it's 4.17 trillion cubic meters. That figure is so huge I sought a second source for the volume.

Wow!

Philip_Thompson

If Puerto Rico and New Columbia were added then it would be much trickier for the GOP to regain the Senate in the midterms. Though I'm not sure if new States get both new Senators immediately or at the next election, or one at a time at the following elections?

Considering both Puerto Rico and DC have voted to be admitted as States in recent years I see no reason the Democrats shouldn't ensure they are as soon as they regain the trifecta of the House, Senate and Oval Office.

eristdoof

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Stuartinromford

Sandpit said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Companies and politicians play around with the use of units all the time, it can make big things seem very small and small things very big.

Possibly the worst example was a mobile phone data roaming contract that was £10 for a gigabyte bought up front, and “only 1p per kilobyte” otherwise. 1p per kilobyte is £10,000 per gigabyte, and was the reason for all the massive and unexpected phone bills reported a few years ago.

Part of my older child's home schooling has been reading "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. That was written in 1954, and not much has changed since then.

Philip_Thompson

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Last published 7 days, which is for about 2-3 weeks ago.

So excess deaths ended 3-4 weeks ago.

TheWhiteRabbit

StuartDickson said:

Shame political betting is dominated by US politics. I find the whole scene depressing and dull as ditchwater. When are we going to get a juicy market on the outcome of the Highland Council election in May?

Joke aside, I would like to see BF offer more on other national elections. They're very patchy when it comes to markets other than "winner", ven when talkign about Spain, France or Italy...

StuartDickson

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

tlg86

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Big_G_NorthWales

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

http://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-deaths-in-england-and-wales-over-one-week-fall-below-five-year-average-for-first-time-since-march-12017890

TheWhiteRabbit

Stuartinromford said:

Sandpit said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Companies and politicians play around with the use of units all the time, it can make big things seem very small and small things very big.

Possibly the worst example was a mobile phone data roaming contract that was £10 for a gigabyte bought up front, and “only 1p per kilobyte” otherwise. 1p per kilobyte is £10,000 per gigabyte, and was the reason for all the massive and unexpected phone bills reported a few years ago.

Part of my older child's home schooling has been reading "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. That was written in 1954, and not much has changed since then.

Every time Colgate STILL talks about dentists using it, I smile and think of that book.

Philip_Thompson

StuartDickson said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

What narrative?

Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?

Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.

eristdoof

Sandpit said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Companies and politicians play around with the use of units all the time, it can make big things seem very small and small things very big.

Possibly the worst example was a mobile phone data roaming contract that was £10 for a gigabyte bought up front, and “only 1p per kilobyte” otherwise. 1p per kilobyte is £10,000 per gigabyte, and was the reason for all the massive and unexpected phone bills reported a few years ago.

Part of my older child's home schooling has been reading "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. That was written in 1954, and not much has changed since then.

That is an excellent book, and yes it is scary how little it has dated, when you consider how different things were then compared to now.

I like the end of the introduction. People objected to a book called "How to pick a lock and muffle a footfall" being published, 'the crooks already now these tricks, honest men must learn them.'

Peter_the_Punter

Stuartinromford said:

Sandpit said:

eristdoof said:

Stuartinromford said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

For anyone who doesn't believe me that £5bn is sod all, it's a grand total of 7% of HS2.

Even if we ignore the spiralling cost of HS2, it's still an extraordinarily small amount of money to make a big speech about. Presumably it sounds large and is a vote winner.

The trick with all government numbers is to convert them to per person; I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here something they don't know!

So it's about £100 per head. So it's a moderately nice flatpack wardrobe per person.

Wasn't the ONE MILLION POUNDS thing fatally skewered by the first Austin Powers movie?

Another trick is to give yearly costs as per day, If you want to make it even lower quote it as per person per day.

You can do it the other way round of course. "One coffee a day from Costanero costs over 1000 pounds a year".

My favourite example of playing about with the perception of statistics is lengths make things sound big volumes make things sound small.

If you put every person on earth head to foot you would get to the moon and back over 17 times.

Everyone can on earth fit very easily into the grand canyon, with plenty of living space roughly one large detached house for every person.

Companies and politicians play around with the use of units all the time, it can make big things seem very small and small things very big.

Possibly the worst example was a mobile phone data roaming contract that was £10 for a gigabyte bought up front, and “only 1p per kilobyte” otherwise. 1p per kilobyte is £10,000 per gigabyte, and was the reason for all the massive and unexpected phone bills reported a few years ago.

Part of my older child's home schooling has been reading "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. That was written in 1954, and not much has changed since then.

How gratifying! I read that as an undergraduate in 1969.

Stuartinromford

Philip_Thompson said:

StuartDickson said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

What narrative?

Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?

Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.

Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.

The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.

kjh

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

There is potentially an issue with excess deaths measure in that it is (I believe) based upon a 5 year average. It would be interesting to know the spread that makes up that average. If for instance this year does not have a bad flu epidemic (excluding Covid 19 obviously), or a heat wave then should we be comparing it to the average or the lower figure (or of course if the opposite happens the higher figure). A graph of deaths by day with multiple years shown with notes against spikes (eg a disaster like a plane crash) or troughs would be interesting.

nichomar

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Requires clarifications for example ‘at the moment’ and also we need to recognize there has been three months of excessive premature deaths that will take a while to unwind. It’s stil good progress but not an excuse to drop all precautions.

eristdoof

tlg86 said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Yes those are weekly excess deaths, not 2020 excess deaths.

Philip_Thompson

Stuartinromford said:

Philip_Thompson said:

StuartDickson said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

What narrative?

Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?

Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.

Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.

The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.

Scotland shouldn't be compared to England it should be compared to a region of England as that is comparing like-for-like in population areas.

Many regions of England are at or near zero COVID deaths.

MrEd

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I am sure they will try that with those two states which is why the Republicans will fight tooth and nail to keep the Senate. Personally I think they will (just) do it.

Sandpit

Stuartinromford said:

Philip_Thompson said:

StuartDickson said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

What narrative?

Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?

Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.

Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.

The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.

Large parts of England are pretty much there already. It’s the misuse of statistics to add to the “England bad, Scotland good“ narrative that a certain section of the media is trying to use to bash the UK government.

Scott_xP

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1277897550956199936

TheWhiteRabbit

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

There is potentially an issue with excess deaths measure in that it is (I believe) based upon a 5 year average. It would be interesting to know the spread that makes up that average. If for instance this year does not have a bad flu epidemic (excluding Covid 19 obviously), or a heat wave then should we be comparing it to the average or the lower figure (or of course if the opposite happens the higher figure). A graph of deaths by day with multiple years shown with notes against spikes (eg a disaster like a plane crash) or troughs would be interesting.

hi KJH

I don't have time to point you in the figures, but they are quite noisy in individual years - not for plane crashes, just generally. I think June is less noisy than winters, though.

DavidL

eristdoof said:

tlg86 said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Yes those are weekly excess deaths, not 2020 excess deaths.

It would be moderately astonishing if 2020 does not have excess deaths overall but I do wonder if there is going to be some propensity to claw back some of the excess over the next few months.

Many of the Covid deaths were accelerated by a matter of months and there are probably fewer seriously ill people now than average. We are also being a lot more careful about hygiene, and will be even more so if we accept masks. Social distancing will not just stop Covid but a variety of other bugs that carry people off in winter. I really wouldn't be too surprised if we recover a few tens of thousands by the end of December (assuming that there is no second wave of course).

logical_song

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

DavidL

Sandpit said:

Stuartinromford said:

Philip_Thompson said:

StuartDickson said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

What narrative?

Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?

Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.

Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.

The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.

Large parts of England are pretty much there already. It’s the misuse of statistics to add to the “England bad, Scotland good“ narrative that a certain section of the media is trying to use to bash the UK government.

And I can't help but note that England gets far more international travellers increasing the risk of further outbreaks. Our attitude to quarantine throughout this crisis continues to bewilder me.

RandomUser

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

eek

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

New Columbia is the suggested name for the State that would contain (and be) Washington DC

kjh

nichomar said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Requires clarifications for example ‘at the moment’ and also we need to recognize there has been three months of excessive premature deaths that will take a while to unwind. It’s stil good progress but not an excuse to drop all precautions.

The overall excess deaths will take years to unwind. This was looked at on 'More or Less' last week (I ought to get commission for the amount of promotion I do for them).

The theory that the vast majority of those who have died would have popped their clogs in a few months time anyway is false. An 80 year old, obese man with heart disease apparently has a life expectancy of 5 years.

Philip_Thompson

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

I'd have thought that would require an Amendment (surely impossible in this climate) whereas admission of a new State can be done by simple majority.

Though if New Columbia were admitted as a state as proposed (with the district defined in the Constitution redrawn to just basically Congress and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) then I wonder what would happen with the 23rd Amendment as it would be rendered moot.

tlg86

eristdoof said:

tlg86 said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Yes those are weekly excess deaths, not 2020 excess deaths.

It would pretty remarkable for 2020 to have anything other than significant excess deaths!

TheWhiteRabbit

eek said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

New Columbia is the suggested name for the State that would contain (and be) Washington DC

Presumably, to make it sound as much as possible like BioShock.

noneoftheabove

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1277897550956199936

What would be more interesting is % of initially furloughed who are already back at work. Although the way the furlough forms are filled in probably means the govt doesnt have accurate real time info on this, and may be a month or two behind. Anecdotally it seems quite high, maybe even over half?

eek

Philip_Thompson said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

I'd have thought that would require an Amendment (surely impossible in this climate) whereas admission of a new State can be done by simple majority.

Though if New Columbia were admitted as a state as proposed (with the district defined in the Constitution redrawn to just basically Congress and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) then I wonder what would happen with the 23rd Amendment as it would be rendered moot.

It could be kept in place for anyone that lived in the area that is covered by the vastly reduced area (from my quick visit last year I'm sure there must be a few people who would be caught regardless of how gerrymandered the changes were.

Interestingly New Columbia wouldn't be the smallest state by population - that would remain Wyoming (CD has 705,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000).

Philip_Thompson

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

I'd have thought that would require an Amendment (surely impossible in this climate) whereas admission of a new State can be done by simple majority.

Though if New Columbia were admitted as a state as proposed (with the district defined in the Constitution redrawn to just basically Congress and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) then I wonder what would happen with the 23rd Amendment as it would be rendered moot.

It could be kept in place for anyone that lived in the area that is covered by the vastly reduced area (from my quick visit last year I'm sure there must be a few people who would be caught regardless of how gerrymandered the changes were.

Interestingly New Columbia wouldn't be the smallest state by population - that would remain Wyoming (CD has 705,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000).

I think the proposal is that all residents would be in New Columbia and the only person living in the redefined District would be POTUS and their household.

It would be like defining Greater London as being the whole of Greater London except the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street.

DavidL

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1277897550956199936

I'd like to think that Laura is not really "astonished" by these numbers and actually knew them. But you never know.

Peter_the_Punter

RandomUser said:

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

Can you enlighten me on Smarkets, please.

I signed up when they first started but was horrified at their manifest incompetence. They didn't understand even the bascis of betting, so I pulled my cash out pdq. I recall that Guido Fawkes was somehow involved, which might have explained a thing or two. They have however been completely off my radar ever since, and I am surprised they are still going. I assume they must have recruited some proper staff aince their early days.

Evidently some people here do use them. What's the score?

Sandpit

TheWhiteRabbit said:

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

There is potentially an issue with excess deaths measure in that it is (I believe) based upon a 5 year average. It would be interesting to know the spread that makes up that average. If for instance this year does not have a bad flu epidemic (excluding Covid 19 obviously), or a heat wave then should we be comparing it to the average or the lower figure (or of course if the opposite happens the higher figure). A graph of deaths by day with multiple years shown with notes against spikes (eg a disaster like a plane crash) or troughs would be interesting.

hi KJH

I don't have time to point you in the figures, but they are quite noisy in individual years - not for plane crashes, just generally. I think June is less noisy than winters, though.

The number of passengers killed in commercial plane crashes in the U.K. in the past 20 years - zero.

There have been a couple of cargo planes crash, and we lose a few each year in general aviation and military accidents. The most serious accident was the Shoreham airshow crash which killed 11 on the ground.

Around 1,500 die each year in road traffic accidents.

Scott_xP

DavidL said:

I'd like to think that Laura is not really "astonished" by these numbers and actually knew them. But you never know.

They have only just been published, so I would be quite surprised if she knew them already

eek

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

I'd have thought that would require an Amendment (surely impossible in this climate) whereas admission of a new State can be done by simple majority.

Though if New Columbia were admitted as a state as proposed (with the district defined in the Constitution redrawn to just basically Congress and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) then I wonder what would happen with the 23rd Amendment as it would be rendered moot.

It could be kept in place for anyone that lived in the area that is covered by the vastly reduced area (from my quick visit last year I'm sure there must be a few people who would be caught regardless of how gerrymandered the changes were.

Interestingly New Columbia wouldn't be the smallest state by population - that would remain Wyoming (CD has 705,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000).

I think the proposal is that all residents would be in New Columbia and the only person living in the redefined District would be POTUS and their household.

It would be like defining Greater London as being the whole of Greater London except the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street.

Even then the POTUS and their household would still need to be entitled to vote somewhere - it's less hassle to just change the boundary and keep the amendment in place.

Scott_xP

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1277901185781907456

Pro_Rata

kjh said:

nichomar said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Requires clarifications for example ‘at the moment’ and also we need to recognize there has been three months of excessive premature deaths that will take a while to unwind. It’s stil good progress but not an excuse to drop all precautions.

The overall excess deaths will take years to unwind. This was looked at on 'More or Less' last week (I ought to get commission for the amount of promotion I do for them).

The theory that the vast majority of those who have died would have popped their clogs in a few months time anyway is false. An 80 year old, obese man with heart disease apparently has a life expectancy of 5 years.

There's two things here. That those who have died cannot die again and that the baseline for the 5 year rolling average of expected deaths will be higher next spring, and possibly next autumn as well.

DavidL

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

In the 1840s and 50s there was a careful compromise by which the admission of a "free" state was balanced by the admission of a slave state maintaining the balance under the Douglas Clay compromise. The problem I see with these admissions is that they all favour the Democrats and are likely to do so for the foreseeable. This is going to make Republicans highly resistant to them. This is one of the reasons they are not admitted already of course. I don't think a small majority in the Senate is going to be enough to change this.

Peter_the_Punter

Sandpit said:

TheWhiteRabbit said:

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

There is potentially an issue with excess deaths measure in that it is (I believe) based upon a 5 year average. It would be interesting to know the spread that makes up that average. If for instance this year does not have a bad flu epidemic (excluding Covid 19 obviously), or a heat wave then should we be comparing it to the average or the lower figure (or of course if the opposite happens the higher figure). A graph of deaths by day with multiple years shown with notes against spikes (eg a disaster like a plane crash) or troughs would be interesting.

hi KJH

I don't have time to point you in the figures, but they are quite noisy in individual years - not for plane crashes, just generally. I think June is less noisy than winters, though.

The number of passengers killed in commercial plane crashes in the U.K. in the past 20 years - zero.

There have been a couple of cargo planes crash, and we lose a few each year in general aviation and military accidents. The most serious accident was the Shoreham airshow crash which killed 11 on the ground.

Around 1,500 die each year in road traffic accidents.

That is likely to be appreciately lower this year.

For some reason it is difficult to get hold of accurate contemporary figures. One that I still find jaw-dropping which I learned from the speed awareness courses I attend every few years is that deaths peaked in 1966 (around 6,000 I think) which is the year I passed my test.

The two facts are not necessarily related.

MikeSmithson

Peter_the_Punter said:

RandomUser said:

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

Can you enlighten me on Smarkets, please.

I signed up when they first started but was horrified at their manifest incompetence. They didn't understand even the bascis of betting, so I pulled my cash out pdq. I recall that Guido Fawkes was somehow involved, which might have explained a thing or two. They have however been completely off my radar ever since, and I am surprised they are still going. I assume they must have recruited some proper staff aince their early days.

Evidently some people here do use them. What's the score?

Dead right. I signed up for Smarkets when it first came in and their approach to handling customers and interpreting bets meant that I have completely discarded them since. They keep on contacting me and asking why don't I feature them but I ignore.

Sandpit

DavidL said:

Sandpit said:

Stuartinromford said:

Philip_Thompson said:

StuartDickson said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1277881558930776065

That narrative has been accepted in Scotland for weeks now, but it is only just beginning to be widely understood in England. Tory backbenchers are not going to be happy bunnies come the autumn.

What narrative?

Excess deaths have ended and besides Leicester we're coming out of lockdown and getting on with things. How does that fit your narrative?

Really stupid cartoon to be running on the day excess deaths figures are reported (from weeks ago) as being negative.

Difference is that Scotland really is at nearly zero deaths from Covid.

The English update is good news, but it's not zero Covid deaths; it's the number of Covid deaths is less than the variability in the baseline. England is getting there, but noticeably more slowly than many of our neighbours.

Large parts of England are pretty much there already. It’s the misuse of statistics to add to the “England bad, Scotland good“ narrative that a certain section of the media is trying to use to bash the UK government.

And I can't help but note that England gets far more international travellers increasing the risk of further outbreaks. Our attitude to quarantine throughout this crisis continues to bewilder me.

There will be an interesting discussion if England opens up to tourists in July and August but Scotland doesn’t.

I don’t get the international travel angle at all, it’s as if the government have bowed to media pressure to let millions of people spend their money abroad this summer rather than at home, then potentially come back with a nasty virus to spread around some more (in addition to the usual bout of nasty viruses they bring back anyway!). Let people who really need to travel for family or business reasons, travel and quarantine or travel and test.

RobD

Scott_xP said:

DavidL said:

I'd like to think that Laura is not really "astonished" by these numbers and actually knew them. But you never know.

They have only just been published, so I would be quite surprised if she knew them already

The scale of the scheme has been known for quite some time:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52883453

Nigelb

DavidL said:

eristdoof said:

tlg86 said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Yes those are weekly excess deaths, not 2020 excess deaths.

It would be moderately astonishing if 2020 does not have excess deaths overall but I do wonder if there is going to be some propensity to claw back some of the excess over the next few months.

Many of the Covid deaths were accelerated by a matter of months and there are probably fewer seriously ill people now than average. We are also being a lot more careful about hygiene, and will be even more so if we accept masks. Social distancing will not just stop Covid but a variety of other bugs that carry people off in winter. I really wouldn't be too surprised if we recover a few tens of thousands by the end of December (assuming that there is no second wave of course).

I am (FWIW) slightly pessimistic on that last point.
Mask wearing does not seem to have been particularly widely adopted, and when the rules are relaxed, many people's caution seems to go out of the window too.
On the other hand, we do have a much improved testing regime, and better capacity for targeted interventions.

I'm not betting on a second wave, but I'm not betting against, either.

kinabalu

"If indeed Trump is ousted on that day the Democratic victory will only be really meaningful if the party takes the Senate as well."

Do not agree with this for obvious reasons. America might be stuck in the cubicle with Trump gone and a split Congress but its head will no longer be dunked in the toilet bowl.

Peter_the_Punter

MikeSmithson said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

RandomUser said:

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

Can you enlighten me on Smarkets, please.

I signed up when they first started but was horrified at their manifest incompetence. They didn't understand even the bascis of betting, so I pulled my cash out pdq. I recall that Guido Fawkes was somehow involved, which might have explained a thing or two. They have however been completely off my radar ever since, and I am surprised they are still going. I assume they must have recruited some proper staff aince their early days.

Evidently some people here do use them. What's the score?

Dead right. I signed up for Smarkets when it first came in and their approach to handling customers and interpreting bets meant that I have completely discarded them since. They keep on contacting me and asking why don't I feature them but I ignore.

Noted with thanks, Mike,

Philip_Thompson

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

I'd have thought that would require an Amendment (surely impossible in this climate) whereas admission of a new State can be done by simple majority.

Though if New Columbia were admitted as a state as proposed (with the district defined in the Constitution redrawn to just basically Congress and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) then I wonder what would happen with the 23rd Amendment as it would be rendered moot.

It could be kept in place for anyone that lived in the area that is covered by the vastly reduced area (from my quick visit last year I'm sure there must be a few people who would be caught regardless of how gerrymandered the changes were.

Interestingly New Columbia wouldn't be the smallest state by population - that would remain Wyoming (CD has 705,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000).

I think the proposal is that all residents would be in New Columbia and the only person living in the redefined District would be POTUS and their household.

It would be like defining Greater London as being the whole of Greater London except the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street.

Even then the POTUS and their household would still need to be entitled to vote somewhere - it's less hassle to just change the boundary and keep the amendment in place.

I believe POTUS and their household vote in their home State and not from Pennsylvania Avenue anyway.

Though if they were able to vote via the 23rd Amendment as the sole voters there then that'd be the worst kind of rotten borough and be a guaranteed 3 electoral college votes for whomever the sitting President voted for.

The 23rd amendment needs to be voided or repealed if New Columbia is admitted.

DavidL

Answering my own question to a degree, if the new State of New Columbia carved out the suburbs of Pennsylvania that are starting to turn that State blue making it a more reliably red state that just might be more sellable. Something similar might be possible with Virginia.

tlg86

Nigelb said:

DavidL said:

eristdoof said:

tlg86 said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Yes those are weekly excess deaths, not 2020 excess deaths.

It would be moderately astonishing if 2020 does not have excess deaths overall but I do wonder if there is going to be some propensity to claw back some of the excess over the next few months.

Many of the Covid deaths were accelerated by a matter of months and there are probably fewer seriously ill people now than average. We are also being a lot more careful about hygiene, and will be even more so if we accept masks. Social distancing will not just stop Covid but a variety of other bugs that carry people off in winter. I really wouldn't be too surprised if we recover a few tens of thousands by the end of December (assuming that there is no second wave of course).

I am (FWIW) slightly pessimistic on that last point.
Mask wearing does not seem to have been particularly widely adopted, and when the rules are relaxed, many people's caution seems to go out of the window too.
On the other hand, we do have a much improved testing regime, and better capacity for targeted interventions.

I'm not betting on a second wave, but I'm not betting against, either.

If we stay like this through the winter of 2020-21, the incidence of coughs and colds will be massively down. I don't know what that will do to deaths, but it might have an effect.

However, we might find some other nasty side effects creeping up on us shortly. I understand that cancer diagnoses are down a lot compared with normal.

turbotubbs

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Of course it's week for week, not for the year. For those who believe covid has merely removed those who would shortly have died anyway, the expectation would be that yearly excess death will trend to zero as we go through 2020. For clarity, I don't share this view...

Philip_Thompson

DavidL said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

In the 1840s and 50s there was a careful compromise by which the admission of a "free" state was balanced by the admission of a slave state maintaining the balance under the Douglas Clay compromise. The problem I see with these admissions is that they all favour the Democrats and are likely to do so for the foreseeable. This is going to make Republicans highly resistant to them. This is one of the reasons they are not admitted already of course. I don't think a small majority in the Senate is going to be enough to change this.

I don't think that the Republicans fearing the proposed States will vote for the Democrats is a sufficient reason to deny Statehood to those that deserve it.

Plus given the total war nature of American politics now it doesn't seem like a good reason for the Democrats to refuse to admit them if it is essentially their choice that they can make with a simple majority.

CorrectHorseBattery

https://twitter.com/STVKathryn/status/1277901704470638592

Jesus.

DavidL

Scott_xP said:

DavidL said:

I'd like to think that Laura is not really "astonished" by these numbers and actually knew them. But you never know.

They have only just been published, so I would be quite surprised if she knew them already

The furlough numbers are not new. There have been regular updates on these and the current numbers are just a continuation of that. The scale is remarkable but we already knew how much they had contributed to the deficits in April and May.

OnlyLivingBoy

DavidL said:

Answering my own question to a degree, if the new State of New Columbia carved out the suburbs of Pennsylvania that are starting to turn that State blue making it a more reliably red state that just might be more sellable. Something similar might be possible with Virginia.

DC doesn't border Pennsylvania, its only borders are with Maryland and Virginia. Maryland is a reliable blue state, and Virginia is becoming so. In any case I suspect changing State boundaries is a non-starter.

Nigelb

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

I'd have thought that would require an Amendment (surely impossible in this climate) whereas admission of a new State can be done by simple majority.

Though if New Columbia were admitted as a state as proposed (with the district defined in the Constitution redrawn to just basically Congress and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) then I wonder what would happen with the 23rd Amendment as it would be rendered moot.

It could be kept in place for anyone that lived in the area that is covered by the vastly reduced area (from my quick visit last year I'm sure there must be a few people who would be caught regardless of how gerrymandered the changes were.

Interestingly New Columbia wouldn't be the smallest state by population - that would remain Wyoming (CD has 705,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000).

And perhaps more to the point, by taxation it ranks far higher up the list:
In the financial year 2012, D.C. residents and businesses paid $20.7 billion in federal taxes; more than the taxes collected from 19 states and the highest federal taxes per capita...

Sandpit

Peter_the_Punter said:

Sandpit said:

TheWhiteRabbit said:

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

There is potentially an issue with excess deaths measure in that it is (I believe) based upon a 5 year average. It would be interesting to know the spread that makes up that average. If for instance this year does not have a bad flu epidemic (excluding Covid 19 obviously), or a heat wave then should we be comparing it to the average or the lower figure (or of course if the opposite happens the higher figure). A graph of deaths by day with multiple years shown with notes against spikes (eg a disaster like a plane crash) or troughs would be interesting.

hi KJH

I don't have time to point you in the figures, but they are quite noisy in individual years - not for plane crashes, just generally. I think June is less noisy than winters, though.

The number of passengers killed in commercial plane crashes in the U.K. in the past 20 years - zero.

There have been a couple of cargo planes crash, and we lose a few each year in general aviation and military accidents. The most serious accident was the Shoreham airshow crash which killed 11 on the ground.

Around 1,500 die each year in road traffic accidents.

That is likely to be appreciately lower this year.

For some reason it is difficult to get hold of accurate contemporary figures. One that I still find jaw-dropping which I learned from the speed awareness courses I attend every few years is that deaths peaked in 1966 (around 6,000 I think) which is the year I passed my test.

The two facts are not necessarily related.

Yes, this years death stats are going to look rather weird, with anomalies all over the place. Traffic accidents, industrial accidents, murders and even regular flu are likely down, against which suicides and deaths from untreated disease are likely up.

The trend in both motor vehicle and commercial plane accident deaths has been on a downward trend worldwide for decades, even as the use of such transport has grown exponentially. The result of a combination of vehicle technology, education, planning and medical advancement.

OnlyLivingBoy

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/STVKathryn/status/1277901704470638592

Jesus.

He really thinks the public are idiots.
Maybe he's right.
Isn't he about to announce new spending worth (puts finger to lips in style of Dr Evil) a quarter of one percent of GDP?

rottenborough

OnlyLivingBoy said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/STVKathryn/status/1277901704470638592

Jesus.

He really thinks the public are idiots.
Maybe he's right.
Isn't he about to announce new spending worth (puts finger to lips in style of Dr Evil) a quarter of one percent of GDP?

"Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit" ?

DavidL

Philip_Thompson said:

DavidL said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

In the 1840s and 50s there was a careful compromise by which the admission of a "free" state was balanced by the admission of a slave state maintaining the balance under the Douglas Clay compromise. The problem I see with these admissions is that they all favour the Democrats and are likely to do so for the foreseeable. This is going to make Republicans highly resistant to them. This is one of the reasons they are not admitted already of course. I don't think a small majority in the Senate is going to be enough to change this.

I don't think that the Republicans fearing the proposed States will vote for the Democrats is a sufficient reason to deny Statehood to those that deserve it.

Plus given the total war nature of American politics now it doesn't seem like a good reason for the Democrats to refuse to admit them if it is essentially their choice that they can make with a simple majority.

IANAE on the US Constitution but I think that you will find that it is much more difficult to overcome resistance of a determined minority than you seem to think. Puerto Rico has been in this holding pattern for a very long time, for example.

Pulpstar

Peter_the_Punter said:

MikeSmithson said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

RandomUser said:

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

Can you enlighten me on Smarkets, please.

I signed up when they first started but was horrified at their manifest incompetence. They didn't understand even the bascis of betting, so I pulled my cash out pdq. I recall that Guido Fawkes was somehow involved, which might have explained a thing or two. They have however been completely off my radar ever since, and I am surprised they are still going. I assume they must have recruited some proper staff aince their early days.

Evidently some people here do use them. What's the score?

Dead right. I signed up for Smarkets when it first came in and their approach to handling customers and interpreting bets meant that I have completely discarded them since. They keep on contacting me and asking why don't I feature them but I ignore.

Noted with thanks, Mike,

I've noted some of their markets have been arbable vs Betfair. The only way you're going to get that on a low volume exchange is with house money I think. Which doesn't inspire confidence.
Betfair for all their woes do at least have the entire resource of Paddy Power behind the company so long term lay bets are unlikely to disappear off any time soon.

Scott_xP

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/STVKathryn/status/1277901704470638592

Jesus.

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1277876174790803456

Scott_xP

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1277906667171131392

kinabalu

Nigelb said:

DavidL said:

eristdoof said:

tlg86 said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

Here you go...

tlg86 said:

It like we've broken even on excess deaths:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending19june2020

Week 13 - 1,011
Week 14 - 6,082
Week 15 - 7,996
Week 16 - 11,854
Week 17 - 11,539
Week 18 - 8,012
Week 19 - 3,081
Week 20 - 4,385
Week 21 - 2,348
Week 22 - 1,653
Week 23 - 732
Week 24 - 559
Week 25 - -65

Yes those are weekly excess deaths, not 2020 excess deaths.

It would be moderately astonishing if 2020 does not have excess deaths overall but I do wonder if there is going to be some propensity to claw back some of the excess over the next few months.

Many of the Covid deaths were accelerated by a matter of months and there are probably fewer seriously ill people now than average. We are also being a lot more careful about hygiene, and will be even more so if we accept masks. Social distancing will not just stop Covid but a variety of other bugs that carry people off in winter. I really wouldn't be too surprised if we recover a few tens of thousands by the end of December (assuming that there is no second wave of course).

I am (FWIW) slightly pessimistic on that last point.
Mask wearing does not seem to have been particularly widely adopted, and when the rules are relaxed, many people's caution seems to go out of the window too.
On the other hand, we do have a much improved testing regime, and better capacity for targeted interventions.

I'm not betting on a second wave, but I'm not betting against, either.

A question that occurs to me -

If we go back (pretty much) to how we were before the Lockdown why would the virus not simply take off again? It hasn't changed. We haven't changed. So why not epidemic take two?

Logic says this is what will likely happen unless we now have a level of immunity sufficient for a significant dampening effect. Perhaps we have - but this seems far from certain.

And a second negative thought. The pandemic is accelerating at the global level. Not sure this gets the media attention it merits.

eek

Sandpit said:

There will be an interesting discussion if England opens up to tourists in July and August but Scotland doesn’t.

I don’t get the international travel angle at all, it’s as if the government have bowed to media pressure to let millions of people spend their money abroad this summer rather than at home, then potentially come back with a nasty virus to spread around some more (in addition to the usual bout of nasty viruses they bring back anyway!). Let people who really need to travel for family or business reasons, travel and quarantine or travel and test.

In the case of France, Spain and Greece allowing people to travel there and spend money to keep their tourism industry going is as much for good will as anything else.

Philip_Thompson

DavidL said:

Philip_Thompson said:

DavidL said:

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

The Democrats need to gain the White House and 1 single Senator net to control the Senate effectively, since the Senator from Maine and Sanders do caucus plus the Vice President casts tie breaks.

If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate (by any means) and the White House one of their very first acts should be to admit Puerto Rico and New Columbia as the 51st and 52nd States of the USA.

I saw some speculation about DC being allowed senators too.
https://www.wisegeek.com/does-washington-dc-have-a-governor-senators-and-representatives.htm

In the 1840s and 50s there was a careful compromise by which the admission of a "free" state was balanced by the admission of a slave state maintaining the balance under the Douglas Clay compromise. The problem I see with these admissions is that they all favour the Democrats and are likely to do so for the foreseeable. This is going to make Republicans highly resistant to them. This is one of the reasons they are not admitted already of course. I don't think a small majority in the Senate is going to be enough to change this.

I don't think that the Republicans fearing the proposed States will vote for the Democrats is a sufficient reason to deny Statehood to those that deserve it.

Plus given the total war nature of American politics now it doesn't seem like a good reason for the Democrats to refuse to admit them if it is essentially their choice that they can make with a simple majority.

IANAE on the US Constitution but I think that you will find that it is much more difficult to overcome resistance of a determined minority than you seem to think. Puerto Rico has been in this holding pattern for a very long time, for example.

Puerto Rico have been for three reasons.

1: They've not been clear that they want to join.
2: The Democrats haven't been united on wanting them to join.
3: The Democrats have rarely controlled all of Congress plus the White House.

Now that that DC at least are clear they want to join and the Democrats seem to be getting united behind it for them at least (PR seems less clear) something could and should happen.

tlg86

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1277906667171131392

Is Ashworth speaking as shadow health minister or as a Leicester MP?

DavidL

1% of GDP is approximately £20bn. My guess is that he will announce (and re-announce in some cases) capital spending of 5-10% of GDP over the next 4 years. How much of this is actually new money will become the debate.

Peter_the_Punter

Pulpstar said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

MikeSmithson said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

RandomUser said:

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

Can you enlighten me on Smarkets, please.

I signed up when they first started but was horrified at their manifest incompetence. They didn't understand even the bascis of betting, so I pulled my cash out pdq. I recall that Guido Fawkes was somehow involved, which might have explained a thing or two. They have however been completely off my radar ever since, and I am surprised they are still going. I assume they must have recruited some proper staff aince their early days.

Evidently some people here do use them. What's the score?

Dead right. I signed up for Smarkets when it first came in and their approach to handling customers and interpreting bets meant that I have completely discarded them since. They keep on contacting me and asking why don't I feature them but I ignore.

Noted with thanks, Mike,

I've noted some of their markets have been arbable vs Betfair. The only way you're going to get that on a low volume exchange is with house money I think. Which doesn't inspire confidence.
Betfair for all their woes do at least have the entire resource of Paddy Power behind the company so long term lay bets are unlikely to disappear off any time soon.

Betfair has always been a pretty solid operation, even before PP took over.

I'm really surprised Smarkets has kept going.

Philip_Thompson

tlg86 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1277906667171131392

Is Ashworth speaking as shadow health minister or as a Leicester MP?

Seems a reasonable comment to make as both to be fair.

Pulpstar

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

Answering my own question to a degree, if the new State of New Columbia carved out the suburbs of Pennsylvania that are starting to turn that State blue making it a more reliably red state that just might be more sellable. Something similar might be possible with Virginia.

DC doesn't border Pennsylvania, its only borders are with Maryland and Virginia. Maryland is a reliable blue state, and Virginia is becoming so. In any case I suspect changing State boundaries is a non-starter.

If you were to add Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria (DC proper and burbs) to the 'New Columbia' state it would have made VA

Trump 1578262
Clinton 1477082

noneoftheabove

Pulpstar said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

MikeSmithson said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

RandomUser said:

No mention of Smarkets? Their rules include Bernie and King as effective Democrats if they caucus, plus the VP as tie breaker counts. I've been betting over there for that reason.

Can you enlighten me on Smarkets, please.

I signed up when they first started but was horrified at their manifest incompetence. They didn't understand even the bascis of betting, so I pulled my cash out pdq. I recall that Guido Fawkes was somehow involved, which might have explained a thing or two. They have however been completely off my radar ever since, and I am surprised they are still going. I assume they must have recruited some proper staff aince their early days.

Evidently some people here do use them. What's the score?

Dead right. I signed up for Smarkets when it first came in and their approach to handling customers and interpreting bets meant that I have completely discarded them since. They keep on contacting me and asking why don't I feature them but I ignore.

Noted with thanks, Mike,

I've noted some of their markets have been arbable vs Betfair. The only way you're going to get that on a low volume exchange is with house money I think. Which doesn't inspire confidence.
Betfair for all their woes do at least have the entire resource of Paddy Power behind the company so long term lay bets are unlikely to disappear off any time soon.

They are open about their wholly owned subsidiary company (Hanson Applied Sciences Limited) being a liquidity provider to their exchange. I dont know if its still the case but they used to make more from betting than commission revenue.

Do your own research, personally Im quite comfortable that they will be around and do well, but think the house money is an issue that they could have managed better. Its actually a sensible way to run a betting exchange but demands clear separation of powers and the customer being king, not the in house traders - I dont think they have demonstrated that behaviour (yet).

FrancisUrquhart

Big_G_NorthWales said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

http://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-deaths-in-england-and-wales-over-one-week-fall-below-five-year-average-for-first-time-since-march-12017890

It is clear what the media are going to do now, when excessive deaths go negative, they are going to "lock off" their total around only the period when there were excessive and say 60k over and over again. When that isnt how you use the figures, you have to look at them in the whole.

Then we will get into a shouting match between the government using the year excess figure, that includes both the positive and negative figure vs media who will only take the very specific period.

tlg86

Philip_Thompson said:

tlg86 said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1277906667171131392

Is Ashworth speaking as shadow health minister or as a Leicester MP?

Seems a reasonable comment to make as both to be fair.

I guess it's the former as it says "and Labour".

Scott_xP

BoZo repeatedly saying "best in the World" while describing the worst outcomes of all our peers...

noneoftheabove

DavidL said:

Scott_xP said:

DavidL said:

I'd like to think that Laura is not really "astonished" by these numbers and actually knew them. But you never know.

They have only just been published, so I would be quite surprised if she knew them already

The furlough numbers are not new. There have been regular updates on these and the current numbers are just a continuation of that. The scale is remarkable but we already knew how much they had contributed to the deficits in April and May.

The numbers published seem to be cumulative. Current or most recent numbers would be more useful.

FF43

Reluctantly, I have to admit the Old Charlatan is good a gloss on things in a speech.

tlg86

FrancisUrquhart said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

eristdoof said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good news at last

Ed Conwy, Sky

'Excess deaths has now finished and it is a watershed moment'

I presume this is excess deaths for the lasts seven days or something. I would like to see the figures (i.e. I don't believe it) if excess deaths for 2020 is at zero.

http://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-deaths-in-england-and-wales-over-one-week-fall-below-five-year-average-for-first-time-since-march-12017890

It is clear what the media are going to do now, when excessive deaths go negative, they are going to "lock off" their total around only the period when their were excessive and say 60k over and over again. When that isnt how you use the figures, you have to look at them in the whole.

I don't think that's fair. I think you have to cut off at some point. Over the next century, excess deaths from COVID-19 will be 0 (unless we stay like this forever and it gradually spreads through the world!).