On auditing, it occurs to me that there's a parallel with something like an MOT. That system seems to broadly work, so how could you make auditing work in the same way?
Nothing awful about it, if we go to No Deal Brexit and Scotland was allowed indyref2 next year after a nationalist majority there would be tariffs on all Scottish exports to England within a year, customs posts across the English and Scottish border and Scotland would likely have to give up the £ for the euro if it wished to rejoin the EU.
An independent Scotland would also have to pursue deep austerity to balance the books. Scotland in Union is just stating the facts, once those facts are stated the poll finds 56% of Scots want to stay in the UK and only 44% want independence.
I am also not a polling expert and have never claimed to be, I am a staunch Tory and Unionist however
We are approaching 100 deaths a day, which was when we locked down originally
We definitely aren't.
If the cases and deaths continue to increase, another lockdown is inevitable
No, I don't think another lockdown along the lines of March 23rd would be ordered. The current restrictions cannot be described as anything like lockdown.
We have better understanding of transmission, social distancing and mask wearing are now the norm, restaurants, churches, shops, businesses, health and educational establishments all now have reasonable protocols etc. We are in a much better place in terms of preparation for a less draconian approach.
This is all true, and yet with Boris and Wormtongue in charge we can rule nothing out. Both of them are absolutely clueless.
I agree and I say this as a working class Conservative
It's total meltdown!
Oh no - a "pie and mash capitalist".
The ultimate in hypocrisy.
I would say the ultimate in hypocrisy was my friend, the titled one who self declared as a Marxist-Leninist. While living off property rents.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
On auditing, it occurs to me that there's a parallel with something like an MOT. That system seems to broadly work, so how could you make auditing work in the same way?
An MOT is seeing whether a mechanical system meets clearly defined pre-set criteria, carried out by local accredited agents.
An audit is seeing whether your figures add up, also carried out by local accredited agents.
Why do you think it would be closer to an MOT in a different system?
The worst part is that he's closer to the truth than the scientists making he decisions.
He's not really, I've spent a long weekend in Birmingham, and the country's in a de facto lockdown.
New Street Station, Grand Central, and the Bullring were all deader than a dead thing.
99% mask enforcement for those who were out.
The eggheads not a prediction during their statement did its job.
Yes, they've succeeded in killing off the economy and causing mass unemployment. What a great track record.
Max, there's no good options, just only damaging ones until we have a vaccine.
I know I hide it well but I'm one of Boris Johnson's fiercest critics and he's screwed up lots but here it's a case of either screwing the economy or tens of thousands of extra deaths, it's not a simple choice to make.
FWIW I think lots of extra needless deaths ultimately screws the economy anyway.
But there's so much low hanging fruit, where is the help to get people to isolate properly? At the moment it stands at 18% who fully isolate after a positive test.
Why are we still allowing people to walk off a plane from JFK, Delhi or Rio and just take them at their word they will isolate?
Why are we still using slow PCR testing when the WHO has just signed a deal for 120m reliable rapid tests which don't need a laboratory setting to process?
These are three areas of policy that will have little to no economic impact but will bring the infection rate down drastically if they are properly pursued. There is no need for economic doom, Italy and Germany are proving it, even Sweden is now.
Agreed, with a couple of nitpicks. First, the self-isolation figures are for the period up to mid August, when the £500 payment came in for poorer households. (But. I agree - for example some of those contact tracers sitting idle could have been helping distribute essentials to those forced to isolate, etc.) Second, PCR would remain useful even with mass antigen testing; they perform different roles. Antigen tests ought to be ubiquitous, with the recognition that they are a bit less accurate (ideal at eg schools or airports); PCR can be used where it’s essential to know with 99.9% confidence if virus is present.
On the first, I don't know how much difference £500 will make, especially to people who won't get paid if they don't go to work. Government provided accomodation and £70 per day in isolation is the answer. Currently there are around 200,000 people with the virus in the UK according to the ONS, isolating them and taking them out of the community entirely would come at a cost of £50m per day or around £1.5bn per month, even if we double that it's cheap compared to the downside risk.
In terms of PCR, I'm not saying we should abandon the technology far from it we should continue to expand capacity. On rapid testing I'm saying it should be deployed to know areas of outbreaks so we can quickly test everyone in a given street or postcode area with local council door knockers administering them and registering positive results into a separate system for follow up PCR tests to confirm positive results. Rapid testing is being used defensively in the UK at hospitals and care homes, it is a siege mentality which has been self defeating because we've been unable to quickly identify new hotspots and isolate people.
As I said, there is a huge amount of low hanging fruit and the government is intent on using the blunt tool of economic activity reduction.
As my old manager used to say - work smart not hard. None of what o have outlined is impossible and at £490 per week to stay in a hotel room with PlayStations, Netflix and food all provided people will mostly be ok with it. Our lack of imagination means we are once again sleepwalking into a national lockdown it seems as though nothing has been learned at the top, not by the politicians or the scientists making the recommendations.
Nothing awful about it, if we go to No Deal Brexit and Scotland was allowed indyref2 next year after a nationalist majority there would be tariffs on all Scottish exports to England within a year, customs posts across the English and Scottish border and Scotland would likely have to give up the £ for the euro if it wished to rejoin the EU.
An independent Scotland would also have to pursue deep austerity to balance the books. Scotland in Union is just stating the facts, once those facts are stated the poll finds 54% of Scots want to stay in the UK and only 46% want independence.
I am also not a polling expert and have never claimed to be, I am a staunch Tory and Unionist however
Push polling is always awful.
You act as if the No side are the only ones who would be making claims during the campaign or the only ones setting out their "facts".
The fact that presented with a series of No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side 46% of people still said Yes is terrible for the No side not good. It suggest that's the floor to their vote. The ones who switched sides when solely presented with No propaganda are not going to vote after a campaign with just No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side whatsoever. 🙄🙄🙄
We are approaching 100 deaths a day, which was when we locked down originally
We definitely aren't.
If the cases and deaths continue to increase, another lockdown is inevitable
No, I don't think another lockdown along the lines of March 23rd would be ordered. The current restrictions cannot be described as anything like lockdown.
We have better understanding of transmission, social distancing and mask wearing are now the norm, restaurants, churches, shops, businesses, health and educational establishments all now have reasonable protocols etc. We are in a much better place in terms of preparation for a less draconian approach.
This is all true, and yet with Boris and Wormtongue in charge we can rule nothing out. Both of them are absolutely clueless.
I agree and I say this as a working class Conservative
It's total meltdown!
Oh no - a "pie and mash capitalist".
The ultimate in hypocrisy.
I would say the ultimate in hypocrisy was my friend, the titled one who self declared as a Marxist-Leninist. While living off property rents.
Yes I remember that one. Needs a good slap.
Why? We are all hypocrites. Just in different degrees.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
Nothing awful about it, if we go to No Deal Brexit and Scotland was allowed indyref2 next year after a nationalist majority there would be tariffs on all Scottish exports to England within a year, customs posts across the English and Scottish border and Scotland would likely have to give up the £ for the euro if it wished to rejoin the EU.
An independent Scotland would also have to pursue deep austerity to balance the books. Scotland in Union is just stating the facts, once those facts are stated the poll finds 54% of Scots want to stay in the UK and only 46% want independence.
I am also not a polling expert and have never claimed to be, I am a staunch Tory and Unionist however
Push polling is always awful.
You act as if the No side are the only ones who would be making claims during the campaign or the only ones setting out their "facts".
The fact that presented with a series of No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side 46% of people still said Yes is terrible for the No side not good. It suggest that's the floor to their vote. The ones who switched sides when solely presented with No propaganda are not going to vote after a campaign with just No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side whatsoever. 🙄🙄🙄
Push polling works, see the US.
The No campaign will need to be ruthless and rightly so, 44% for Yes after the facts are stated is even less than the 45% Yes got in 2014.
The facts are clear, 70% of Scottish exports go to to England, less than 50% of UK exports go to the EU.
No Deal Brexit would damage the UK economy no doubt, Scottish independence after a No Deal Brexit however would devastate the Scottish economy
Unusually for this chaotic capricious government, its closing stuff at 10pm policy does appear to be being copied around the world
I believe some other countries/regions did something similar before we did, but, yes, you are right, it is a measure which others are taking.
I seem to be in a minority in thinking it's actually very sensible. A lot of the bad outbreaks around the world have been traced back to bars and nightclubs, and you have to have led a very sheltered life not to understand that as the night goes on the socialising becomes, err, less distanced (and with more shouting, and with less caution). The fact that there's a crowd at Oxford Circus just after 10pm doesn't mean it's a bad policy, and not does the fact that some people might go to someone's home and keep drinking. It's all about the numbers and the overall statistical effect.
Yeah fuck all of those people who depend on actually working in restaurants, bars and pubs. I mean they don't really need jobs do they?
I don't agree with the 10pm rule (which seems to make things worse, rather than better), but crowded bars where everyone is yelling, nightclubs and karaoke would all seem to be high risk activities.
...seems to make things worse because of survivorship bias; the photos show the people who decide to hang on and party in the street, not the possibly greater number who have quietly mooched off home.
That's an excellent point.
We assume that what we see is the typical, rather than the exception.
"Syrian Mother of Ten given £1m Mansion on the Taxpayer"
On auditing, it occurs to me that there's a parallel with something like an MOT. That system seems to broadly work, so how could you make auditing work in the same way?
An MOT is seeing whether a mechanical system meets clearly defined pre-set criteria, carried out by local accredited agents.
An audit is seeing whether your figures add up, also carried out by local accredited agents.
Why do you think it would be closer to an MOT in a different system?
But my point is that they're fairly similar, MOTs seem to work, so perhaps it would only take a minor tweak for audits to work too.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
It does.
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
By this time tomorrow most of Wales will be under lockdown and I am speculating, but is Boris going to announce a UK wide lockdown at his press conference tomorrow afternoon ?
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
Surely the better argument is to ban auditors from doing any other work for that company whilst they are the official auditors?
It's not that they act corruptly. It's just the stakes are too binary in what they are required to do. Issuing a qualified audit will destroy a company. The stakes are too high. But too often the potential reasons for qualification is not evidence of wrongdoing or financial shortcomings per se. It is lack of assurance given by poor controls or lack of sufficient evidence provided to provide assurance of figures in the accounts. But control weaknesses do not in themselves mean the figures are wrong. Just that there is the potential for them being wrong.
So the standard audits don't provide the assurance to investors that they can expect.
There's much I could say on this subject, most of which would cause the Site to be shut down, but one point here I can agree with wholeheartedly concerns the stakes being too high. The difference between a clean and a qualified audit is simply too big. There ought to be more scope for the auditors to indicate the existence of grey areas.
What's wrong with a numeric system similar to those issued for hygene in catering business? A 5 is obviously best and a 4 is ok. Even a 3 is not necessarily damning.
This simple measure would in itself be a big improvement.
By this time tomorrow most of Wales will be under lockdown and I am speculating, but is Boris going to announce a UK wide lockdown at his press conference tomorrow afternoon ?
He will probably announce 57 different rules depending on where you are.
Bloody students these days, moan, moan, moan....whatever happened to living off pot noodles and a 5kg bag of dry penne? Back in my day, that is what i hear students a lesser establishments sich as Glasgow survived on.
Nothing awful about it, if we go to No Deal Brexit and Scotland was allowed indyref2 next year after a nationalist majority there would be tariffs on all Scottish exports to England within a year, customs posts across the English and Scottish border and Scotland would likely have to give up the £ for the euro if it wished to rejoin the EU.
An independent Scotland would also have to pursue deep austerity to balance the books. Scotland in Union is just stating the facts, once those facts are stated the poll finds 54% of Scots want to stay in the UK and only 46% want independence.
I am also not a polling expert and have never claimed to be, I am a staunch Tory and Unionist however
Push polling is always awful.
You act as if the No side are the only ones who would be making claims during the campaign or the only ones setting out their "facts".
The fact that presented with a series of No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side 46% of people still said Yes is terrible for the No side not good. It suggest that's the floor to their vote. The ones who switched sides when solely presented with No propaganda are not going to vote after a campaign with just No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side whatsoever. 🙄🙄🙄
Push polling works, see the US.
The No campaign will need to be ruthless and rightly so, 44% for Yes after the facts are stated is even less than the 45% Yes got in 2014.
The facts are clear, 70% of Scottish exports go to to England, less than 50% of UK exports go to the EU.
No Deal Brexit would damage the UK economy no doubt, Scottish independence after a No Deal Brexit however would devastate the Scottish economy
The No campaign are testing their messaging, and putting some of that public to influence the debate.
They're not trying to test the actual referendum question itself in a neutral and impartial manner - why would they when plenty of others do that?
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
It does.
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
It's the box-ticking mentality that is at the heart of the problem.
On auditing, it occurs to me that there's a parallel with something like an MOT. That system seems to broadly work, so how could you make auditing work in the same way?
An MOT is seeing whether a mechanical system meets clearly defined pre-set criteria, carried out by local accredited agents.
An audit is seeing whether your figures add up, also carried out by local accredited agents.
Why do you think it would be closer to an MOT in a different system?
But my point is that they're fairly similar, MOTs seem to work, so perhaps it would only take a minor tweak for audits to work too.
You're completely wrong.
However there might be some small aspects of audit that could be dealt with is such a way - banking checks and viability checks. So the main audit being split off from these lesser (but vital) things might be ok.
By this time tomorrow most of Wales will be under lockdown and I am speculating, but is Boris going to announce a UK wide lockdown at his press conference tomorrow afternoon ?
Maybe it would be easier to give a list of areas in Wales that aren't in lockdown. Powys is one of them I think.
By this time tomorrow most of Wales will be under lockdown and I am speculating, but is Boris going to announce a UK wide lockdown at his press conference tomorrow afternoon ?
No, why should he? There may be a reason for most of Wales to be under a local lockdown but not all of the UK.
I'm surprised its taken this long to get to North Wales considering how much the epidemic has been hitting the Northwest.
If he’s now ‘highly competent,’ the nation’s more epically buggered than a reluctant Turkish conscript.
These things are indeed relative, but despite his issues at Education Dr Palmer has had plenty of positive things to say about Gove in other roles, which I don't think can be discounted.
So many problems and breaches of good practice there, almost too many to count. Deutsche Bank’s Head of Accounting, has some interesting questions to answer, also.
Nothing awful about it, if we go to No Deal Brexit and Scotland was allowed indyref2 next year after a nationalist majority there would be tariffs on all Scottish exports to England within a year, customs posts across the English and Scottish border and Scotland would likely have to give up the £ for the euro if it wished to rejoin the EU.
An independent Scotland would also have to pursue deep austerity to balance the books. Scotland in Union is just stating the facts, once those facts are stated the poll finds 54% of Scots want to stay in the UK and only 46% want independence.
I am also not a polling expert and have never claimed to be, I am a staunch Tory and Unionist however
Push polling is always awful.
You act as if the No side are the only ones who would be making claims during the campaign or the only ones setting out their "facts".
The fact that presented with a series of No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side 46% of people still said Yes is terrible for the No side not good. It suggest that's the floor to their vote. The ones who switched sides when solely presented with No propaganda are not going to vote after a campaign with just No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side whatsoever. 🙄🙄🙄
Push polling works, see the US.
The No campaign will need to be ruthless and rightly so, 44% for Yes after the facts are stated is even less than the 45% Yes got in 2014.
The facts are clear, 70% of Scottish exports go to to England, less than 50% of UK exports go to the EU.
No Deal Brexit would damage the UK economy no doubt, Scottish independence after a No Deal Brexit however would devastate the Scottish economy
The No campaign are testing their messaging, and putting some of that public to influence the debate.
They're not trying to test the actual referendum question itself in a neutral and impartial manner - why would they when plenty of others do that?
Yes, the questions prefaced by currency and public spending cuts are very interesting because that's where the No/Remain campaign will aim their fire. I don't know if it will work because Leave won despite the economics.
We are approaching 100 deaths a day, which was when we locked down originally
We definitely aren't.
If the cases and deaths continue to increase, another lockdown is inevitable
No, I don't think another lockdown along the lines of March 23rd would be ordered. The current restrictions cannot be described as anything like lockdown.
We have better understanding of transmission, social distancing and mask wearing are now the norm, restaurants, churches, shops, businesses, health and educational establishments all now have reasonable protocols etc. We are in a much better place in terms of preparation for a less draconian approach.
This is all true, and yet with Boris and Wormtongue in charge we can rule nothing out. Both of them are absolutely clueless.
I agree and I say this as a working class Conservative
It's total meltdown!
Oh no - a "pie and mash capitalist".
The ultimate in hypocrisy.
I would say the ultimate in hypocrisy was my friend, the titled one who self declared as a Marxist-Leninist. While living off property rents.
I think most people are only ever theoretical marxists anyway. Whilst living in a capitalist society needs must, and yet marxists don't seem to change even when they could.
The figure is rising very fast, although of course it's only about 1% of the 2016 total so far (albeit concentrated in certain states).
Almost 4% of NC has voted
And 10% of Wisconsin, and nearly that proportion in Virginia. It really is quite extraordinary compared with previous years, but perhaps not surprising given the circumstances.
The worst part is that he's closer to the truth than the scientists making he decisions.
He's not really, I've spent a long weekend in Birmingham, and the country's in a de facto lockdown.
New Street Station, Grand Central, and the Bullring were all deader than a dead thing.
99% mask enforcement for those who were out.
The eggheads not a prediction during their statement did its job.
Yes, they've succeeded in killing off the economy and causing mass unemployment. What a great track record.
Max, there's no good options, just only damaging ones until we have a vaccine.
I know I hide it well but I'm one of Boris Johnson's fiercest critics and he's screwed up lots but here it's a case of either screwing the economy or tens of thousands of extra deaths, it's not a simple choice to make.
FWIW I think lots of extra needless deaths ultimately screws the economy anyway.
But there's so much low hanging fruit, where is the help to get people to isolate properly? At the moment it stands at 18% who fully isolate after a positive test.
Why are we still allowing people to walk off a plane from JFK, Delhi or Rio and just take them at their word they will isolate?
Why are we still using slow PCR testing when the WHO has just signed a deal for 120m reliable rapid tests which don't need a laboratory setting to process?
These are three areas of policy that will have little to no economic impact but will bring the infection rate down drastically if they are properly pursued. There is no need for economic doom, Italy and Germany are proving it, even Sweden is now.
Agreed, with a couple of nitpicks. First, the self-isolation figures are for the period up to mid August, when the £500 payment came in for poorer households. (But. I agree - for example some of those contact tracers sitting idle could have been helping distribute essentials to those forced to isolate, etc.) Second, PCR would remain useful even with mass antigen testing; they perform different roles. Antigen tests ought to be ubiquitous, with the recognition that they are a bit less accurate (ideal at eg schools or airports); PCR can be used where it’s essential to know with 99.9% confidence if virus is present.
On the first, I don't know how much difference £500 will make, especially to people who won't get paid if they don't go to work. Government provided accomodation and £70 per day in isolation is the answer. Currently there are around 200,000 people with the virus in the UK according to the ONS, isolating them and taking them out of the community entirely would come at a cost of £50m per day or around £1.5bn per month, even if we double that it's cheap compared to the downside risk.
In terms of PCR, I'm not saying we should abandon the technology far from it we should continue to expand capacity. On rapid testing I'm saying it should be deployed to know areas of outbreaks so we can quickly test everyone in a given street or postcode area with local council door knockers administering them and registering positive results into a separate system for follow up PCR tests to confirm positive results. Rapid testing is being used defensively in the UK at hospitals and care homes, it is a siege mentality which has been self defeating because we've been unable to quickly identify new hotspots and isolate people.
As I said, there is a huge amount of low hanging fruit and the government is intent on using the blunt tool of economic activity reduction.
As my old manager used to say - work smart not hard. None of what o have outlined is impossible and at £490 per week to stay in a hotel room with PlayStations, Netflix and food all provided people will mostly be ok with it. Our lack of imagination means we are once again sleepwalking into a national lockdown it seems as though nothing has been learned at the top, not by the politicians or the scientists making the recommendations.
We are in agreement. I get the impression government is slowly fumbling its way towards better policies, but damn, it is slow.
I think Trump has done the best he can do' Nomia Iqbal BBC News Steelworker Mark Williams spoke to Mr Trump on the campaign trail in Ohio in 2016 and was impressed.
Four years later, he has lost his job due to the pandemic, which President Trump has been accused of mismanaging.
Now the president is back again, this time to take on Joe Biden on the debate stage. So, will Williams be voting for him again?
"Yes. I think he's done the best that he can do. The economy was booming before this pandemic and my job will bounce back once people started getting out there."
He says he doesn't have anything in common with either candidate. "I'm not a politician or a millionaire. But I don't like Biden's agenda, the socialist democrat agenda."
What's his red line on Donald Trump?
"If he doesn't follow the constitution - I think he's just trying to get under people's skin by saying he won't step down if he loses."
You can see Mark Williams when he met the BBC's Katty Kay in 2016 in the video below.
So you voted for Trump and then you lost your job but you're still going to vote for Trump because...?
Needs a miracle. If his polling deficit is not cut by this time next week his betfair price will collapse imo.
Anecdata alert: my brother, also a naturalized US citizen except he's in San Francisco, has been phone-banking (tele-canvassing in British terms) for Biden, mostly calling voters in Wisconsin and Nevada. He says that his positive response rate for Biden has shot up since the tax revelations broke.
Does his accent help or hinder when canvassing US voters?
He tells me generally helps, and that he's even been told he's the "right" kind of immigrant. Of course he doesn't tell those people that he lives in San Francisco and is married to an African-American man!
That's hilarious. I'd be tempted to tell Trump voters that I was a San Franciscan gay man in an interracial marriage, just for the giggles.
Yes he said that the other day as soon as he said "Biden" he was told he was a "n*****-loving foreigner" so he started to reply, "Well, actually..."
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
It does.
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
It's the box-ticking mentality that is at the heart of the problem.
In my experience auditors can't even be bothered to learn about a business now.
Instead an ever changing group of juniors ask to see documents so that they can, as you say, tick boxes.
Covid is likely to encourage a shift to auditing online making things even worse.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
Surely the better argument is to ban auditors from doing any other work for that company whilst they are the official auditors?
Exactly. Auditing and then consulting off the back of it (and vice versa) is as conflict ridden as it gets.
Personally, I'd like the auditors to be rotated and selected by independents or non-execs only, at worst.
Any idiot can audit - and far many more could do a better job than the Big4 who are often best mates with the CEO/CFO.
I'd say auditing is a higher skill than consulting.
You obviously don't know much about auditing, or consulting.
A rather disappointing comment. I did both for many years at one of the big 4. Why not break out of the clichéd thinking? I sense you could if you tried. You are of above average intelligence.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
It does.
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
It's the box-ticking mentality that is at the heart of the problem.
In my experience auditors can't even be bothered to learn about a business now.
Instead an ever changing group of juniors ask to see documents so that they can, as you say, tick boxes.
Covid is likely to encourage a shift to auditing online making things even worse.
As an auditor myself, it's frankly too f-ing complex. getting lost in risk assessments and not seeing the wood for the trees.
The worst part is that he's closer to the truth than the scientists making he decisions.
He's not really, I've spent a long weekend in Birmingham, and the country's in a de facto lockdown.
New Street Station, Grand Central, and the Bullring were all deader than a dead thing.
99% mask enforcement for those who were out.
The eggheads not a prediction during their statement did its job.
Yes, they've succeeded in killing off the economy and causing mass unemployment. What a great track record.
Max, there's no good options, just only damaging ones until we have a vaccine.
I know I hide it well but I'm one of Boris Johnson's fiercest critics and he's screwed up lots but here it's a case of either screwing the economy or tens of thousands of extra deaths, it's not a simple choice to make.
FWIW I think lots of extra needless deaths ultimately screws the economy anyway.
But there's so much low hanging fruit, where is the help to get people to isolate properly? At the moment it stands at 18% who fully isolate after a positive test.
Why are we still allowing people to walk off a plane from JFK, Delhi or Rio and just take them at their word they will isolate?
Why are we still using slow PCR testing when the WHO has just signed a deal for 120m reliable rapid tests which don't need a laboratory setting to process?
These are three areas of policy that will have little to no economic impact but will bring the infection rate down drastically if they are properly pursued. There is no need for economic doom, Italy and Germany are proving it, even Sweden is now.
As I am back on Thursday I did my passenger locator form at gov.uk today, once I had found it; clearly the idea of putting a box with a direct link from the home page would have made things too easy.
I was expecting to have to provide details of my hotels’ contact details with dates, to at least raise the possibility that someone might be able to check, but all I had to declare was the countries I had stayed in during the last 14 days, from a drop down menu. Unless they phone me up and cross examine me, it’s all based on honesty.
It will be interesting to see if anyone checks that I have done it, on return.
Returned from France 10 days ago, nobody asked for it or even mentioned it. No mention of quarantining for 2 weeks either. About sums up this government's delivery.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
It does.
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
It's the box-ticking mentality that is at the heart of the problem.
In my experience auditors can't even be bothered to learn about a business now.
Instead an ever changing group of juniors ask to see documents so that they can, as you say, tick boxes.
Covid is likely to encourage a shift to auditing online making things even worse.
As an auditor myself, it's frankly too f-ing complex. getting lost in risk assessments and not seeing the wood for the trees.
No meal in the pub at final meeting, suspect sign off will be over zoom. Juniors who do the actual audit still on site I expect
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
Surely the better argument is to ban auditors from doing any other work for that company whilst they are the official auditors?
Exactly. Auditing and then consulting off the back of it (and vice versa) is as conflict ridden as it gets.
Personally, I'd like the auditors to be rotated and selected by independents or non-execs only, at worst.
Any idiot can audit - and far many more could do a better job than the Big4 who are often best mates with the CEO/CFO.
I'd say auditing is a higher skill than consulting. But agree on the COI point. It so obviously is.
State Audit Board is the answer. You can't trust the private sector on this one. You need intelligent disinterested public servants.
Plain wrong in all respects do not pass go and do not collect 200 pounds.
Hey you're dealing with an expert here. It was once my bread and butter before I got under the wire.
I'm with you - I find the idea of companies competing to audit clients just bizarre.
Like letting a football team pick the referee.
On the other hand, how would it be a business to provide it? Who would grant the audits to which firm? It's not only the big four, there's 100s of firms providing audits. any business with a turnover over £10m or so need them at the moment.
Occasionally, at work, auditors would be brought in to do an investigation. With all due respect to all the lovely auditors on here, they were generally useless at this. Auditing and investigating are two different things. Under the guidance of a good investigator, they can be good at specific tasks where their skills are needed. But hopeless at asking basic questions or the human side of investigations. Far too much box-ticking.
A while ago the Economist wrote a provocative article arguing that audits should no longer be a legal requirement.
I have slowly come round to the idea.
I have a free-market suggestion, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else. The idea is to go back to basics: what is an audit for, and who is it for? Obviously the answer is that it is for the shareholders (so that they know that their company's accounts give a true and fair view), and creditors and other stakeholders (who want to know is the company is at risk of going bust). The problem is that agent-principal one: those for whom the audit is being carried out have no effective redress against the auditor. On the other hand, you can't expect an auditor, charging a fixed fee in a competitive market, to offer an unlimited guarantee to all and sundry that they haven't screwed up and missed something big.
So: let the market decide. When the company engages the auditor, it can choose a level of auditor liability, with the creditors (and maybe shareholders) able to sue the auditor up to that limit if things go wrong. A small company could get a guarantee commensurate with its size, and the auditor would correspondingly not have to check every little insignificant detail. A dodgy company would not be able to get more than tuppence-ha'pennies guarantee, which would give an excellent signal to the market. A very solid blue-chip could get a big guarantee - but the auditor would then have a very big incentive to make sure they had done a really thorough job.
This would give a virtuous circle effect: to get credibility, companies would have to convince the auditors that they were a safe bet, and to be convinced the auditors would have to do a good job.
(I am of course available at very reasonable consultancy rates to develop this idea further!)
Excellent post. Of course, this would increase the cost of audits massively - which is one big reason why it hasn't been done.
It would only increase the cost if the audit was of any use to anyone... which tells you something.
It does.
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
It's the box-ticking mentality that is at the heart of the problem.
In my experience auditors can't even be bothered to learn about a business now.
Instead an ever changing group of juniors ask to see documents so that they can, as you say, tick boxes.
Covid is likely to encourage a shift to auditing online making things even worse.
As an auditor myself, it's frankly too f-ing complex. getting lost in risk assessments and not seeing the wood for the trees.
But if you only do high level review and forget the tick and bash you can't see the trees for the wood. ☺
Occasionally, at work, auditors would be brought in to do an investigation. With all due respect to all the lovely auditors on here, they were generally useless at this. Auditing and investigating are two different things. Under the guidance of a good investigator, they can be good at specific tasks where their skills are needed. But hopeless at asking basic questions or the human side of investigations. Far too much box-ticking.
I always liked the sound of Forensic Audit - nearly went into that at one point.
I voted to make Farage redundant and get him out of the European Parliament.
Given the state of the Tories in 2019, your voting for them does you no credit in my eyes.
You voted for the supporter of the Bosnian genocide.
I think you and HYUFD represent the Tory spectrum quite nicely.
And those ex-Tories on here who wistfully long for polite patricians to make a comeback are barking up the wrong tree. The genie is not going back in the bottle. So you'd better decide whose side you're on, because it's 1930 now.
Comments
I closed my betfair stuff for modest profit and got long of Biden EC supremacy at 28 for £30.
That's my biggest ever spread bet on anything but the Eurovision Song Contest.
I can't claim credit for that BTW. I read it elsewhere and found it mildly amusing.
For someone who claims to be a polling expert you should be ashamed of using transparently obvious push polling like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
Mainstream press getting more COVID sceptic undoubtedly. Mail too.
An independent Scotland would also have to pursue deep austerity to balance the books. Scotland in Union is just stating the facts, once those facts are stated the poll finds 56% of Scots want to stay in the UK and only 44% want independence.
I am also not a polling expert and have never claimed to be, I am a staunch Tory and Unionist however
An audit is seeing whether your figures add up, also carried out by local accredited agents.
Why do you think it would be closer to an MOT in a different system?
Who is more of a real man?
Biden 42
Trump 41
Trump toast.
In terms of PCR, I'm not saying we should abandon the technology far from it we should continue to expand capacity. On rapid testing I'm saying it should be deployed to know areas of outbreaks so we can quickly test everyone in a given street or postcode area with local council door knockers administering them and registering positive results into a separate system for follow up PCR tests to confirm positive results. Rapid testing is being used defensively in the UK at hospitals and care homes, it is a siege mentality which has been self defeating because we've been unable to quickly identify new hotspots and isolate people.
As I said, there is a huge amount of low hanging fruit and the government is intent on using the blunt tool of economic activity reduction.
As my old manager used to say - work smart not hard. None of what o have outlined is impossible and at £490 per week to stay in a hotel room with PlayStations, Netflix and food all provided people will mostly be ok with it. Our lack of imagination means we are once again sleepwalking into a national lockdown it seems as though nothing has been learned at the top, not by the politicians or the scientists making the recommendations.
You act as if the No side are the only ones who would be making claims during the campaign or the only ones setting out their "facts".
The fact that presented with a series of No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side 46% of people still said Yes is terrible for the No side not good. It suggest that's the floor to their vote. The ones who switched sides when solely presented with No propaganda are not going to vote after a campaign with just No propaganda and nothing from the Yes side whatsoever. 🙄🙄🙄
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/prez_track_sep29
The figure is rising very fast, although of course it's only about 1% of the 2016 total so far (albeit concentrated in certain states).
The No campaign will need to be ruthless and rightly so, 44% for Yes after the facts are stated is even less than the 45% Yes got in 2014.
The facts are clear, 70% of Scottish exports go to to England, less than 50% of UK exports go to the EU.
No Deal Brexit would damage the UK economy no doubt, Scottish independence after a No Deal Brexit however would devastate the Scottish economy
(and still she moans it's too small)
https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1311019064698056707
https://twitter.com/DanielHewittITV/status/1311023680793829378
https://twitter.com/DanielHewittITV/status/1311023752398938113
Of course, most companies don't want audits to find anything. It creates embarrassment and very awkward questions.
They just want a quiet life and the certificate of approval. Most auditors just check the sums, assumptions and totalling - raise some mild questions with the CFO, add a few notes, and sign it off.
If any were to do interrogative or forensic digging they'd soon find themselves moved off onto another job.
What's wrong with a numeric system similar to those issued for hygene in catering business? A 5 is obviously best and a 4 is ok. Even a 3 is not necessarily damning.
This simple measure would in itself be a big improvement.
Oh no we have that already!
They're not trying to test the actual referendum question itself in a neutral and impartial manner - why would they when plenty of others do that?
However there might be some small aspects of audit that could be dealt with is such a way - banking checks and viability checks. So the main audit being split off from these lesser (but vital) things might be ok.
I'm surprised its taken this long to get to North Wales considering how much the epidemic has been hitting the Northwest.
Top quality smearing there
So many problems and breaches of good practice there, almost too many to count. Deutsche Bank’s Head of Accounting, has some interesting questions to answer, also.
I get the impression government is slowly fumbling its way towards better policies, but damn, it is slow.
Not even close.
I heard that Sheffield was busy as well last weekend.
Nomia Iqbal
BBC News
Steelworker Mark Williams spoke to Mr Trump on the campaign trail in Ohio in 2016 and was impressed.
Four years later, he has lost his job due to the pandemic, which President Trump has been accused of mismanaging.
Now the president is back again, this time to take on Joe Biden on the debate stage. So, will Williams be voting for him again?
"Yes. I think he's done the best that he can do. The economy was booming before this pandemic and my job will bounce back once people started getting out there."
He says he doesn't have anything in common with either candidate. "I'm not a politician or a millionaire. But I don't like Biden's agenda, the socialist democrat agenda."
What's his red line on Donald Trump?
"If he doesn't follow the constitution - I think he's just trying to get under people's skin by saying he won't step down if he loses."
You can see Mark Williams when he met the BBC's Katty Kay in 2016 in the video below.
So you voted for Trump and then you lost your job but you're still going to vote for Trump because...?
These people are morons
It's not like the flu, this is why it's so much more dangerous and we must get a handle on it
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data
if the rate of increase continues to fall then infections should max out at about 250k - compared with over 2m in early April.
The hospital admittance numbers are also encouraging:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthcare
I don't believe it.
https://twitter.com/shavacados/status/1311009283115569155
Instead an ever changing group of juniors ask to see documents so that they can, as you say, tick boxes.
Covid is likely to encourage a shift to auditing online making things even worse.
Like letting a football team pick the referee.
I think you and HYUFD represent the Tory spectrum quite nicely.
And those ex-Tories on here who wistfully long for polite patricians to make a comeback are barking up the wrong tree. The genie is not going back in the bottle. So you'd better decide whose side you're on, because it's 1930 now.
All of this has been inevitable since 24/6/16.