Last ONS estimate of total UK wealth was £14.6 trillion. This country is not poor.
To cut public spending or benefits, or raise income tax or VAT (any of which take money out of the economy) would be akin to a miser walking around with holes in his shoes or starving rather than spending a few £ from his millions in the bank.
I suspect that he will want to come off the drugs asap as that will be evidence (for himself if nothing else) that he has "beaten" the virus, and the consequences could be quite bad.
Why will he? He has been a consistent user and abuser of prescription drugs for years. They'll keep him pumped full of whatever to keep the show on the road.
Does he want to be in a debate with Joe Biden when the question comes up "have you taken drugs to be here tonight"?
Someone so indifferent to the truth cannot be shamed or caught out like that. He'd say no even if the answer is yes, or He'd launch a ridiculous verbal attack to confuse and distract.
If we lived in a working democracy he would have resigned already, indeed the combination of First Minister and Party Chief Executive as a married couple would never have been thought appropriate in the first place. But Nicola will fight tooth and nail to resist this.
Expect a weapons grade Circuit Breaker dead cat in three....two....
Given the choice between writing a solution to connect 2 systems together or implementing a quick work around - the quick work around is always going to win as most of the time you will need that quick work around to begin with.
With Covid I suspect there is then far more useful things that a developer could be doing them implementing a proper solution for a short term issue that has a working quick fix.
We've heard that £2billion has been spent on all this. There's plenty of spare change for a team of developers to sort out data integration from sources.
My guess is that this is an internal political issue. NHS vs PHE vs EvulOutsiders. We have heard echos of the turf wars going on inside. 2 Billion is a lot of money to add to a bureaucracy. The infighting that will produce will be massive.
For example - that statement made about vaccine availability and coverage, sound to me very like someone trying to mark territory.
The Economist rate Trump`s chances at 10%. 538 go 18%.
BF have him at 2.72 (2.7 GOP as winning party) which implies 37%.
This is a significant margin of disconnect. I wonder whether we`ll be kicking ourselves after the election for not backing Biden more heavily that we already are?
There is no way Trump will leave office without being physically ejected.
He probably shouldn't have pissed off the Secret Service then...
Edmund you answered a question of mine the other day, which I didn't see until very much later so didn't get a chance to thank you. So thank you. Sorry it is late.
So, Biden will have to pull out of the next debate wont he? As Trump should be still isolating and he wont.
Trump should be isolating - so it would be perfectly valid to insist he did it remotely.
I think the point remains Biden will need to demand that or pull out and Trump will seek to use it, hoping people think Biden is hiding.
This is a wedge issue where Biden is on the right side of the wedge, a strong majority of the voters are on the "it's better to try not to get covid" side.
Also the debate commission probably also aren't in a mood to be made fools of again (and potentially sued), so I imagine the Dems can leave it to them to argue with Trump. If he walks away, fine.
Last Friday my better half demonstrated why she is indeed that, by telling me the Trump illness was a scam, a lie, just to get sympathy and votes. I said , no , no, now I am now in agreement with her.
So, Biden will have to pull out of the next debate wont he? As Trump should be still isolating and he wont.
Trump should be isolating - so it would be perfectly valid to insist he did it remotely.
Biden had better.
He needs to be extraordinarily careful for the next three weeks.
Just wait. There's a strong possibility that Trump will continue to show signs of ill-health over the coming weeks in which case the question resolves itself. If he has indeed fully recovered, there is no reason not to go ahead with the debates, as long as sensible precautions are taken. A perspex glass is an obvious good idea. Surprised it wasn't done before.
The Economist rate Trump`s chances at 10%. 538 go 18%.
BF have him at 2.72 (2.7 GOP as winning party) which implies 37%.
This is a significant margin of disconnect. I wonder whether we`ll be kicking ourselves after the election for not backing Biden more heavily that we already are?
"Abolish Luxembourg". As the EU's own tax haven it's surprising that the rules-based level-playing-field bureaucracy has not yet got round to that.
Is Amazon a natural monopoly? I think it is, with declining unit costs. If so it is a one-off, and a sovereign tax authority could be justified in setting conditions for its operation within its territory. A special Amazon tax could be created, or a licence to operate within the country.
Natural monopolies benefit from level playing fields. Why is any activity ever protected by tariffs or quotas within a LPF regime? The Amazon case is the opposite - its competitors need protection from the behemoth.
Last Friday my better half demonstrated why she is indeed that, by telling me the Trump illness was a scam, a lie, just to get sympathy and votes. I said , no , no, now I am now in agreement with her.
Would need a very elaborate conspiracy theory to arrive at this conclusion. Would mean that many GOP and staffers are lying - and the medical team. And, of course, so many republicans have tested positive also.
No - I think your original reaction is much more likely to be true.
Last Friday my better half demonstrated why she is indeed that, by telling me the Trump illness was a scam, a lie, just to get sympathy and votes. I said , no , no, now I am now in agreement with her.
Would need a very elaborate conspiracy theory to arrive at this conclusion. Would mean that many GOP and staffers are lying - and the medical team. And, of course, so many republicans have tested positive also.
No - I think your original reaction is much more likely to be true.
Also given the number of people around Trump ill, its almost non-feasible.
This is a man which hugely dislikes any form of weakness. To be 'ill' is a defect, a failing, and he would hate to be ever be seen in that way.
The Economist rate Trump`s chances at 10%. 538 go 18%.
BF have him at 2.72 (2.7 GOP as winning party) which implies 37%.
This is a significant margin of disconnect. I wonder whether we`ll be kicking ourselves after the election for not backing Biden more heavily that we already are?
2016 still in everyone's memory I guess but I wouldn't be surprised if there a herd over-reaction to having been caught out by 2016.
If you are a serious punter, you have to go by the form and yes this is a serious disconnnect; you will seldom see one larger or more obvious.
You can and should take account of 2016. That is part of 'the form', as are the eccentricities of Trump and his supporters, but at the end of the day the form is screaming something at you. It is not a certainty, nothing is. But for Biden backers, the margin for error is huge.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
Re your last paragraph boycotting Amazon will not happen, not least because they offer a product and customer service unmatched by anyone.
Covid has entrenched on line shopping and working like nothing else could, and we cannot stop this revolution
Everyone wants Amazon to pay more tax, but the jobs but on the other side of the balance sheet they have created thousands of jobs providing security to their workforce and of course who pay their taxes
What Rochdale is suggesting is like someone standing in a fast moving stream trying to push the water back with their hands. It's simply unrealistic and won't work and will cause more harm than good.
A working solution is needed.
According to Amazon they paid £793mn in taxes in 2018 so it's not nothing. We need to find what works and ensure that applies consistently and fairly to all.
Not on their UK profits (which are massively understated via offshoring). They paid under £15m in corporation tax.
Their reported UK sales were around $17 billion, and it’s anyone’s guess what the realistic profit generated on those sales might be. But I think it reasonable to conclude that it’s at least an order of magnitude greater than stated.
That's my point!
Why the obsession with "profits" given that "profits" are easy to manipulate and hard to levy. Whereas VAT for example is easy to levy and hard to manipulate.
Corporation tax that they are paying is 1.9% of the taxes that they are paying, but probably about 99% (or more) of the conversation when their tax situation is discussed.
The Economist rate Trump`s chances at 10%. 538 go 18%.
BF have him at 2.72 (2.7 GOP as winning party) which implies 37%.
This is a significant margin of disconnect. I wonder whether we`ll be kicking ourselves after the election for not backing Biden more heavily that we already are?
2016 still in everyone's memory I guess but I wouldn't be surprised if there a herd over-reaction to having been caught out by 2016.
If you are a serious punter, you have to go by the form and yes this is a serious disconnnect; you will seldom see one larger or more obvious.
You can and should take account of 2016. That is part of 'the form', as are the eccentricities of Trump and his supporters, but at the end of the day the form is screaming something at you. It is not a certainty, nothing is. But for Biden backers, the margin for error is huge.
Last Friday my better half demonstrated why she is indeed that, by telling me the Trump illness was a scam, a lie, just to get sympathy and votes. I said , no , no, now I am now in agreement with her.
Would need a very elaborate conspiracy theory to arrive at this conclusion. Would mean that many GOP and staffers are lying - and the medical team. And, of course, so many republicans have tested positive also.
No - I think your original reaction is much more likely to be true.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
Or simplify the tax system and make it harder to avoid and apply evenly.
It simply isn't true that Amazon and Starbucks don't pay taxes. They pay taxes on every sale that occurs (VAT) on wages they pay their employees (NI, PAYE) and many more. The issue is that HMRC tries to tax businesses about 8 different ways and these businesses are getting out of 1 of them. Well if that 1 is broken then fix the system and apply a level playing field.
The problem is the broken tax is impossible to tax as you do simply move goods round in ways to reduce absolute profits and there is little to nothing HMRC can do about it.
To a large extent it would be best for HMRC to either not worry about it or find a mechanism that would make our corporate tax rates the lowest in the world so large companies send the money here rather than away from here.
One issue with taxing corporate profits is businesses running in startup mode, perpetually.
Amazon deliberately minimises profits by spending as much as it can on investing in growing. Tesla does the same.
So even if you eliminated all the profit trading around the world, there is a problem. It is quite easy not to make a profit. And if you can do so in a way that keeps the shareholders happy....
So long as it is genuine growth and genuine investment then why is that a bad thing? Investment should be a good thing!
One reason America has done better than Europe in my opinion at developing larger and growing businesses is precisely because their tax system encourages investment whereas our tax system almost considers investment as a tax dodge to which there should be an 'allowance'.
I'm very happy for other people to pay more tax to pay for the cost of CV19
So said a large chunk of the 90% of those polled who would apparently be unaffected by the proposal. The only thing that surprises me is that the idea wasn't even more popular.
The concept of spending rises for me, paid for by tax rises for somebody else, earns lots of likes. Who'd-a-thunk it?
Good story, only it isn't true for the likes that count, votes. In the UK we very rarely elect a government promising new taxes, even if they only impact a minority. So governments sneak them in where they can rather than doing sensible things like merging NI and income tax, introducing a wealth tax and replacing council tax with LVT.
Covid provides cover to do some of the above, and I wouldnt be entirely surprised to see the government take action on either of the first two, despite being a Tory govt.
The government, being it seems stuck in campaign mode, seems petrified of anything radical that isn't just splurging cash, so worried about taking a polling hit that is probably inevitable anyway.
Merging NI and income tax won't work as it would either increase post 68 tax massively (so not an option) or explicitly reveal again how much better those who retired are.
Personally I would love a LVT as its about the only sane wealth tax you could apply and recover in a world which is far more international than most people believe.
There's no reason you can't tax wages and pensions at different rates. After all we do at the moment, and just call part of the tax something else. The differential could then be eroded over time, if governments wanted to.
But why should you?
Anyhow focusing on pension income regarding tax and NI is missing the broader issue - harmonising tax on earned and unearned income surely makes sense? Why should someone receiving income from investments or property pay so much less tax than someone who works for it?
That is a good question in normal times. But these aren't normal times, since 2009 we have averaged about £70bn of QE. That QE is specifically to boost investment assets including property. That is pretty close to the amount spent on working age benefits.
The government are spending the same amount boosting the assets of the wealthy as they are supporting the working poor!
The wealthy then pay very low marginal tax rates (if any thanks to things like ISAs, pension reliefs, SEIS, EIS etc) whilst the working poor are on extremely high marginal tax rates, in some scenarios even extra pay will lead to lower income for them.
It is perverse and only allowed to happen as people dont consider the detail, just the principle of either they believe tax is good or bad because of their party affiliations.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
Re your last paragraph boycotting Amazon will not happen, not least because they offer a product and customer service unmatched by anyone.
Covid has entrenched on line shopping and working like nothing else could, and we cannot stop this revolution
Everyone wants Amazon to pay more tax, but the jobs but on the other side of the balance sheet they have created thousands of jobs providing security to their workforce and of course who pay their taxes
As most of their "fulfillment team" are on minimum wage, I suspect that a lot pay little income tax, but do get tax credits. Many of the jobs in these industries are a net cost to the taxpayer.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
Re your last paragraph boycotting Amazon will not happen, not least because they offer a product and customer service unmatched by anyone.
Covid has entrenched on line shopping and working like nothing else could, and we cannot stop this revolution
Everyone wants Amazon to pay more tax, but the jobs but on the other side of the balance sheet they have created thousands of jobs providing security to their workforce and of course who pay their taxes
As most of their "fulfillment team" are on minimum wage, I suspect that a lot pay little income tax, but do get tax credits. Many of the jobs in these industries are a net cost to the taxpayer.
Probably just as true with their rivals though too. Retail isn't a high wage industry.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
Re your last paragraph boycotting Amazon will not happen, not least because they offer a product and customer service unmatched by anyone.
Covid has entrenched on line shopping and working like nothing else could, and we cannot stop this revolution
Everyone wants Amazon to pay more tax, but the jobs but on the other side of the balance sheet they have created thousands of jobs providing security to their workforce and of course who pay their taxes
What Rochdale is suggesting is like someone standing in a fast moving stream trying to push the water back with their hands. It's simply unrealistic and won't work and will cause more harm than good.
A working solution is needed.
According to Amazon they paid £793mn in taxes in 2018 so it's not nothing. We need to find what works and ensure that applies consistently and fairly to all.
Not on their UK profits (which are massively understated via offshoring). They paid under £15m in corporation tax.
Their reported UK sales were around $17 billion, and it’s anyone’s guess what the realistic profit generated on those sales might be. But I think it reasonable to conclude that it’s at least an order of magnitude greater than stated.
That's my point!
Why the obsession with "profits" given that "profits" are easy to manipulate and hard to levy. Whereas VAT for example is easy to levy and hard to manipulate.
Corporation tax that they are paying is 1.9% of the taxes that they are paying, but probably about 99% (or more) of the conversation when their tax situation is discussed.
Where is the money? Alway a good question to ask before taxing things.
Modern corporations run at low profit ratios - in general. It is pretty easy to lose the remaining profit!
The money comes as giant increases in share value. Which the owners then extract using loans backed by their shareholdings*.
The institutional shareholders extract their money either by selling shares, or, again, by using instruments backed by their holdings.
*Some sell shares, but this mechanism is very popular as a way to retain control.
There's edge cases like grannies living in Palladian mansions on income support, and hedge fund managers who spend every penny on cocaine and show girls, but on the whole asset rich and income rich correlate pretty spectacularly, so wealth vs income tax is just about the mechanics of collection. So why the enthusiasm for wealth? Is it meant to target a particularly loathsome type of rich person, or to deplete the parts which other taxes for some unexplained reason cannot reach?
Not really so. The difference is age. And particularly property.
Second homes would be the thing to go for, on the basis that no-one really needs more than one.
Exactly what is a second home? Serious question. A one time slate-workers cottage on the edge of Gwynedd village, occupied at weekends by a barrister from Manchester; probably. How about if said barrister owns a bijou 'lodge' on a 'selective development' in the grounds of what was once the slate-mine owners 19th C 'castle'. Which can only be visited for 11 months out of the 12.
And good morning, one and all!
You can also pull tricks with a second house. One of my uncles in the 80s and 90s registered his wife as the only resident in their second home on the south coast, while he was the sole resident in their house in SE London.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
The Norwegian system of publishing ALL tax returns on the internet is useful reinforcerment for that kind of social pressure.
There's edge cases like grannies living in Palladian mansions on income support, and hedge fund managers who spend every penny on cocaine and show girls, but on the whole asset rich and income rich correlate pretty spectacularly, so wealth vs income tax is just about the mechanics of collection. So why the enthusiasm for wealth? Is it meant to target a particularly loathsome type of rich person, or to deplete the parts which other taxes for some unexplained reason cannot reach?
Not really so. The difference is age. And particularly property.
Second homes would be the thing to go for, on the basis that no-one really needs more than one.
Exactly what is a second home? Serious question. A one time slate-workers cottage on the edge of Gwynedd village, occupied at weekends by a barrister from Manchester; probably. How about if said barrister owns a bijou 'lodge' on a 'selective development' in the grounds of what was once the slate-mine owners 19th C 'castle'. Which can only be visited for 11 months out of the 12.
And good morning, one and all!
You can also pull tricks with a second house. One of my uncles in the 80s and 90s registered his wife as the only resident in their second home on the south coast, while he was the sole resident in their house in SE London.
And was that the truth of the matter ?
I wonder whether the Inland Revenue would accept the "post modernist defence" - that there is no such thing as truth?
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
I'm very happy for other people to pay more tax to pay for the cost of CV19
So said a large chunk of the 90% of those polled who would apparently be unaffected by the proposal. The only thing that surprises me is that the idea wasn't even more popular.
The concept of spending rises for me, paid for by tax rises for somebody else, earns lots of likes. Who'd-a-thunk it?
Good story, only it isn't true for the likes that count, votes. In the UK we very rarely elect a government promising new taxes, even if they only impact a minority. So governments sneak them in where they can rather than doing sensible things like merging NI and income tax, introducing a wealth tax and replacing council tax with LVT.
Covid provides cover to do some of the above, and I wouldnt be entirely surprised to see the government take action on either of the first two, despite being a Tory govt.
The government, being it seems stuck in campaign mode, seems petrified of anything radical that isn't just splurging cash, so worried about taking a polling hit that is probably inevitable anyway.
Merging NI and income tax won't work as it would either increase post 68 tax massively (so not an option) or explicitly reveal again how much better those who retired are.
Personally I would love a LVT as its about the only sane wealth tax you could apply and recover in a world which is far more international than most people believe.
There's no reason you can't tax wages and pensions at different rates. After all we do at the moment, and just call part of the tax something else. The differential could then be eroded over time, if governments wanted to.
But why should you?
Anyhow focusing on pension income regarding tax and NI is missing the broader issue - harmonising tax on earned and unearned income surely makes sense? Why should someone receiving income from investments or property pay so much less tax than someone who works for it?
That is a good question in normal times. But these aren't normal times, since 2009 we have averaged about £70bn of QE. That QE is specifically to boost investment assets including property. That is pretty close to the amount spent on working age benefits.
The government are spending the same amount boosting the assets of the wealthy as they are supporting the working poor!
The wealthy then pay very low marginal tax rates (if any thanks to things like ISAs, pension reliefs, SEIS, EIS etc) whilst the working poor are on extremely high marginal tax rates, in some scenarios even extra pay will lead to lower income for them.
It is perverse and only allowed to happen as people dont consider the detail, just the principle of either they believe tax is good or bad because of their party affiliations.
Wait, what?
QE is not Government Spending. QE is funding Government Spending.
I agree completely on the marginal tax rates and keep meaning to write a thread header on this subject if I can ever get the chance to do so.
Given the choice between writing a solution to connect 2 systems together or implementing a quick work around - the quick work around is always going to win as most of the time you will need that quick work around to begin with.
With Covid I suspect there is then far more useful things that a developer could be doing them implementing a proper solution for a short term issue that has a working quick fix.
We've heard that £2billion has been spent on all this. There's plenty of spare change for a team of developers to sort out data integration from sources.
My guess is that this is an internal political issue. NHS vs PHE vs EvulOutsiders. We have heard echos of the turf wars going on inside. 2 Billion is a lot of money to add to a bureaucracy. The infighting that will produce will be massive.
For example - that statement made about vaccine availability and coverage, sound to me very like someone trying to mark territory.
I understood the budget was £10bn plus ?
And forget turf war; it just sounds like a mess.
As a small example, they are asking local labs to increase capacity, but they are completely unable to buy more testing equipment, as it has all been reserved for the 'Lighthouse" labs. Which obviously have utility, but are a very slow way indeed to get test results back to local track and trace.
A competent chief exec who actually understands the science and processes (and how they have developed over the last few months) would make a huge difference.
Last Friday my better half demonstrated why she is indeed that, by telling me the Trump illness was a scam, a lie, just to get sympathy and votes. I said , no , no, now I am now in agreement with her.
If that is the case, it will all come out eventually and several doctors will have their reputations in ruins and their careers will be effectively over.
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
You touch on a very valid point - public sector DB schemes. But I`m not going there - I`ll let someone else put their head above the parapet.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
The Norwegian system of publishing ALL tax returns on the internet is useful reinforcerment for that kind of social pressure.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
The Norwegian system of publishing ALL tax returns on the internet is useful reinforcerment for that kind of social pressure.
That in turn just pushes the problem around in a different way - "I don't earn alot, and pay tax on what I earn".
Jeff Bezos et al don't actually earn *that* much. His tax statement of *earnings* would be surprisingly pedestrian.
Given the choice between writing a solution to connect 2 systems together or implementing a quick work around - the quick work around is always going to win as most of the time you will need that quick work around to begin with.
With Covid I suspect there is then far more useful things that a developer could be doing them implementing a proper solution for a short term issue that has a working quick fix.
Especially when the existing system is being replaced anyway so a working quick fix only needs to work until the new system is thoroughly tested then launched.
Sending data in as a CSV export and then uploading it is a solution that has been used many, many times. It works.
It was the use of Excel *inside* PHE to play with the data that, apparently, caused the problem.
Likely this issue:
Interactivity with the desktop: Office applications assume that they are being run under an interactive desktop. In some circumstances, applications may need to be made visible for certain Automation functions to work correctly. If an unexpected error occurs, or if an unspecified parameter is needed to complete a function, Office is designed to prompt the user with a modal dialog box that asks the user what the user wants to do. A modal dialog box on a non-interactive desktop cannot be dismissed. Therefore, that thread stops responding (hangs) indefinitely. Although certain coding practices can help reduce the likelihood of this issue, these practices cannot prevent the issue entirely. This fact alone makes running Office Applications from a server-side environment risky and unsupported.
There's edge cases like grannies living in Palladian mansions on income support, and hedge fund managers who spend every penny on cocaine and show girls, but on the whole asset rich and income rich correlate pretty spectacularly, so wealth vs income tax is just about the mechanics of collection. So why the enthusiasm for wealth? Is it meant to target a particularly loathsome type of rich person, or to deplete the parts which other taxes for some unexplained reason cannot reach?
Not really so. The difference is age. And particularly property.
Second homes would be the thing to go for, on the basis that no-one really needs more than one.
Exactly what is a second home? Serious question. A one time slate-workers cottage on the edge of Gwynedd village, occupied at weekends by a barrister from Manchester; probably. How about if said barrister owns a bijou 'lodge' on a 'selective development' in the grounds of what was once the slate-mine owners 19th C 'castle'. Which can only be visited for 11 months out of the 12.
And good morning, one and all!
You can also pull tricks with a second house. One of my uncles in the 80s and 90s registered his wife as the only resident in their second home on the south coast, while he was the sole resident in their house in SE London.
And was that the truth of the matter ?
I wonder whether the Inland Revenue would accept the "post modernist defence" - that there is no such thing as truth?
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
Do you have any idea how unlikely it is that the policy will continue for 50 years?
The triple lock essentially gives an ever increasing share of govt spending to the state pension. Ever increasing being key. Somewhere about 100-200 years in it would have to be more than 100% of govt spending. Not more than the rest of it, more than the whole current budget if we spent nothing on health, education, defence, policing etc. And it would still lead to fast rises ongoing from there.
You cannot give a guaranteed ever increasing share to one part of govt spending in the long run.
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
You touch on a very valid point - public sector DB schemes. But I`m not going there - I`ll let someone else put their head above the parapet.
The schemes I mentioned were private sector DB schemes. I'm aware that they're not always financially sustainable, but nothing annoys me more than people retired on such schemes who bleat on about how it's good that no one else can have them any more. Fortunately such people are few and far between, but it makes me hang on tighter to this one for my future's sake.
I'm very happy for other people to pay more tax to pay for the cost of CV19
So said a large chunk of the 90% of those polled who would apparently be unaffected by the proposal. The only thing that surprises me is that the idea wasn't even more popular.
The concept of spending rises for me, paid for by tax rises for somebody else, earns lots of likes. Who'd-a-thunk it?
Good story, only it isn't true for the likes that count, votes. In the UK we very rarely elect a government promising new taxes, even if they only impact a minority. So governments sneak them in where they can rather than doing sensible things like merging NI and income tax, introducing a wealth tax and replacing council tax with LVT.
Covid provides cover to do some of the above, and I wouldnt be entirely surprised to see the government take action on either of the first two, despite being a Tory govt.
The government, being it seems stuck in campaign mode, seems petrified of anything radical that isn't just splurging cash, so worried about taking a polling hit that is probably inevitable anyway.
Merging NI and income tax won't work as it would either increase post 68 tax massively (so not an option) or explicitly reveal again how much better those who retired are.
Personally I would love a LVT as its about the only sane wealth tax you could apply and recover in a world which is far more international than most people believe.
There's no reason you can't tax wages and pensions at different rates. After all we do at the moment, and just call part of the tax something else. The differential could then be eroded over time, if governments wanted to.
But why should you?
Anyhow focusing on pension income regarding tax and NI is missing the broader issue - harmonising tax on earned and unearned income surely makes sense? Why should someone receiving income from investments or property pay so much less tax than someone who works for it?
That is a good question in normal times. But these aren't normal times, since 2009 we have averaged about £70bn of QE. That QE is specifically to boost investment assets including property. That is pretty close to the amount spent on working age benefits.
The government are spending the same amount boosting the assets of the wealthy as they are supporting the working poor!
The wealthy then pay very low marginal tax rates (if any thanks to things like ISAs, pension reliefs, SEIS, EIS etc) whilst the working poor are on extremely high marginal tax rates, in some scenarios even extra pay will lead to lower income for them.
It is perverse and only allowed to happen as people dont consider the detail, just the principle of either they believe tax is good or bad because of their party affiliations.
Wait, what?
QE is not Government Spending. QE is funding Government Spending.
I agree completely on the marginal tax rates and keep meaning to write a thread header on this subject if I can ever get the chance to do so.
"How does quantitative easing work? Large-scale purchases of government bonds lower the interest rates or ‘yields’ on those bonds (the investopedia website explains more about bond yields). This pushes down on the interest rates offered on loans (eg mortgages or business loans) because rates on government bonds tend to affect other interest rates in the economy.
So QE works by making it cheaper for households and businesses to borrow money – encouraging spending.
In addition, QE can stimulate the economy by boosting a wide range of financial asset prices.
Suppose we buy £1 million of government bonds from a pension fund. In place of the bonds, the pension fund now has £1 million in money. Rather than hold on to this money, it might invest it in financial assets, such as shares, that give it a higher return. And when demand for financial assets is high, with more people wanting to buy them, the value of these assets increases. This makes businesses and households holding shares wealthier – making them more likely to spend more, boosting economic activity."
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
You touch on a very valid point - public sector DB schemes. But I`m not going there - I`ll let someone else put their head above the parapet.
The schemes I mentioned were private sector DB schemes. I'm aware that they're not always financially sustainable, but nothing annoys me more than people retired on such schemes who bleat on about how it's good that no one else can have them any more. Fortunately such people are few and far between, but it makes me hang on tighter to this one for my future's sake.
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
Do you have any idea how unlikely it is that the policy will continue for 50 years?
The triple lock essentially gives an ever increasing share of govt spending to the state pension. Ever increasing being key. Somewhere about 100-200 years in it would have to be more than 100% of govt spending. Not more than the rest of it, more than the whole current budget if we spent nothing on health, education, defence, policing etc. And it would still lead to fast rises ongoing from there.
You cannot give a guaranteed ever increasing share to one part of govt spending in the long run.
I am very aware of that. I am also, unsurprisingly, coming at this from a point of absolute self interest. The longer it goes on, the less the average mean-spirited private sector pension my various friends and family earn will need to generate. My previous company put in the absolute legal minimum into my pension match scheme. Very few I looked at were willing to put in more. I had to sacrifice a shitload of my income a month to keep my projected scheme yield anywhere near "not terrible". So I'm sure it will end, but at some point a government is going to need to address the fact that, even saving responsibly, a lot of people of my age are going to really struggle on retirement.
The Economist rate Trump`s chances at 10%. 538 go 18%.
BF have him at 2.72 (2.7 GOP as winning party) which implies 37%.
This is a significant margin of disconnect. I wonder whether we`ll be kicking ourselves after the election for not backing Biden more heavily that we already are?
Very likely we will, yes. But, uncertainty over the stability of the markets, ballot stuffing/legal hanky-panky, and - most importantly - cashflow are all holding us back.
I've set my max exposure at £3k and won't exceed it. Of course, once I "know" the result I'll wish I'd increased that ten-fold but that's gambling and you have to be responsible.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
You touch on a very valid point - public sector DB schemes. But I`m not going there - I`ll let someone else put their head above the parapet.
The schemes I mentioned were private sector DB schemes. I'm aware that they're not always financially sustainable, but nothing annoys me more than people retired on such schemes who bleat on about how it's good that no one else can have them any more. Fortunately such people are few and far between, but it makes me hang on tighter to this one for my future's sake.
Hang onto it. DB schemes are gold dust.
Damn right. It's a decent fortieth scheme and I'm probably going to move my crummy small-company pots into it. The only other employer outside the public sector I ever saw who offered it was EDF.
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
I think you'd have to compare with pre-infection behaviour though. He's been odd, restless and wobbly (remember the ramp ?) for some time now.
Anyone think there's a high chance that Trump will be back in hospital within a week? I think others have pointed out that he didn't look in particularly good shape last night and that's with all the drugs pumped into him. I think he's still pretty ill.
I suspect that he will want to come off the drugs asap as that will be evidence (for himself if nothing else) that he has "beaten" the virus, and the consequences could be quite bad.
It may even be that the drugs have made it worse by creating distorting effects of his condition in his mind, and side effects of drugs are being confused with impacts of the virus.
Steroids in particular need to be tapered carefully - and while it's difficult to tell if they've affected his behaviour as its not notably more erratic than previously - time will tell.
I know someone who died because they messed up their steroids. She was obese which added further complications.
Her husband came home and found her dead as a doorknob sitting in an armchair and, for some odd reason, surrounded by all their cats.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Given the choice between writing a solution to connect 2 systems together or implementing a quick work around - the quick work around is always going to win as most of the time you will need that quick work around to begin with.
With Covid I suspect there is then far more useful things that a developer could be doing them implementing a proper solution for a short term issue that has a working quick fix.
Especially when the existing system is being replaced anyway so a working quick fix only needs to work until the new system is thoroughly tested then launched.
Sending data in as a CSV export and then uploading it is a solution that has been used many, many times. It works.
It was the use of Excel *inside* PHE to play with the data that, apparently, caused the problem.
Likely this issue:
Interactivity with the desktop: Office applications assume that they are being run under an interactive desktop. In some circumstances, applications may need to be made visible for certain Automation functions to work correctly. If an unexpected error occurs, or if an unspecified parameter is needed to complete a function, Office is designed to prompt the user with a modal dialog box that asks the user what the user wants to do. A modal dialog box on a non-interactive desktop cannot be dismissed. Therefore, that thread stops responding (hangs) indefinitely. Although certain coding practices can help reduce the likelihood of this issue, these practices cannot prevent the issue entirely. This fact alone makes running Office Applications from a server-side environment risky and unsupported.
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
If he was doing the Roman salute he might appeal to his base even more. Benito Mussolini reincarnated.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Perhaps because the virus affects younger people much less than older people.
The don't knows need to make more of an effort to puzzle this out. Everyone else is.
And why are labour not miles ahead
Because they still have residual Corbyn toxicity. They have four years to detoxify. How long will it take the Tories to detoxify themselves from Johnsonian incompetent populism is anyone's guess.
I'm very happy for other people to pay more tax to pay for the cost of CV19
So said a large chunk of the 90% of those polled who would apparently be unaffected by the proposal. The only thing that surprises me is that the idea wasn't even more popular.
The concept of spending rises for me, paid for by tax rises for somebody else, earns lots of likes. Who'd-a-thunk it?
Good story, only it isn't true for the likes that count, votes. In the UK we very rarely elect a government promising new taxes, even if they only impact a minority. So governments sneak them in where they can rather than doing sensible things like merging NI and income tax, introducing a wealth tax and replacing council tax with LVT.
Covid provides cover to do some of the above, and I wouldnt be entirely surprised to see the government take action on either of the first two, despite being a Tory govt.
The government, being it seems stuck in campaign mode, seems petrified of anything radical that isn't just splurging cash, so worried about taking a polling hit that is probably inevitable anyway.
Merging NI and income tax won't work as it would either increase post 68 tax massively (so not an option) or explicitly reveal again how much better those who retired are.
Personally I would love a LVT as its about the only sane wealth tax you could apply and recover in a world which is far more international than most people believe.
There's no reason you can't tax wages and pensions at different rates. After all we do at the moment, and just call part of the tax something else. The differential could then be eroded over time, if governments wanted to.
But why should you?
Anyhow focusing on pension income regarding tax and NI is missing the broader issue - harmonising tax on earned and unearned income surely makes sense? Why should someone receiving income from investments or property pay so much less tax than someone who works for it?
That is a good question in normal times. But these aren't normal times, since 2009 we have averaged about £70bn of QE. That QE is specifically to boost investment assets including property. That is pretty close to the amount spent on working age benefits.
The government are spending the same amount boosting the assets of the wealthy as they are supporting the working poor!
The wealthy then pay very low marginal tax rates (if any thanks to things like ISAs, pension reliefs, SEIS, EIS etc) whilst the working poor are on extremely high marginal tax rates, in some scenarios even extra pay will lead to lower income for them.
It is perverse and only allowed to happen as people dont consider the detail, just the principle of either they believe tax is good or bad because of their party affiliations.
Wait, what?
QE is not Government Spending. QE is funding Government Spending.
I agree completely on the marginal tax rates and keep meaning to write a thread header on this subject if I can ever get the chance to do so.
"How does quantitative easing work? Large-scale purchases of government bonds lower the interest rates or ‘yields’ on those bonds (the investopedia website explains more about bond yields). This pushes down on the interest rates offered on loans (eg mortgages or business loans) because rates on government bonds tend to affect other interest rates in the economy.
So QE works by making it cheaper for households and businesses to borrow money – encouraging spending.
In addition, QE can stimulate the economy by boosting a wide range of financial asset prices.
Suppose we buy £1 million of government bonds from a pension fund. In place of the bonds, the pension fund now has £1 million in money. Rather than hold on to this money, it might invest it in financial assets, such as shares, that give it a higher return. And when demand for financial assets is high, with more people wanting to buy them, the value of these assets increases. This makes businesses and households holding shares wealthier – making them more likely to spend more, boosting economic activity."
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Perhaps because the virus affects younger people much less than older people.
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
I think you'd have to compare with pre-infection behaviour though. He's been odd, restless and wobbly (remember the ramp ?) for some time now.
Wow. He looked really unsteady in that and I thought at one point he was going to pass out...
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
But the likelihood is that it will have gone by the time you reach the relevant age. That, or its cost to the current oldies will have forced other changes (such as further delays in the age of entitlement) that reduce its future benefit to you.
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
I think you'd have to compare with pre-infection behaviour though. He's been odd, restless and wobbly (remember the ramp ?) for some time now.
Wow. He looked really unsteady in that and I thought at one point he was going to pass out...
I think we must be watching different clips. Seems fine to me, a bit studied but he has just had the pox.
As @Nigelb notes - have you studied so closely his pre-infection behaviour?
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
It seems that a large majority of students testing positive are asymptomatic.
I'd like to see some data as to how many infected school pupils and students are symptomatic / require medical treatment / hospitalised.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Perhaps because the virus affects younger people much less than older people.
But they must come into contact with older people
Seems strange but then I am not an expert
Depends on the circumstances. If they've been locked into their halls then they won't be mixing with the outside world very much.
I'm very happy for other people to pay more tax to pay for the cost of CV19
So said a large chunk of the 90% of those polled who would apparently be unaffected by the proposal. The only thing that surprises me is that the idea wasn't even more popular.
The concept of spending rises for me, paid for by tax rises for somebody else, earns lots of likes. Who'd-a-thunk it?
Good story, only it isn't true for the likes that count, votes. In the UK we very rarely elect a government promising new taxes, even if they only impact a minority. So governments sneak them in where they can rather than doing sensible things like merging NI and income tax, introducing a wealth tax and replacing council tax with LVT.
Covid provides cover to do some of the above, and I wouldnt be entirely surprised to see the government take action on either of the first two, despite being a Tory govt.
The government, being it seems stuck in campaign mode, seems petrified of anything radical that isn't just splurging cash, so worried about taking a polling hit that is probably inevitable anyway.
Merging NI and income tax won't work as it would either increase post 68 tax massively (so not an option) or explicitly reveal again how much better those who retired are.
Personally I would love a LVT as its about the only sane wealth tax you could apply and recover in a world which is far more international than most people believe.
There's no reason you can't tax wages and pensions at different rates. After all we do at the moment, and just call part of the tax something else. The differential could then be eroded over time, if governments wanted to.
But why should you?
Anyhow focusing on pension income regarding tax and NI is missing the broader issue - harmonising tax on earned and unearned income surely makes sense? Why should someone receiving income from investments or property pay so much less tax than someone who works for it?
That is a good question in normal times. But these aren't normal times, since 2009 we have averaged about £70bn of QE. That QE is specifically to boost investment assets including property. That is pretty close to the amount spent on working age benefits.
The government are spending the same amount boosting the assets of the wealthy as they are supporting the working poor!
The wealthy then pay very low marginal tax rates (if any thanks to things like ISAs, pension reliefs, SEIS, EIS etc) whilst the working poor are on extremely high marginal tax rates, in some scenarios even extra pay will lead to lower income for them.
It is perverse and only allowed to happen as people dont consider the detail, just the principle of either they believe tax is good or bad because of their party affiliations.
Wait, what?
QE is not Government Spending. QE is funding Government Spending.
I agree completely on the marginal tax rates and keep meaning to write a thread header on this subject if I can ever get the chance to do so.
"How does quantitative easing work? Large-scale purchases of government bonds lower the interest rates or ‘yields’ on those bonds (the investopedia website explains more about bond yields). This pushes down on the interest rates offered on loans (eg mortgages or business loans) because rates on government bonds tend to affect other interest rates in the economy.
So QE works by making it cheaper for households and businesses to borrow money – encouraging spending.
In addition, QE can stimulate the economy by boosting a wide range of financial asset prices.
Suppose we buy £1 million of government bonds from a pension fund. In place of the bonds, the pension fund now has £1 million in money. Rather than hold on to this money, it might invest it in financial assets, such as shares, that give it a higher return. And when demand for financial assets is high, with more people wanting to buy them, the value of these assets increases. This makes businesses and households holding shares wealthier – making them more likely to spend more, boosting economic activity."
The don't knows need to make more of an effort to puzzle this out. Everyone else is.
And why are labour not miles ahead
Because they still have residual Corbyn toxicity. They have four years to detoxify. How long will it take the Tories to detoxify themselves from Johnsonian incompetent populism is anyone's guess.
I doubt the performances of Mark Drakeford in Wales, Sadiq Khan in London and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester are detoxifying Labour.
Tax increases should fall on the over 60s. Non-primary residential property surcharge, a special higher rate of tax for early retirement, pension income to be taxed as regular income, scrap the triple lock.
I'll use my dad as an example, he's about to turn 66 which means he's of state pension age. He absolutely doesn't need it, his annual earnings from private pensions, his own equity investments and continuing business interests bring in around 15-20x whatever the state pension is. It's a complete waste of money to give it to him along with all of the other bungs, if anything he's absolutely able to pay 10-20% more tax per year because he's got no mortgage, his kids (my sister and I) have flown the nest and has very few ongoing expenses.
Instead I'm sure the tax rises will fall on the working age population.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
The difference in the rate of growth of infections and the rate of hospitalisations has been stark and I, and others, have been pointing this out for weeks.
Various theories exist to explain this. The most popular one is that this wave hasn`t extended to older and more vulnerable age groups - yet. But the "yet" is wearing a bit thin in my view.
Other theories include:
1) infections are not actually going up; the numbers are rising because of increased testing/particular cohort testing 2) the virus is mutating into a less serious form 3) variolation: infections caught via the increased use of masks is resulting in a lower dose which the body can cope with better 4) some of the positive test results are picking up remnants of previous virus infections thus creating an incorrect assumption that the virus is spreading more widely than it is 5) Doctors have better methods of dealing with infections now and are sending people home to manage the virus whereas in the spring they would have been admitted to hospital.
Could be a mixture of the above. And there may be other theories.
Perhaps the Conservatives should come up with a new tax, one that this is a fixed annual sum levied on every individual?
Taxes are things that lots of people (particularly on the left) think should be increased but only for other people. I always think there should be a "voluntary tax" to see how many people genuinely want to pay more. It would be the ultimate in virtue signalling, with those that are paying more voluntarily publishing their extra funding that they are paying over so doctors and public "servants" can have even bigger pensions.
It’s all straightforward really. Something is fundamentally broken with Western capitalism, with risk taking disincentivised, capital holders getting ever more capital and those relying on an income to build wealth losing. The great QE wheeze of the financial crisis, repeated so enthusiastically with covid, is the problem.
Absolutely excellent post that describes the "K-Shaped" recovery very well. Wall street goes up, main street goes down. However, the one part I'd take issue with is the triple lock. It's something I've softened to over the years because as someone pointed out, it has more of an effect the younger you are. A baby boomer in their sixties will get the benefit of maybe 20 years of state pension increases. If you're in your early thirties like me, if the policy continues you'll get the benefit of 50 years. That's not insignificant, especially because the wealthier baby boomers mostly derive their income from very generous pension schemes that were in vogue in the 80s. My Dad retired early on a great pension, while some of his colleagues actually gained real terms income on retirement. My private sector schemes are barely worthwhile, and is one of the reasons I took a decent sized pay cut to join the public sector and get access to a decent DB scheme. I'm acutely aware of how fucked my generation is likely to be on retirement so I'm keen to give us any edge we can get.
But the likelihood is that it will have gone by the time you reach the relevant age. That, or its cost to the current oldies will have forced other changes (such as further delays in the age of entitlement) that reduce its future benefit to you.
Oh yeah fully expect that, but given there are those amongst current generation of oldies have fought constantly to have their interests prioritised at somewhat toxic cost to everyone older and younger than them, I'm quite happy to avoid pushing for the immediate abolition of a policy that will benefit me in the long term.
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
I think you'd have to compare with pre-infection behaviour though. He's been odd, restless and wobbly (remember the ramp ?) for some time now.
Wow. He looked really unsteady in that and I thought at one point he was going to pass out...
I think we must be watching different clips. Seems fine to me, a bit studied but he has just had the pox.
As @Nigelb notes - have you studied so closely his pre-infection behaviour?
Perhaps the Conservatives should come up with a new tax, one that this is a fixed annual sum levied on every individual?
Taxes are things that lots of people (particularly on the left) think should be increased but only for other people. I always think there should be a "voluntary tax" to see how many people genuinely want to pay more. It would be the ultimate in virtue signalling, with those that are paying more voluntarily publishing their extra funding that they are paying over so doctors and public "servants" can have even bigger pensions.
Can be turned on its head somewhat. The warm glow one feels through donating to charity actually detracts from the tax-take as these days each donation can be offset against income tax (Gift Aid). Blair policy I think. I`d like to see this practice ended.
Perhaps the Conservatives should come up with a new tax, one that this is a fixed annual sum levied on every individual?
Taxes are things that lots of people (particularly on the left) think should be increased but only for other people. I always think there should be a "voluntary tax" to see how many people genuinely want to pay more. It would be the ultimate in virtue signalling, with those that are paying more voluntarily publishing their extra funding that they are paying over so doctors and public "servants" can have even bigger pensions.
That's a silly, point scoring point though, isn't it? I advocate tax changes that would involve me paying more, but that doesn't mean I should pay more while no-one else does. Your way would simply lead to an effective lower tax rate for the greedy and selfish, and a tax on virtue and selflessness, which is ridiculous.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
The difference in the rate of growth of infections and the rate of hospitalisations has been stark and I, and others, have been pointing this out for weeks.
Various theories exist to explain this. The most popular one is that this wave hasn`t extended to older and more vulnerable age groups - yet. But the "yet" is wearing a bit thin in my view.
Other theories include:
1) infections are not actually going up; the numbers are rising because of increased testing/particular cohort testing 2) the virus is mutating into a less serious form 3) variolation: infections caught via the increased use of masks is resulting in a lower dose which the body can cope with better 4) some of the positive test results are picking up remnants of previous virus infections thus creating an incorrect assumption that the virus is spreading more widely than it is 5) Doctors have better methods of dealing with infections now and are sending people home to manage the virus whereas in the spring they would have been admitted to hospital.
Could be a mixture of the above. And there may be other theories.
I'm starting to think that 3 variolation is all important here.
The don't knows need to make more of an effort to puzzle this out. Everyone else is.
And why are labour not miles ahead
Because they still have residual Corbyn toxicity. They have four years to detoxify. How long will it take the Tories to detoxify themselves from Johnsonian incompetent populism is anyone's guess.
I doubt the performances of Mark Drakeford in Wales, Sadiq Khan in London and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester are detoxifying Labour.
I don't like any of those, but the reality is that they are no more lightweight (not difficult), and appear a deal more competent (really not difficult) than Boris Johnson and his Brexit-Party-Lite government. Labour has four years. From a selfish point of view I have no desire to see a Labour government, but it really cannot be worse than this one
He looked a bit breathless after climbing the stairs, and a faster respiratory rate. What struck me though were his restless, fidgety movements. Restlessness is often a sign of hypoxia, but it could also be steroid induced. He hasn't beaten this yet.
I think you'd have to compare with pre-infection behaviour though. He's been odd, restless and wobbly (remember the ramp ?) for some time now.
Wow. He looked really unsteady in that and I thought at one point he was going to pass out...
I think we must be watching different clips. Seems fine to me, a bit studied but he has just had the pox.
As @Nigelb notes - have you studied so closely his pre-infection behaviour?
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Perhaps because the virus affects younger people much less than older people.
But they must come into contact with older people
Seems strange but then I am not an expert
1. There is a lag between developing symptoms, testing positive and requiring hospitalization, or dying.
2. There is an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, but, because of (1), this will mostly reflect earlier increases in case numbers.
3. If you can hermetically seal the young positive cases from the general population, as Singapore have so far managed with the outbreaks among migrant workers there, then you have a chance to have lots of positive cases and few deaths. In Singapore they currently have 57,830 cases and 27 deaths for this reason. A CFR of ~0.05% at present. University halls of residence are the closest analogue in the UK.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
The difference in the rate of growth of infections and the rate of hospitalisations has been stark and I, and others, have been pointing this out for weeks.
Various theories exist to explain this. The most popular one is that this wave hasn`t extended to older and more vulnerable age groups - yet. But the "yet" is wearing a bit thin in my view.
Other theories include:
1) infections are not actually going up; the numbers are rising because of increased testing/particular cohort testing 2) the virus is mutating into a less serious form 3) variolation: infections caught via the increased use of masks is resulting in a lower dose which the body can cope with better 4) some of the positive test results are picking up remnants of previous virus infections thus creating an incorrect assumption that the virus is spreading more widely than it is 5) Doctors have better methods of dealing with infections now and are sending people home to manage the virus whereas in the spring they would have been admitted to hospital.
Could be a mixture of the above. And there may be other theories.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Because your typical 18-21 year old away at University isn't seeing older relatives that often.
Spain's big outbreak followed the Universities closing and all the students heading home.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
The difference in the rate of growth of infections and the rate of hospitalisations has been stark and I, and others, have been pointing this out for weeks.
Various theories exist to explain this. The most popular one is that this wave hasn`t extended to older and more vulnerable age groups - yet. But the "yet" is wearing a bit thin in my view.
Other theories include:
1) infections are not actually going up; the numbers are rising because of increased testing/particular cohort testing 2) the virus is mutating into a less serious form 3) variolation: infections caught via the increased use of masks is resulting in a lower dose which the body can cope with better 4) some of the positive test results are picking up remnants of previous virus infections thus creating an incorrect assumption that the virus is spreading more widely than it is 5) Doctors have better methods of dealing with infections now and are sending people home to manage the virus whereas in the spring they would have been admitted to hospital.
Could be a mixture of the above. And there may be other theories.
I'm starting to think that 3 variolation is all important here.
The reason that so many favour wealth taxes, is that it is not just Americans that are pissed off when the conspicuously wealthy pay bugger all income tax, like Donald Trump. Similarly that booming companies like Amazon and other tech giants pay nothing.
When taxes are optional for the rich, it creates a lot of resentment, and rightly so.
Indeed. The problem of course is that whilst any given country can sort out their own tax code to make corporations and individuals pay due taxes, they can't sort everywhere else's tax code. Hence how Starbucks can send all their coffee beans via Luxembourg. I can't see a solution to this that isn't a consumer boycott.
Make tax avoidance an anathema. Make consumers refuse to engage with the likes of Amazon so that paying due taxes is what makes their business viable. I know, it won't work. Because the likes of Amazon are far too useful to be boycotted.
Or simplify the tax system and make it harder to avoid and apply evenly.
It simply isn't true that Amazon and Starbucks don't pay taxes. They pay taxes on every sale that occurs (VAT) on wages they pay their employees (NI, PAYE) and many more. The issue is that HMRC tries to tax businesses about 8 different ways and these businesses are getting out of 1 of them. Well if that 1 is broken then fix the system and apply a level playing field.
The problem is the broken tax is impossible to tax as you do simply move goods round in ways to reduce absolute profits and there is little to nothing HMRC can do about it.
To a large extent it would be best for HMRC to either not worry about it or find a mechanism that would make our corporate tax rates the lowest in the world so large companies send the money here rather than away from here.
One issue with taxing corporate profits is businesses running in startup mode, perpetually.
Amazon deliberately minimises profits by spending as much as it can on investing in growing. Tesla does the same.
So even if you eliminated all the profit trading around the world, there is a problem. It is quite easy not to make a profit. And if you can do so in a way that keeps the shareholders happy....
Other issues with corporation tax:
- The incidence (the person who ends up worse off by the tax) is usually primarily on the worker. Something counterintuitive and therefore ignored by most who see it as the perfect "someone else will pay this tax." - The tax wedge (foregone economic growth) is the largest amongst most conventional taxes by far (only financial transactions taxes have greater impact on growth. The least impact on growth of any suggested tax is a Land Value Tax on land plus permissions, which can end up increasing growth).
And, of course, the various loopholes make it so easy to dodge.
Abolish it, and tax all dividends as normal income (so money taken out gets taxed), and set up a system of taxing inter-company transfers and international intra-company transfers. This latter is by no means trivial, but I'd like to believe it wouldn't be beyond the wit of man.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
The difference in the rate of growth of infections and the rate of hospitalisations has been stark and I, and others, have been pointing this out for weeks.
Various theories exist to explain this. The most popular one is that this wave hasn`t extended to older and more vulnerable age groups - yet. But the "yet" is wearing a bit thin in my view.
Other theories include:
1) infections are not actually going up; the numbers are rising because of increased testing/particular cohort testing 2) the virus is mutating into a less serious form 3) variolation: infections caught via the increased use of masks is resulting in a lower dose which the body can cope with better 4) some of the positive test results are picking up remnants of previous virus infections thus creating an incorrect assumption that the virus is spreading more widely than it is 5) Doctors have better methods of dealing with infections now and are sending people home to manage the virus whereas in the spring they would have been admitted to hospital.
Could be a mixture of the above. And there may be other theories.
I'm starting to think that 3 variolation is all important here.
Yes - most people are taking at least some precautions and this means the viral load people are picking up is a whole lot less than the early days, when people were being infected by prolonged close contact with others.
Does anyone have a breakdown of which European countries it is standard for students to stay in the parent home while at university and in which it is standard to move to a different location.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
I am not an expert on these matters but why is the explosion in students testing positive for covid not resulting in more hospital admissions and sadly deaths
Perhaps because the virus affects younger people much less than older people.
But they must come into contact with older people
Seems strange but then I am not an expert
1. There is a lag between developing symptoms, testing positive and requiring hospitalization, or dying.
2. There is an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, but, because of (1), this will mostly reflect earlier increases in case numbers.
3. If you can hermetically seal the young positive cases from the general population, as Singapore have so far managed with the outbreaks among migrant workers there, then you have a chance to have lots of positive cases and few deaths. In Singapore they currently have 57,830 cases and 27 deaths for this reason. A CFR of ~0.05% at present. University halls of residence are the closest analogue in the UK.
I am grateful for the contributions fellow posters are making to my understanding of this complex issue
Comments
Last ONS estimate of total UK wealth was £14.6 trillion. This country is not poor.
To cut public spending or benefits, or raise income tax or VAT (any of which take money out of the economy) would be akin to a miser walking around with holes in his shoes or starving rather than spending a few £ from his millions in the bank.
For example - that statement made about vaccine availability and coverage, sound to me very like someone trying to mark territory.
BF have him at 2.72 (2.7 GOP as winning party) which implies 37%.
This is a significant margin of disconnect. I wonder whether we`ll be kicking ourselves after the election for not backing Biden more heavily that we already are?
https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president
Also the debate commission probably also aren't in a mood to be made fools of again (and potentially sued), so I imagine the Dems can leave it to them to argue with Trump. If he walks away, fine.
Is Amazon a natural monopoly? I think it is, with declining unit costs. If so it is a one-off, and a sovereign tax authority could be justified in setting conditions for its operation within its territory. A special Amazon tax could be created, or a licence to operate within the country.
Natural monopolies benefit from level playing fields. Why is any activity ever protected by tariffs or quotas within a LPF regime? The Amazon case is the opposite - its competitors need protection from the behemoth.
No - I think your original reaction is much more likely to be true.
This is a man which hugely dislikes any form of weakness. To be 'ill' is a defect, a failing, and he would hate to be ever be seen in that way.
Trump is ill.
You can and should take account of 2016. That is part of 'the form', as are the eccentricities of Trump and his supporters, but at the end of the day the form is screaming something at you. It is not a certainty, nothing is. But for Biden backers, the margin for error is huge.
Why the obsession with "profits" given that "profits" are easy to manipulate and hard to levy. Whereas VAT for example is easy to levy and hard to manipulate.
Corporation tax that they are paying is 1.9% of the taxes that they are paying, but probably about 99% (or more) of the conversation when their tax situation is discussed.
One reason America has done better than Europe in my opinion at developing larger and growing businesses is precisely because their tax system encourages investment whereas our tax system almost considers investment as a tax dodge to which there should be an 'allowance'.
The government are spending the same amount boosting the assets of the wealthy as they are supporting the working poor!
The wealthy then pay very low marginal tax rates (if any thanks to things like ISAs, pension reliefs, SEIS, EIS etc) whilst the working poor are on extremely high marginal tax rates, in some scenarios even extra pay will lead to lower income for them.
It is perverse and only allowed to happen as people dont consider the detail, just the principle of either they believe tax is good or bad because of their party affiliations.
The market is mental.
https://twitter.com/anthonybmasters/status/1313380532672229377?s=20
Modern corporations run at low profit ratios - in general. It is pretty easy to lose the remaining profit!
The money comes as giant increases in share value. Which the owners then extract using loans backed by their shareholdings*.
The institutional shareholders extract their money either by selling shares, or, again, by using instruments backed by their holdings.
*Some sell shares, but this mechanism is very popular as a way to retain control.
QE is not Government Spending. QE is funding Government Spending.
I agree completely on the marginal tax rates and keep meaning to write a thread header on this subject if I can ever get the chance to do so.
And forget turf war; it just sounds like a mess.
As a small example, they are asking local labs to increase capacity, but they are completely unable to buy more testing equipment, as it has all been reserved for the 'Lighthouse" labs.
Which obviously have utility, but are a very slow way indeed to get test results back to local track and trace.
A competent chief exec who actually understands the science and processes (and how they have developed over the last few months) would make a huge difference.
https://twitter.com/RupertMyers/status/1313395182860206080?s=20
Jeff Bezos et al don't actually earn *that* much. His tax statement of *earnings* would be surprisingly pedestrian.
Interactivity with the desktop: Office applications assume that they are being run under an interactive desktop. In some circumstances, applications may need to be made visible for certain Automation functions to work correctly. If an unexpected error occurs, or if an unspecified parameter is needed to complete a function, Office is designed to prompt the user with a modal dialog box that asks the user what the user wants to do. A modal dialog box on a non-interactive desktop cannot be dismissed. Therefore, that thread stops responding (hangs) indefinitely. Although certain coding practices can help reduce the likelihood of this issue, these practices cannot prevent the issue entirely. This fact alone makes running Office Applications from a server-side environment risky and unsupported.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/257757/considerations-for-server-side-automation-of-office
The triple lock essentially gives an ever increasing share of govt spending to the state pension. Ever increasing being key. Somewhere about 100-200 years in it would have to be more than 100% of govt spending. Not more than the rest of it, more than the whole current budget if we spent nothing on health, education, defence, policing etc. And it would still lead to fast rises ongoing from there.
You cannot give a guaranteed ever increasing share to one part of govt spending in the long run.
https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1313125270853955584
Large-scale purchases of government bonds lower the interest rates or ‘yields’ on those bonds (the investopedia website explains more about bond yields). This pushes down on the interest rates offered on loans (eg mortgages or business loans) because rates on government bonds tend to affect other interest rates in the economy.
So QE works by making it cheaper for households and businesses to borrow money – encouraging spending.
In addition, QE can stimulate the economy by boosting a wide range of financial asset prices.
Suppose we buy £1 million of government bonds from a pension fund. In place of the bonds, the pension fund now has £1 million in money. Rather than hold on to this money, it might invest it in financial assets, such as shares, that give it a higher return. And when demand for financial assets is high, with more people wanting to buy them, the value of these assets increases. This makes businesses and households holding shares wealthier – making them more likely to spend more, boosting economic activity."
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/quantitative-easing
https://twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/1313394740222595072?s=20
I've set my max exposure at £3k and won't exceed it. Of course, once I "know" the result I'll wish I'd increased that ten-fold but that's gambling and you have to be responsible.
It might have an effect on infection patterns.
And, given his age and obesity, it'll affect him well past the election.
But, he is the consummate showman and the show must go on.
He's been odd, restless and wobbly (remember the ramp ?) for some time now.
Her husband came home and found her dead as a doorknob sitting in an armchair and, for some odd reason, surrounded by all their cats.
Seems strange but then I am not an expert
As @Nigelb notes - have you studied so closely his pre-infection behaviour?
I'd like to see some data as to how many infected school pupils and students are symptomatic / require medical treatment / hospitalised.
The lack of media reports suggests very few.
QE is writing off old bonds so that new bonds can be issued, it is funding government expenditure it isn't taxing it.
I'll use my dad as an example, he's about to turn 66 which means he's of state pension age. He absolutely doesn't need it, his annual earnings from private pensions, his own equity investments and continuing business interests bring in around 15-20x whatever the state pension is. It's a complete waste of money to give it to him along with all of the other bungs, if anything he's absolutely able to pay 10-20% more tax per year because he's got no mortgage, his kids (my sister and I) have flown the nest and has very few ongoing expenses.
Instead I'm sure the tax rises will fall on the working age population.
Various theories exist to explain this. The most popular one is that this wave hasn`t extended to older and more vulnerable age groups - yet. But the "yet" is wearing a bit thin in my view.
Other theories include:
1) infections are not actually going up; the numbers are rising because of increased testing/particular cohort testing
2) the virus is mutating into a less serious form
3) variolation: infections caught via the increased use of masks is resulting in a lower dose which the body can cope with better
4) some of the positive test results are picking up remnants of previous virus infections thus creating an incorrect assumption that the virus is spreading more widely than it is
5) Doctors have better methods of dealing with infections now and are sending people home to manage the virus whereas in the spring they would have been admitted to hospital.
Could be a mixture of the above. And there may be other theories.
And, given his age and obesity, it'll affect him well past the election.
But, he is the consummate showman and the show must go on. You could dress up a dog as Ghengis Khan or Rudolf Hess and it'd still bark and jump just as happily.
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1313377227866869760?s=20
2. There is an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, but, because of (1), this will mostly reflect earlier increases in case numbers.
3. If you can hermetically seal the young positive cases from the general population, as Singapore have so far managed with the outbreaks among migrant workers there, then you have a chance to have lots of positive cases and few deaths. In Singapore they currently have 57,830 cases and 27 deaths for this reason. A CFR of ~0.05% at present. University halls of residence are the closest analogue in the UK.
Thank you
Spain's big outbreak followed the Universities closing and all the students heading home.
I think it's riffing (ruffing ?) on a theme...
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1311818998909075456
- The incidence (the person who ends up worse off by the tax) is usually primarily on the worker. Something counterintuitive and therefore ignored by most who see it as the perfect "someone else will pay this tax."
- The tax wedge (foregone economic growth) is the largest amongst most conventional taxes by far (only financial transactions taxes have greater impact on growth. The least impact on growth of any suggested tax is a Land Value Tax on land plus permissions, which can end up increasing growth).
And, of course, the various loopholes make it so easy to dodge.
Abolish it, and tax all dividends as normal income (so money taken out gets taxed), and set up a system of taxing inter-company transfers and international intra-company transfers. This latter is by no means trivial, but I'd like to believe it wouldn't be beyond the wit of man.