Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Starmer up sharply to become favourite in the next PM betting – politicalbetting.com

123468

Comments

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,586
    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    FWIW:

    The latest from Britain Predicts - if an election was held tomorrow...

    CON: 331 MPs (-34)
    LAB: 230 (+28)
    SNP: 58 (+10)
    LDEM: 7 (-4)

    Most marginal constituency:
    Pudsey (Con 43.9, Lab 43.8)


    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1443993184586063876

    Probably about right, and probably a punishment for the Conservatives fitting the crime.

    A majority of about ten forces the Conservatives to keep going, but there is no way that Johnson, Sunak, Truss or any of them would have the skills to manage a micro-majority like that.

    Quite amusing, if only one could watch from another country.
    Welcome to my world.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,286
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
  • pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    The USA is a net importer of natural gas.

    If the Americans produce more, they don't need to export to us. If they simply import less, then that means there's more on the global market available for us and the price comes down.

    It all balances in the end.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Nigelb said:

    Very impressive result from Merck's antiviral:

    ...Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics today announced that molnupiravir (MK-4482, EIDD-2801), an investigational oral antiviral medicine, significantly reduced the risk of hospitalization or death at a planned interim analysis of the Phase 3 MOVe-OUT trial in at risk, non-hospitalized adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. At the interim analysis, molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by approximately 50%; 7.3% of patients who received molnupiravir were either hospitalized or died through Day 29 following randomization (28/385), compared with 14.1% of placebo-treated patients (53/377); p=0.0012. Through Day 29, no deaths were reported in patients who received molnupiravir, as compared to 8 deaths in patients who received placebo. At the recommendation of an independent Data Monitoring Committee and in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recruitment into the study is being stopped early due to these positive results. Merck plans to submit an application for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the U.S. FDA as soon as possible based on these findings and plans to submit marketing applications to other regulatory bodies worldwide...

    Indeed. The USA has ordered 10 million courses it appears, at a cost of $1.7 billion.

    Merck says they will do a cheaper version for other markets.
    Margin on that must be huge.
    Looks quite a tough molecule to produce, at least from a chemical synthesis route.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,089
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,717
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,286
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    Sure, but some of these mad extrapolations - like Nigeria will have 500m people by 2100 or whatever - are just that. Mad

    Birth rates can and do fall extremely fast as women gain access to education, careers, contraception.

    China is the maybe the most striking example. They brought in their insane 1 child policy (one of the cruellest, stupidest policy mistakes in human history?) to ward off the threat of overpopulation. Within a couple of decades they realised their error, they changed it to a 2 child policy, now 5 years later it is a 3 child policy

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    "China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates."

    Too late. Chinese women don't want many kids. Their birth rate is low and declining fast.

    Perhaps, as some have said, it will soon become a 3 kids MINIMUM policy
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
  • Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286
    edited October 2021
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    Sure, but some of these mad extrapolations - like Nigeria will have 500m people by 2100 or whatever - are just that. Mad

    Birth rates can and do fall extremely fast as women gain access to education, careers, contraception.

    China is the maybe the most striking example. They brought in their insane 1 child policy (one of the cruellest, stupidest policy mistakes in human history?) to ward off the threat of overpopulation. Within a couple of decades they realised their error, they changed it to a 2 child policy, now 5 years later it is a 3 child policy

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    "China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates."

    Too late. Chinese women don't want many kids. Their birth rate is low and declining fast.

    Perhaps, as some have said, it will soon become a 3 kids MINIMUM policy
    Rather difficult to enforce that one. They could ban the contraceptive pill I guess.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,286

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    China is 1.4bn people. Parts of it, esp the coast (eg Shanghai , Nanjing or Guangdong) are as developed as most of Europe.


    Rural inland China can be pretty poor (although even there you will find gleaming cities)
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa.

    India too has a bigger birthrate than China
    I’m overweight on African equities. And Russian. But strictly on a fifteen+ year horizon.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,089
    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    Yes, but they are middle income. Being low income is where you can't do much.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    I don't doubt that large swathes of the country still live in abject poverty but that does not mean that the Chinese nation is undeveloped. They are well-advanced in many areas (e.g. space) and I suspect we're both posting on devices made, if not designed, in China.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    Sure, but some of these mad extrapolations - like Nigeria will have 500m people by 2100 or whatever - are just that. Mad

    Birth rates can and do fall extremely fast as women gain access to education, careers, contraception.

    China is the maybe the most striking example. They brought in their insane 1 child policy (one of the cruellest, stupidest policy mistakes in human history?) to ward off the threat of overpopulation. Within a couple of decades they realised their error, they changed it to a 2 child policy, now 5 years later it is a 3 child policy

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    "China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates."

    Too late. Chinese women don't want many kids. Their birth rate is low and declining fast.

    Perhaps, as some have said, it will soon become a 3 kids MINIMUM policy
    I have pointed this out before. If to you, then apologies. But almost no accommodation has been built for more than one child for decades.
    It isn't a tap you can just turn on and off at will.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    As to the need for regulation - while the nuclear issues are less with fusion, there are some fun aspects to the big fusion machines.

    For example, ITER's magnets will contain energy in the kilotons range. So if they aren't designed right, all of that energy being dumped in a moment or 2 could be quite upsetting for the neighbours......
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Leon said:



    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster

    One day governments will wake up to the fact long working/education hours is terrible for reproduction.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,286

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    I don't doubt that large swathes of the country still live in abject poverty but that does not mean that the Chinese nation is undeveloped. They are well-advanced in many areas (e.g. space) and I suspect we're both posting on devices made, if not designed, in China.
    It is now really quite hard to find "abject poverty" in China. Certainly hard to find "large swathes" of it, as you still find in India or Africa

    They have levelled up, successfully. Most people have a decent apartment, enough food, OK health care, a fridge, maybe a little car.

    In the global rankings it is just behind Serbia, but ahead of Bosnia. It is like a Balkan country - which we do not perceive as being dirt poor or Third World

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
  • pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Given that all the festive food is already in the supermarkets (its available all year round as far as I can see) why are you thinking it might not be in December ?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286
    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    I don't doubt that large swathes of the country still live in abject poverty but that does not mean that the Chinese nation is undeveloped. They are well-advanced in many areas (e.g. space) and I suspect we're both posting on devices made, if not designed, in China.
    It is now really quite hard to find "abject poverty" in China. Certainly hard to find "large swathes" of it, as you still find in India or Africa

    They have levelled up, successfully. Most people have a decent apartment, enough food, OK health care, a fridge, maybe a little car.

    In the global rankings it is just behind Serbia, but ahead of Bosnia. It is like a Balkan country - which we do not perceive as being dirt poor or Third World

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
    Thanks - my impression is clearly out of date and not tbf on any first-hand experience.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    I don't doubt that large swathes of the country still live in abject poverty but that does not mean that the Chinese nation is undeveloped. They are well-advanced in many areas (e.g. space) and I suspect we're both posting on devices made, if not designed, in China.
    It is now really quite hard to find "abject poverty" in China. Certainly hard to find "large swathes" of it, as you still find in India or Africa

    They have levelled up, successfully. Most people have a decent apartment, enough food, OK health care, a fridge, maybe a little car.

    In the global rankings it is just behind Serbia, but ahead of Bosnia. It is like a Balkan country - which we do not perceive as being dirt poor or Third World

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
    Almost 8x the difference between richest and poorest provinces though.
    Some struggle to reach US $5k. That is poor.
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 1,755
    MattW said:

    Energy News.

    North Sea link interconnectoy is now operational, which is 700 MW of power now, rising to 1.4 GW of hydro electricity from Norway by next March.

    Will have some impact, but not enough to significantly reduce use of gas in power stations on its own, I think. Water elec storage for the national grid by keeping Norway's lakes fuller :smile:

    https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/01/north-sea-link-world-s-longest-undersea-power-cable-linking-norway-and-uk-is-now-operation

    When wind generation in the UK will be high but energy demand low, extra renewable power will be exported from the UK to Norway and conserve water in Norway's reservoirs, according to the statement. However, when demand is high in the UK but wind generation is low, hydropower from Norway will be imported.

    Cordi O'Hara, President of National Grid Ventures, said that it is "an exciting day for National Grid and an important step as we look to diversify and decarbonise the UK's electricity supply".

    "North Sea Link is a truly remarkable feat of engineering. We had to go through mountains, fjords and across the North Sea to make this happen. But as we look forward to COP26, Noth Sea Link is also a great example of two countries working together to maximise renewable energy resources for mutual benefit," he added.



    Do they get charged £750 million PA for grid usage??
  • HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa.

    India too has a bigger birthrate than China
    I’m overweight on African equities. And Russian. But strictly on a fifteen+ year horizon.
    Russia's an odd one. Their birth rates were absolutely terrible at the turn of the century, but then suddenly picked up (to still bad but better) from around the financial crisis onwards. But they've now started going back down again.

    But then one follow-on from that is that they're entering a period where there'll be much fewer fertile women than there were in prior generations.

    Look at these bar charts, there's less than half as many 23 year olds in Russia than there are 33, 43 or 63 year olds.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#/media/File:RUS_SbA1y20210101.png

    If that keeps repeating itself then it won't take long to have some really catastrophic demographics.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,717
    edited October 2021
    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    I have no doubt Africa is far below the west and indeed China on gdp per capita.

    However on gdp the sheer size of their relative population growth still means that Nigeria, for example, will be the 14th largest economy in the world by 2050 closely followed by Egypt at 15th, both firmly by then members of the G20. No African nation is in the top 20 economies now

    https://www.businessinsider.com/pwc-ranking-of-biggest-economies-ppp-2050-2017-2?r=US&IR=T#12-france-4705-trillion-21
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286
    edited October 2021
    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    It's hard to get one's head around just how quickly, in terms of decades at least, populations can rise or fall so significantly, even though it is pretty basic maths. I cannot even get my head around a single city declining so much, like Detroit, when it is down presumably to exodus rather than matters like birth rates.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    Sure, but some of these mad extrapolations - like Nigeria will have 500m people by 2100 or whatever - are just that. Mad

    Birth rates can and do fall extremely fast as women gain access to education, careers, contraception.

    China is the maybe the most striking example. They brought in their insane 1 child policy (one of the cruellest, stupidest policy mistakes in human history?) to ward off the threat of overpopulation. Within a couple of decades they realised their error, they changed it to a 2 child policy, now 5 years later it is a 3 child policy

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    "China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates."

    Too late. Chinese women don't want many kids. Their birth rate is low and declining fast.

    Perhaps, as some have said, it will soon become a 3 kids MINIMUM policy
    Nigerias population growth is baked in. When a country has a population half of whom are under 20 years of age, it has a lot of women approaching peak fertility. It isn't just the TFR that matters, the age profile of the population does too.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    China is 1.4bn people. Parts of it, esp the coast (eg Shanghai , Nanjing or Guangdong) are as developed as most of Europe.


    Rural inland China can be pretty poor (although even there you will find gleaming cities)
    Development is also key when thinking of impact I'd think. An extra half billion people raising their living standards, and impact, could be consequential for the earth than simply adding 1 billion poor?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,286

    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    I don't doubt that large swathes of the country still live in abject poverty but that does not mean that the Chinese nation is undeveloped. They are well-advanced in many areas (e.g. space) and I suspect we're both posting on devices made, if not designed, in China.
    It is now really quite hard to find "abject poverty" in China. Certainly hard to find "large swathes" of it, as you still find in India or Africa

    They have levelled up, successfully. Most people have a decent apartment, enough food, OK health care, a fridge, maybe a little car.

    In the global rankings it is just behind Serbia, but ahead of Bosnia. It is like a Balkan country - which we do not perceive as being dirt poor or Third World

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
    Thanks - my impression is clearly out of date and not tbf on any first-hand experience.
    I have visited China a lot over the last 3 decades. I've seen it with my own eyes. For all the many evils of the CCP, they have successfully raised a billion people out of poverty in that time. An amazing achievement

    Yes you can still find pockets of urban slums and rural deprivation. But there ain't no mud huts like you still get in south Asia or sub-Saharan Africa, nothing like the rookeries of Calcutta or Mumbai
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,311
    I think the excess deaths is Russia are startling if not unexpected. I lived there for a few months in the nineties. Wow they certainly can drink, and after the collapse of communism there is a generation poorly provided for in retirement. The cynic in me would say that someone like Putin would be glad to rid the country of those not contributing!

    On a separate note I have been following the minimum wage , living wage debate closely. Does anyone know what the cost to an employer is for an employee wage, employers NI and presumably minimum pension contribution? And what that would be for a £15 an hour job?
  • Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
    Indeed. I completed my PhD on magnetic confinement of plasma over two decades ago, and almost all the major issues that were apparent then (instabilities, refuelling, etc.) remain unsolved. We are still a long, long way from commercial fusion.
  • Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    Sure, but some of these mad extrapolations - like Nigeria will have 500m people by 2100 or whatever - are just that. Mad

    Birth rates can and do fall extremely fast as women gain access to education, careers, contraception.

    China is the maybe the most striking example. They brought in their insane 1 child policy (one of the cruellest, stupidest policy mistakes in human history?) to ward off the threat of overpopulation. Within a couple of decades they realised their error, they changed it to a 2 child policy, now 5 years later it is a 3 child policy

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    "China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates."

    Too late. Chinese women don't want many kids. Their birth rate is low and declining fast.

    Perhaps, as some have said, it will soon become a 3 kids MINIMUM policy
    Nigerias population growth is baked in. When a country has a population half of whom are under 20 years of age, it has a lot of women approaching peak fertility. It isn't just the TFR that matters, the age profile of the population does too.
    Looking at the demographic pyramids of certain nations is really interesting. Japan is collapsing demographically.

    It looks like we might be about a point of crossover where more people are born in the UK than in Japan each year. Which is incredible when you consider their population around the end of the last century was about 2.5x our own and they still technically have around double our population.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,288
    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    A 14 yr old boy local to me committed
    suicide recently. I don't think he found the bright side. It is terrible that so.many of out youth can't cope with life.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa.

    India too has a bigger birthrate than China
    I’m overweight on African equities. And Russian. But strictly on a fifteen+ year horizon.
    I have Airtel Africa. There is a lot of demand across Africa for mobile phones. Not sure what else looks good.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,468

    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
    Indeed. I completed my PhD on magnetic confinement of plasma over two decades ago, and almost all the major issues that were apparent then (instabilities, refuelling, etc.) remain unsolved. We are still a long, long way from commercial fusion.
    Are you telling us your PhD was a waste of time?
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,537
    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    Bozo sends the military in . Perhaps he’ll channel his inner Churchill when he gives an address to the nation!

  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    Bozo sends the military in . Perhaps he’ll channel his inner Churchill when he gives an address to the nation!

    Fight them on the forecourts?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944
    edited October 2021
    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Don't be sure the government can keep the lights on.

    On Christmas food, we already know there turkey production is down. A shortage of pigs in blankets was forecast this morning.

    On winter, the Met Office has warned there may be heavy snow within weeks.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    China is 1.4bn people. Parts of it, esp the coast (eg Shanghai , Nanjing or Guangdong) are as developed as most of Europe.


    Rural inland China can be pretty poor (although even there you will find gleaming cities)
    Development is also key when thinking of impact I'd think. An extra half billion people raising their living standards, and impact, could be consequential for the earth than simply adding 1 billion poor?
    Indeed, when an average Briton has 20x the carbon footprint of a Malawian, it isn't Africa that is damaging the planet.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
    Indeed. I completed my PhD on magnetic confinement of plasma over two decades ago, and almost all the major issues that were apparent then (instabilities, refuelling, etc.) remain unsolved. We are still a long, long way from commercial fusion.
    Are you telling us your PhD was a waste of time?
    PhD isn’t about the results, it’s the training of the researcher that counts.
  • Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.
    Bah, humbug!

    They're not messing around in the desert anymore, why can't they pitch in and do some work here?

    Thatcher wasn't afraid to call upon them domestically was she?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.
    Better than them invading sandy bits of the world though!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,044
    WT actual F???


    Sarah Everard murder: Police boss Philip Allott urged to quit over comments

    A police boss who said women "need to be streetwise" about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard case is being urged to resign.

    North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott sparked fury when he said Ms Everard "never should have submitted" to the arrest by her killer.

    BBC News blog
  • Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    China is 1.4bn people. Parts of it, esp the coast (eg Shanghai , Nanjing or Guangdong) are as developed as most of Europe.


    Rural inland China can be pretty poor (although even there you will find gleaming cities)
    Development is also key when thinking of impact I'd think. An extra half billion people raising their living standards, and impact, could be consequential for the earth than simply adding 1 billion poor?
    Indeed, when an average Briton has 20x the carbon footprint of a Malawian, it isn't Africa that is damaging the planet.
    So are you suggesting we should cut international aid to save the planet?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.

    ...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    👋 Lucy Wheeler has stepped down from her role as Conservative Party Campaigns Director as Tory MPs prepare for their annual party conference in Manchester

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/conservative-party-campaign-director-resigns-just-days-before-annual-conference
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    edited October 2021

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.
    Bah, humbug!

    They're not messing around in the desert anymore, why can't they pitch in and do some work here?

    Thatcher wasn't afraid to call upon them domestically was she?
    Did she? Not frequently, ie, once a week, as I recall.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,468

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
    Indeed. I completed my PhD on magnetic confinement of plasma over two decades ago, and almost all the major issues that were apparent then (instabilities, refuelling, etc.) remain unsolved. We are still a long, long way from commercial fusion.
    Are you telling us your PhD was a waste of time?
    PhD isn’t about the results, it’s the training of the researcher that counts.
    I'm going to stop trying to be funny. I'm obviously not very good at it.
  • ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
    Indeed. I completed my PhD on magnetic confinement of plasma over two decades ago, and almost all the major issues that were apparent then (instabilities, refuelling, etc.) remain unsolved. We are still a long, long way from commercial fusion.
    Are you telling us your PhD was a waste of time?
    PhD isn’t about the results, it’s the training of the researcher that counts.
    I'm going to stop trying to be funny. I'm obviously not very good at it.
    Sorry - it was a good jest.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    China is 1.4bn people. Parts of it, esp the coast (eg Shanghai , Nanjing or Guangdong) are as developed as most of Europe.


    Rural inland China can be pretty poor (although even there you will find gleaming cities)
    Development is also key when thinking of impact I'd think. An extra half billion people raising their living standards, and impact, could be consequential for the earth than simply adding 1 billion poor?
    Indeed, when an average Briton has 20x the carbon footprint of a Malawian, it isn't Africa that is damaging the planet.
    So are you suggesting we should cut international aid to save the planet?
    No.

    But we should consider what we spend it on. Female education has the best effect on both economic prosperity and on population control

    And it is quite unwise to abdicate influence in Africa and hand it over to China.
  • Charles said:

    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    Bozo sends the military in . Perhaps he’ll channel his inner Churchill when he gives an address to the nation!

    Fight them on the forecourts?
    BTW the word "forecourt" is almost totally unknown to speakers of American, except for those into tennis.

    Certainly is never used re: gas stations.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,089
    edited October 2021

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.
    In this particular instance it's a PR exercise. The wider haulage industry may be in some trouble but AFAIK there was no particular threat to petrol supplies, until reports of small numbers of petrol stations briefly selling out took on a life of their own and we ended up with a panic buying situation.

    In those circumstances it is very difficult, verging on the impossible, for the Government to resolve the panic solely by the persuasive powers of ministers. If ministers say nothing and matters continue to get worse then they're accused of failing to reassure the public. If ministers say there's no problem and appeal to drivers not to panic buy, then the public assumes that there is indeed a problem and you end up with the same result.

    People don't trust politicians but if they see the Army being deployed they (or a large enough percentage of them) will probably stop panicking for long enough to allow the distribution system to recover - even if the soldiers are delivering not a single drop more petrol than civilian drivers would if left to their own devices. Given the circumstances, sending out a few corporals to drive tankers and making sure that TV cameras are there to film them at work is a good use of resources.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    I have, admittedly some years ago. I used to have a friend at Keele University, great fun.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    If only there was something he could do about it...
    Exclusive:

    Boris Johnson tells The Times that it is 'infuriating' that the police are failing to take violence against women and girls seriously enough

    'Are the police taking this issue seriously enough? It's infuriating. The public feel that they aren't and they're not wrong'
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1444038703266082819

    BoZo...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    WT actual F???


    Sarah Everard murder: Police boss Philip Allott urged to quit over comments

    A police boss who said women "need to be streetwise" about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard case is being urged to resign.

    North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott sparked fury when he said Ms Everard "never should have submitted" to the arrest by her killer.

    BBC News blog

    It's the worst advice I've ever heard.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Given that all the festive food is already in the supermarkets (its available all year round as far as I can see) why are you thinking it might not be in December ?
    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    Bozo sends the military in . Perhaps he’ll channel his inner Churchill when he gives an address to the nation!

    Fight them on the forecourts?
    BTW the word "forecourt" is almost totally unknown to speakers of American, except for those into tennis.

    Certainly is never used re: gas stations.
    What do you use?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Don't be sure the government can keep the lights on.

    On Christmas food, we already know there turkey production is down. A shortage of pigs in blankets was forecast this morning.

    On winter, the Met Office has warned there may be heavy snow within weeks.
    I have booked my Christmas turkey via M and S. Book early to avoid disappointment...
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Pulpstar said:

    WT actual F???


    Sarah Everard murder: Police boss Philip Allott urged to quit over comments

    A police boss who said women "need to be streetwise" about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard case is being urged to resign.

    North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott sparked fury when he said Ms Everard "never should have submitted" to the arrest by her killer.

    BBC News blog

    It's the worst advice I've ever heard.
    As was pointed out earlier. Apart from everything else, he's inciting folk to resist arrest.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,286

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Given that all the festive food is already in the supermarkets (its available all year round as far as I can see) why are you thinking it might not be in December ?
    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!
    My local M&S has a ‘this way to,Christmas’ sign, pointing to festive food. Went up a week ago, when we were still enjoying late summer warmth
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    dixiedean said:

    Pulpstar said:

    WT actual F???


    Sarah Everard murder: Police boss Philip Allott urged to quit over comments

    A police boss who said women "need to be streetwise" about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard case is being urged to resign.

    North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott sparked fury when he said Ms Everard "never should have submitted" to the arrest by her killer.

    BBC News blog

    It's the worst advice I've ever heard.
    As was pointed out earlier. Apart from everything else, he's inciting folk to resist arrest.
    That's the point, if you start resisting arrest, well that's a crime. If the police have things wrong, they won't have any evidence against you and you should be free to go in time (Perhaps even with a bit of compo if it's a really egregious wrongful arrest). But once the police have made up their mind to arrest you, well it's best to defer to that authority in the moment.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!

    Ffs https://twitter.com/JamesAALongman/status/1443848730625650703/photo/1
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768
    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield [sic] is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
    An impossible and ridiculous comment. FFS you actually *work* in Leicester.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,044
    Leon said:

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Given that all the festive food is already in the supermarkets (its available all year round as far as I can see) why are you thinking it might not be in December ?
    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!
    My local M&S has a ‘this way to,Christmas’ sign, pointing to festive food. Went up a week ago, when we were still enjoying late summer warmth
    FFS. Just shoot me now.
  • pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Don't be sure the government can keep the lights on.

    On Christmas food, we already know there turkey production is down. A shortage of pigs in blankets was forecast this morning.

    On winter, the Met Office has warned there may be heavy snow within weeks.
    A shortage of pigs in blankets has predicted in previous years.

    Yet Morrisons were selling the culinary delight of 'pigs in blanket butty'.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768

    Leon said:

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Given that all the festive food is already in the supermarkets (its available all year round as far as I can see) why are you thinking it might not be in December ?
    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!
    My local M&S has a ‘this way to,Christmas’ sign, pointing to festive food. Went up a week ago, when we were still enjoying late summer warmth
    FFS. Just shoot me now.
    Morrison’s are selling mince pies.

    None of those gorgeous Belgian chocolate Yule logs in Asda or Tesco yet, so not even any upside.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,089

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Don't be sure the government can keep the lights on.

    On Christmas food, we already know there turkey production is down. A shortage of pigs in blankets was forecast this morning.

    On winter, the Met Office has warned there may be heavy snow within weeks.
    I feel reasonably confident about electricity. If we have rubbish weather that should at least be good news for wind power generation. AIUI there's still some coal fired generation capacity that can be brought back online. In extremis gas supplies to the domestic grid can be cut or rationed and what's available can be reserved for power generation.

    Fewer and more expensive turkey joints and silly little sausages wrapped in bits of bacon is a first world problem. So long as there's not an outright shortage of food we'll be fine. Indeed, as previously stated it might be a blessed relief not to have to slave for hours creating the expected ritual Christmas dinner. It's a pain in the arse.

    I hate snow but here down South it's rare, and besides long range weather forecasts have all the accuracy of Mystic Meg's bag of runes. Probably not too much to worry about.
  • Pulpstar said:

    dixiedean said:

    Pulpstar said:

    WT actual F???


    Sarah Everard murder: Police boss Philip Allott urged to quit over comments

    A police boss who said women "need to be streetwise" about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard case is being urged to resign.

    North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott sparked fury when he said Ms Everard "never should have submitted" to the arrest by her killer.

    BBC News blog

    It's the worst advice I've ever heard.
    As was pointed out earlier. Apart from everything else, he's inciting folk to resist arrest.
    That's the point, if you start resisting arrest, well that's a crime. If the police have things wrong, they won't have any evidence against you and you should be free to go in time (Perhaps even with a bit of compo if it's a really egregious wrongful arrest). But once the police have made up their mind to arrest you, well it's best to defer to that authority in the moment.
    So this Philip Allott idiot is guilty of incitement to commit a crime?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield [sic] is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
    An impossible and ridiculous comment. FFS you actually *work* in Leicester.
    While Leicester does revel in the motto "semper eadem" (always the same) it is not dull. Edgy and scary at times, but not dull.

    I remember a particularly dull night in Bergerac in the Dordogne, but Litchfield matches it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
    Well, I suppose it’s an explanation of a sort.

    Although, amazingly, Stoke is actually a top tourist destination with upwards of 5 million visitors a year in normal times.

    Of all the slightly improbable places…
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768
    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield [sic] is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
    An impossible and ridiculous comment. FFS you actually *work* in Leicester.
    While Leicester does revel in the motto "semper eadem" (always the same) it is not dull. Edgy and scary at times, but not dull.

    I remember a particularly dull night in Bergerac in the Dordogne, but Litchfield matches it.
    There is nowhere called ‘Litchfield,’ Foxy.

    As for Leicester, the only exciting thing that’s happened in the last six hundred years is that one of history’s most notorious infanticides has been buried in it twice.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286

    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!

    Advertising agencies getting them out now in case Christmas is cancelled again?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,155
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
    Well, I suppose it’s an explanation of a sort.

    Although, amazingly, Stoke is actually a top tourist destination with upwards of 5 million visitors a year in normal times.

    Of all the slightly improbable places…
    What do they go to see? There's a nice museum, or was (have not been for many years). Canals? Red light district? Bacon butties?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield [sic] is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
    An impossible and ridiculous comment. FFS you actually *work* in Leicester.
    While Leicester does revel in the motto "semper eadem" (always the same) it is not dull. Edgy and scary at times, but not dull.

    I remember a particularly dull night in Bergerac in the Dordogne, but Litchfield matches it.
    There is nowhere called ‘Litchfield,’ Foxy.

    As for Leicester, the only exciting thing that’s happened in the last six hundred years is that one of history’s most notorious infanticides has been buried in it twice.
    The first time was fairly quiet...
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,089

    Leon said:

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Given that all the festive food is already in the supermarkets (its available all year round as far as I can see) why are you thinking it might not be in December ?
    Saw first Christmas ad on TV this evening. October 1st!
    My local M&S has a ‘this way to,Christmas’ sign, pointing to festive food. Went up a week ago, when we were still enjoying late summer warmth
    FFS. Just shoot me now.
    I'm surprised you've not noticed the Christmas ramp up before. Mountainous stacks of Roses and similar such nasty tubs of festive sweets (cheap filled chocolates for the kids, horrible hard toffees that Dad has to pretend to like) started appearing in our local Tesco around August bank holiday.
  • pigeon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.
    In this particular instance it's a PR exercise. The wider haulage industry may be in some trouble but AFAIK there was no particular threat to petrol supplies, until reports of small numbers of petrol stations briefly selling out took on a life of their own and we ended up with a panic buying situation.

    In those circumstances it is very difficult, verging on the impossible, for the Government to resolve the panic solely by the persuasive powers of ministers. If ministers say nothing and matters continue to get worse then they're accused of failing to reassure the public. If ministers say there's no problem and appeal to drivers not to panic buy, then the public assumes that there is indeed a problem and you end up with the same result.

    People don't trust politicians but if they see the Army being deployed they (or a large enough percentage of them) will probably stop panicking for long enough to allow the distribution system to recover - even if the soldiers are delivering not a single drop more petrol than civilian drivers would if left to their own devices. Given the circumstances, sending out a few corporals to drive tankers and making sure that TV cameras are there to film them at work is a good use of resources.
    Wouldn't it be easier to tell London and the waitrose belt that they're being laughed at by the rest of the country ?

    Actually I think its moved on from laughing to baffled contempt.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,768
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
    Well, I suppose it’s an explanation of a sort.

    Although, amazingly, Stoke is actually a top tourist destination with upwards of 5 million visitors a year in normal times.

    Of all the slightly improbable places…
    What do they go to see? There's a nice museum, or was (have not been for many years). Canals? Red light district? Bacon butties?
    Pottery museums, but I think the key attraction is Trentham Gardens, which is very popular with day trippers from all over the midlands.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
    Well, I suppose it’s an explanation of a sort.

    Although, amazingly, Stoke is actually a top tourist destination with upwards of 5 million visitors a year in normal times.

    Of all the slightly improbable places…
    What do they go to see? There's a nice museum, or was (have not been for many years). Canals? Red light district? Bacon butties?
    Wedgwood.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    The army will be delivering fuel to the pumps from Monday. Around 100 military tanker drivers will be deployed - with a further 100 in training to help tackle the crisis that's seen widespread panic buying. Firefighters are also being asked to become temporary HGV drivers
    https://twitter.com/ZoraSuleman/status/1444044406391283715
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,155
    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield [sic] is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
    An impossible and ridiculous comment. FFS you actually *work* in Leicester.
    While Leicester does revel in the motto "semper eadem" (always the same) it is not dull. Edgy and scary at times, but not dull.

    I remember a particularly dull night in Bergerac in the Dordogne, but Litchfield matches it.
    There is nowhere called ‘Litchfield,’ Foxy.

    As for Leicester, the only exciting thing that’s happened in the last six hundred years is that one of history’s most notorious infanticides has been buried in it twice.
    I don't know. Apart from the Civil War, Leicester got quite exciting thanks to anti-vaxxers.

    https://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/1967-68/1967-68 (43) 35-44 Ross.pdf
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,961
    Leon said:


    China .... brought in their insane 1 child policy (one of the cruellest, stupidest policy mistakes in human history?) to ward off the threat of overpopulation. Within a couple of decades they realised their error, they changed it to a 2 child policy, now 5 years later it is a 3 child policy

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592

    "China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates."

    Too late. Chinese women don't want many kids. Their birth rate is low and declining fast.

    Perhaps, as some have said, it will soon become a 3 kids MINIMUM policy

    If China had not imposed its one child policy, the climate crisis would be hitting us 5-10 years earlier.

    It's probably the biggest contribution to fighting climate change in human history.
  • Charles said:

    Charles said:

    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    Bozo sends the military in . Perhaps he’ll channel his inner Churchill when he gives an address to the nation!

    Fight them on the forecourts?
    BTW the word "forecourt" is almost totally unknown to speakers of American, except for those into tennis.

    Certainly is never used re: gas stations.
    What do you use?
    Good question. As far as I know, we don't have a word for it. Just "by the gas pumps" or "out front where you fill up" seems to work just fine ("inside where you fill up"being the slurpy machine).
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286

    pigeon said:

    DavidL said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Watching reports of massive gas shortages and price spikes this Winter with some concern.

    Is it possible that, the Government having smashed the economy and racked up vast debts in its desperate efforts to save old people from Covid, the country will find itself unable to obtain (or afford) enough fuel this Winter and everyone who has been rescued from disease at colossal expense will simply be killed off by the cold instead?

    Alas, the Plague disaster may not truly be over, it may simply be about to metastasise into something different but even more lethal. Aren't we lucky?

    No.

    Gas production is now rising again (albeit slowly) and that will accelerate as drilling increases in the US.

    US electricity demand is also now falling as temperatures drop.

    And there are three or four big LNG projects that are coming on stream in the next four to six months.
    OTOH are the Americans going to export to us? No. Are these amazing new projects going to magically bail us out before the Winter rolls up? No.

    But as I just replied to @Leon, my previous remarks were a mere passing moment of catastrophism, and I imagine that everything will probably turn out fine in the end...
    Always look on the bright side of life
    Actually, on balance, I think that I am. So long as the Government can actually keep the lights on this Winter, which I think likely, then I at least ought to be OK. Can manage without domestic gas if it has to be kept for the power stations. The treats that one particularly enjoys at Christmas - wine, biscuits and decent quality chocolate - are, if the experience of March 2020 is anything to go by, amongst the few categories of goods unlikely to be cleared out in a fresh wave of panic buying. And if there's a lack of festive food in the shops then I can certainly live with that: as far as I'm concerned, if there aren't the supplies available to cook complicated Christmas dinners then hurrah! It removes all the expectation that one should do so.

    Besides, in the final analysis, there is precious little point in worrying about problems that one cannot influence.
    Don't be sure the government can keep the lights on.

    On Christmas food, we already know there turkey production is down. A shortage of pigs in blankets was forecast this morning.

    On winter, the Met Office has warned there may be heavy snow within weeks.
    Source for the last point?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,155
    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
    Well, I suppose it’s an explanation of a sort.

    Although, amazingly, Stoke is actually a top tourist destination with upwards of 5 million visitors a year in normal times.

    Of all the slightly improbable places…
    What do they go to see? There's a nice museum, or was (have not been for many years). Canals? Red light district? Bacon butties?
    Wedgwood.
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Was a night out with friends at Keele, on the same night as an England Euros game so everyone had been drinking all day.
    Well, I suppose it’s an explanation of a sort.

    Although, amazingly, Stoke is actually a top tourist destination with upwards of 5 million visitors a year in normal times.

    Of all the slightly improbable places…
    What do they go to see? There's a nice museum, or was (have not been for many years). Canals? Red light district? Bacon butties?
    Pottery museums, but I think the key attraction is Trentham Gardens, which is very popular with day trippers from all over the midlands.
    Ah, of course, thanks. Plenty of ceramics in the local museum, as well: it was designed in the round, to mimic a bottle kiln - must have been hell for the display case designers.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    edited October 2021
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Aslan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    Yet where are the highest global birthrates? Africa. So in gdp terms it may actually be global growth is less in the Far East than in Africa over the rest of the century, even if the Far East obviously gets a far higher gdp per capita than Africa
    Even in Africa birth rates are beginning to drop, in some places very fast

    The 21st century might be the century when the global population of humans begins to fall

    With robots and automation, ultimately, that might not be a problem, indeed it could be a good thing

    You only have to go to a country like Egypt - population 104,000,000 - to realise that they have simply too many people. Egypt's optimum population, given its size and the area of fertile land, should be about a third of that at most?

    Cairo has gone from poor but busy city with some lush attractive areas and even nice parks and boulevards, to an absolute shit-hole, in my lifetime. Too Many People
    Not any time soon. The top 10 nations by fertility rate are all African, first is Niger at 6.8, 10th is Burkina Faso at 5.1. Nigeria is 5.3.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

    Africa also has young religious populations who believe in big families and supporting their elderly.

    There will still be a lot of poverty there as you say unless they advance technologically like the west and Far East which by itself reduces the need for more workers but the sheer scale of their population increase will see them also get a big rise in gdp
    But African birth rates are now falling sharply, they are just coming late to the party

    "When compared with other continents, Africa’s fertility rates of 4.5 children per woman in 2017 seem high. Indeed, it’s the highest in the world. But that figure is low compared with Africa's birthrates of previous decades. It stood at an average of 6.6 children per woman in 1980.

    "And these rates have been falling across the continent. In the Sahel, for example, the region with the highest fertility rates, the number of children per woman has dropped from 7 to 5.7 since 1980. The most spectacular drop has been in North Africa, where the rate was cut in half in 37 years, from 6 children per woman to 3."

    And still they fall


    https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-across-africa
    Still significantly bigger than other continents though, which means Africa will still become relatively more important to the global economy and global politics than it is now
    You need to reach a certain level of development to project any power at all.
    The Chinese are still quite undeveloped and nobody doubts their power anymore. Per capita they're still nowhere near as developed as the western world.
    China is 1.4bn people. Parts of it, esp the coast (eg Shanghai , Nanjing or Guangdong) are as developed as most of Europe.


    Rural inland China can be pretty poor (although even there you will find gleaming cities)
    Development is also key when thinking of impact I'd think. An extra half billion people raising their living standards, and impact, could be consequential for the earth than simply adding 1 billion poor?
    Indeed, when an average Briton has 20x the carbon footprint of a Malawian, it isn't Africa that is damaging the planet.
    That's true, though it wasn't actually the point I meant. It was that everyone wants the living standards of everyone to be good, but that would entail the impact of an equivalent population much much larger than the present. So simply getting population growth under control is only one part of it, along with trying to limit that impact of raising standards.

    Or go with the nutters who want to eliminate humans altogether.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    UK set to be first country to legislate for safe and efficient rollout of fusion energy
    New green paper establishes government’s view on how to put in place the regulatory framework needed

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-set-to-be-first-country-to-legislate-for-safe-and-efficient-rollout-of-fusion-energy

    With all due respect, fusion is the main source of energy in the UK today, so I don't know why the UK is bothering to legislate when it's already been such a huge success.
    Oh, it enables Mr Johnson to be triumphalist over those Europeans* with their ITERs and Tokamak thingies. Just in time for the Manc conference.

    *yes, I know, including the Brits.
    Big tokamaks are beginning to look like a blind alley.
    But commercial fusion within a couple of decades is a real possibility.
    It was ever thus in my lifetime.
    Indeed. I completed my PhD on magnetic confinement of plasma over two decades ago, and almost all the major issues that were apparent then (instabilities, refuelling, etc.) remain unsolved. We are still a long, long way from commercial fusion.
    Are you telling us your PhD was a waste of time?
    PhD isn’t about the results, it’s the training of the researcher that counts.
    I'm going to stop trying to be funny. I'm obviously not very good at it.
    Can't improve skills without practising them! :)
  • ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    dixiedean said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Uni of Washington has updated its Covid model, with handy tabs enabling you to toggle between Reported and Excess deaths

    The UK seems to be one of the few countries where these totals are similar, which I guess is to our credit, tho our totals are still pretty high. However if you look at actual excess deaths, nor reported deaths, in the rest of Europe, plenty of countries are close to us, and certainly higher per capita

    Some of the data is quite startling (IF it is accurate). Russia has a reported death total of 208,000 on Worldometer. The UoW thinks the reported Russian C19 death total is closer to 450,000

    And the UoW thinks the excess death rate, in Russia, is right now 1.2 MILLION

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/russian-federation

    In a country with a fertility rate in 2018 estimated to be 1.6 born per woman, that level of death must be a worry. The latest numbers since then show the problem to have got worse:

    In 2021 the birthrate is 11.905 births per 1000 people, a 2.37% decline from 2020.

    In 2020 the birthrate was 12.194 births per 1000 people, a 2.31% decline from 2019.

    In 2019 the birthrate was 12.482 births per 1000 people, a 2.26% decline from 2018.

    Those spaces in Russia keep getting bigger.
    I've recently been reading about the plunging birth rates in East Asia. They are extraordinary


    Japan has a birth rate of 1.36

    Taiwan has a birth rate of 1.07

    South Korea, incredibly, has a birth rate of 0.84

    This must be the lowest birth rate of any developed nation in modern history

    Of course the west has a problem with low birth rates, too, but we tend to have higher immigration, which offsets this to an extent

    In 2020 South Korea's population began to decline and unless they can reverse this plummeting birth rate their population will halve in 30-40 years, and of course become much older. It's a massive crisis waiting to happen. China is also in the same boat, just further behind in terms of disaster
    The human race can't keep on multiplying forever or the planet will burn. Importing people who bang out more kids to try to deal with the ageing population problem is just can kicking, and besides the existing population in the affected countries doesn't want mass immigration. The same people who whinge about Britain not taking in enough refugees should try seeing how far they get trying to get Japan, let alone China, to embrace their open borders demands.

    The process we have to go through to stabilise populations in the developed world is as follows:

    1. Concentrate on efforts to keep the population healthy for as long as possible, so people will be forced to keep working for as long as possible.
    2. Keep ramping the retirement age up and up and up, so that the burden of pension provision is kept sustainable.
    3. Let the population drop until we have a substantial excess of vacant properties, which should make housing affordable again, completely transforming household finances. When the surviving cohort of youngsters in 30 or 40 years' time can move out into cheap houses and flats in their early 20s, then they'll be able to afford to form households and start dropping sprogs much more easily, and the population will stop falling. Sorted.
    Let significant areas go back to the wild too.
    Ever been to Stoke on a night out?

    Some areas already have.
    Has anybody ever been to Stoke on a night out?!!!!
    Last time I did, I woke up in Royal Stoke University Hospital from an unprovoked attack, so I've never been back since.
    Well, I’m not bloody surprised. Sensible people go to Lichfield.

    Even Burton at least has decent beer.
    Good god no! Litchfield [sic] is the dullest place that I have ever been.

    Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield!
    An impossible and ridiculous comment. FFS you actually *work* in Leicester.
    While Leicester does revel in the motto "semper eadem" (always the same) it is not dull. Edgy and scary at times, but not dull.

    I remember a particularly dull night in Bergerac in the Dordogne, but Litchfield matches it.
    There is nowhere called ‘Litchfield,’ Foxy.

    As for Leicester, the only exciting thing that’s happened in the last six hundred years is that one of history’s most notorious infanticides has been buried in it twice.
    Litchfield, Connecticut says "Hi"!
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,286

    pigeon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    MAIL: Petrol: At last Army goes in #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1444035286304968710/photo/1

    As the Spectator point out this week, Johnson's repeated calling on the Army for all sorts of problems is beginning to look a bit desperate.

    The military have another role, not a civil support service to cover the f*ck ups of ten years of Tory administration.
    In this particular instance it's a PR exercise. The wider haulage industry may be in some trouble but AFAIK there was no particular threat to petrol supplies, until reports of small numbers of petrol stations briefly selling out took on a life of their own and we ended up with a panic buying situation.

    In those circumstances it is very difficult, verging on the impossible, for the Government to resolve the panic solely by the persuasive powers of ministers. If ministers say nothing and matters continue to get worse then they're accused of failing to reassure the public. If ministers say there's no problem and appeal to drivers not to panic buy, then the public assumes that there is indeed a problem and you end up with the same result.

    People don't trust politicians but if they see the Army being deployed they (or a large enough percentage of them) will probably stop panicking for long enough to allow the distribution system to recover - even if the soldiers are delivering not a single drop more petrol than civilian drivers would if left to their own devices. Given the circumstances, sending out a few corporals to drive tankers and making sure that TV cameras are there to film them at work is a good use of resources.
    Wouldn't it be easier to tell London and the waitrose belt that they're being laughed at by the rest of the country ?

    Actually I think its moved on from laughing to baffled contempt.
    A post steeped in baseless prejudice.
This discussion has been closed.