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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Biden trailing badly in terms of the enthusiasm of his backers

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  • novanova Posts: 525

    nichomar said:

    There was a major worrying development in the current crisis this weekend. My mum has worked out how to make WhatsApp video calls.

    Whoever is out there in the land teaching these skills, we need to isolate them....from all technology.
    Talking of learning skills this would be a good time for those who claim they can’t cook to learn, as with the washing machine etc. Also those that leave the ‘finances’ to the other half to get a grip on where they are and how it’s spent. You never know when you are going to need these skills.
    A post appeared on my Facebook page, to the effect that at the end of this crisis 50% of us will have become excellent cooks and 50% alcoholics.
    Or perhaps we all end up as modern day Keith Floyds?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670
    edited March 2020
    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Fair cop on @Mysticrose's January predictions but where do you see the markets going over the coming months? I can only see down, up, down, down, with an overall bear trend until the autumn at the earliest.
    That seems to me nailed on. Any form of investing now is gambling with money you should be bloody certain you are prepared to lose. Earnings and yields on everything are going to zero.
    Mysticrose's predictions are horse manure. People were saying the same for years as they always do, even a stopped clock is right at some point. The idiot knows little about investing given the sage advice to jump back in if a vaccine is found , any idiot would know that by then you have missed the boat. they know little or nothing about markets or much else given the drivel posted normally.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    GIN1138 said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Oh dear. Not sure how he'll get on with COVID-19. Always think he looks ill at the best of times...
    Well he is ill isn’t he? Was meant to have some big operation or treatment last Autumn?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    nichomar said:

    IanB2 said:

    TGOHF666 said:

    Spanish daily deaths dropped a bit today.

    812.

    Do people only die in the morning in Spain? ;)
    Spain like the uk release official figures once a day so reflect the last 24 hours although yesterday was an hour shorter!
    I note that the UK figures include quite a few backdated ones. Saturdays figures included some from as far back as 16th March.

    From a modelling perspective, adjusting the previous figures would probably be better. Maybe PHE are doing that in their own internal figures.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,836

    One of the times to buy is when nearly everyone is pessimistic and cant see any reason to buy. To me that seems most likely to peak when US deaths are close to their peak - the caveat being if the situation in Italy and Spain improves faster than expected then it might be a bit earlier. So buy mid April perhaps?

    Yes. In order to get in at the bottom you need to be buying at a point when everybody who sounds like they know what they are talking about are saying it is crazy to buy now.

    It requires courage and a super-sensitive instinct. You can't work it out with data and spreadsheets. Some of that, yes, it can help, but before taking the plunge you have to feel it.

    Trading without inside information is as much an art as a science, whilst being neither.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Foxy said:



    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:
    What's the point in that? Why are they wasting time on shit like this?
    One thing I’d fervently like to see in a post-virus world is no more of this sort of nonsense, no more asking celebrities what they think of things they know nothing about, no more tweets from them telling us of their feelings, no more arse licking of people whose main talent is having make up applied to them etc, no more of all this fake concern and emoting etc. It is all so vapid and empty.

    I hesitate to say this but even the NHS Clapathon made me feel a little uneasy. I am hugely in awe of those working in the NHS especially at this time and expressing our appreciation is a good thing. But providing them with proper equipment and paying them properly is more useful than a clap.

    Gestures instead of practical help are cruel.

    And what about all the others doing vital work: farmers, delivery drivers, supermarket staff etc etc?
    Lady Gaga is not my cup of tea either, but getting people with large social media followings to support social distancing is not facile, it is a good public health approach. You need to reach people where they are.
    There is also the thought that people who neither read a newspaper, 'real' or on-line, or watch TV news are quite likely to 'follow' celebrities on line.
    Yes I get that. I just find the whole celebrity culture thing ghastly. Instagramming your “lifestyle” for God’s sake. It’s ludicrous narcissism.

    Checkout assistants and supermarket packers are also taking risks and doing a vital job. I’d like to see some recognition of them and all the others who keep our society going at a time like this.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042
    IanB2 said:

    Stocky said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Well, the last one isn`t saying much if Mysticrose is also SeanT.
    I'd take it as proof that she isn't (as if being up bright and early each morning isn't sufficient).
    Why? If anything it smacks of double bluff and a rather odd predilection for commenting on Eadric/SeanT related issues for such an occasional poster .
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,747
    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    Well that should certainly assist their access to the money markets if they need more capital.

    What are they going to do without London to hold their hands and explain the more difficult bits?
    Maybe holding onto capital would be a better use of it than distributing it, getting into trouble and then asking for more?
    Banks are almost certainly going to need more capital as a lot of their security turns out to be worthless in a market far beyond anything that the BoE/ECB did testing for. Why would they be an attractive investment if they cannot issue dividends? Look at how long the UK government has been waiting to recoup its "investments" in banks in 2008. Do you think that a de facto restriction on dividends helped that?

    Short term, stupid, wood from the trees mindset, in my view. But hey, what do I know?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670
    TGOHF666 said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    Yes you should never lecture the world modesty champion of 2022.

    It is the meanderings of a nutjob
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Scott_xP said:
    Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be a Remainer was very heaven!
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Yep. And when they did add armament it was offensive rather than defensive. A great plane. I dimly remember seeing one flying at an air show years ago. Wonder if there still are any flying examples around.
    The project only got the go-ahead after De Havilland promised to try a turret behind the cockpit. One prototype was fitted with a mock up turret - not sure if it flew.

    There are several new builds out there - some in progress. Ancient wooden aircraft are quite a danger. The Mosquito was, in fact, quite unpopular in a way with crew - quite a number just fell apart in the air.

    The attempts to build a new Hornet highlight the issues..
    Interesting. I recall a colleague, who served in the Far East, recalling that they had a disconcerting habit of losing their wings - simply fell off due to the heat.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,436

    IanB2 said:

    Stocky said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Well, the last one isn`t saying much if Mysticrose is also SeanT.
    I'd take it as proof that she isn't (as if being up bright and early each morning isn't sufficient).
    Why? If anything it smacks of double bluff and a rather odd predilection for commenting on Eadric/SeanT related issues for such an occasional poster .
    Perhaps rose is eadrics mum.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    isam said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Fair cop on @Mysticrose's January predictions but where do you see the markets going over the coming months? I can only see down, up, down, down, with an overall bear trend until the autumn at the earliest.
    Perhaps you should check which posters *did* predict a stock market crash. Might be interesting.
    I asked whether I should sell EasyJet on the spreads at 1115p and was told I’d missed the boat
    Easyjet grounded all flights today.

    I think their current price is still way too high. Staying solvent must be a real concern.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670

    Foxy said:



    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:
    What's the point in that? Why are they wasting time on shit like this?
    One thing I’d fervently like to see in a post-virus world is no more of this sort of nonsense, no more asking celebrities what they think of things they know nothing about, no more tweets from them telling us of their feelings, no more arse licking of people whose main talent is having make up applied to them etc, no more of all this fake concern and emoting etc. It is all so vapid and empty.

    I hesitate to say this but even the NHS Clapathon made me feel a little uneasy. I am hugely in awe of those working in the NHS especially at this time and expressing our appreciation is a good thing. But providing them with proper equipment and paying them properly is more useful than a clap.

    Gestures instead of practical help are cruel.

    And what about all the others doing vital work: farmers, delivery drivers, supermarket staff etc etc?
    Lady Gaga is not my cup of tea either, but getting people with large social media followings to support social distancing is not facile, it is a good public health approach. You need to reach people where they are.
    There is also the thought that people who neither read a newspaper, 'real' or on-line, or watch TV news are quite likely to 'follow' celebrities on line.
    They will be too thick to follow the instructions in that event so make little difference what some halfwitted numpty supposed celeb tells them
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,581

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Yep. And when they did add armament it was offensive rather than defensive. A great plane. I dimly remember seeing one flying at an air show years ago. Wonder if there still are any flying examples around.
    The project only got the go-ahead after De Havilland promised to try a turret behind the cockpit. One prototype was fitted with a mock up turret - not sure if it flew.

    There are several new builds out there - some in progress. Ancient wooden aircraft are quite a danger. The Mosquito was, in fact, quite unpopular in a way with crew - quite a number just fell apart in the air.

    The attempts to build a new Hornet highlight the issues..
    Interesting. I recall a colleague, who served in the Far East, recalling that they had a disconcerting habit of losing their wings - simply fell off due to the heat.
    The claim that it was tropical damage to gluing was the official story.

    In fact the problem was shit quality control - classic British cover up bull crap. Shades of the ammunition problems* with battlecruisers.

    *exploding violently in battle leaving a handful of survivors.
  • TGOHF666TGOHF666 Posts: 2,052
    malcolmg said:

    TGOHF666 said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    Yes you should never lecture the world modesty champion of 2022.

    It is the meanderings of a nutjob
    An empty vessel makes the most noise as my old mum says.

    Sorry to hear about the Tunnocks factory closing malc - this crisis just got real.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    One of the times to buy is when nearly everyone is pessimistic and cant see any reason to buy. To me that seems most likely to peak when US deaths are close to their peak - the caveat being if the situation in Italy and Spain improves faster than expected then it might be a bit earlier. So buy mid April perhaps?

    Yes. In order to get in at the bottom you need to be buying at a point when everybody who sounds like they know what they are talking about are saying it is crazy to buy now.

    It requires courage and a super-sensitive instinct. You can't work it out with data and spreadsheets. Some of that, yes, it can help, but before taking the plunge you have to feel it.

    Trading without inside information is as much an art as a science, whilst being neither.
    Hope you bought those 6,000 calls when we discussed it at <5,000.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    It is the same here, only hospital deaths with confirmed positive swabs are counted in the figures.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    ABZ said:

    felix said:

    TGOHF666 said:

    Spanish daily deaths dropped a bit today.

    812.

    And a smaller rise in cases too I think.
    All positive then. But the strain on ICUs must be immense - if I read the table below correctly, there are >5000 people there at present?
    They said yesterday that 6/7 of the regions were struggling and most of the others near capacity, wouldn’t name them apart from Madrid and Catalonia but I’m sure Valencia is struggling
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    IanB2 said:

    Stocky said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Well, the last one isn`t saying much if Mysticrose is also SeanT.
    I'd take it as proof that she isn't (as if being up bright and early each morning isn't sufficient).
    Why? If anything it smacks of double bluff and a rather odd predilection for commenting on Eadric/SeanT related issues for such an occasional poster .
    Because, rather than do the sensible thing and ignore it, Byronic always got genuinely agitated about such suggestions being posted here, and generally jumped in to contest them. Given how transparent his emotions are, I really don't think he'd have another account running a double bluff.

    Anyhow his writing tics and run of opinion are ENTIRELY clear and Mystic doesn't have any of them.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,879
    edited March 2020
    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    To be fair, Mysticrose may have predicted the recession on a different account ;)

    This reminds me though I have not made predictions for 2020.... any made in January would have been wrong already...

    1. UK recession. Duh.
    2. Rapid recovery from recession once lockdown lifted (this may occur in Q1 of 2021. Much hyperventilating to be had about quarterly growth rates of 40%+).
    3. Brexit transition period extended.
    4. Keir Starmer to be Labour leader.
    5. Uber to go bankrupt (have been predicting this for some time but this really might be the year...)
    6. Johnson to remain PM. Cummings to stay for 2020.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    DougSeal said:
    Written with gritted teeth?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Stocky said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Well, the last one isn`t saying much if Mysticrose is also SeanT.
    I'd take it as proof that she isn't (as if being up bright and early each morning isn't sufficient).
    Why? If anything it smacks of double bluff and a rather odd predilection for commenting on Eadric/SeanT related issues for such an occasional poster .
    Because, rather than do the sensible thing and ignore it, Byronic always got genuinely agitated about such suggestions being posted here, and generally jumped in to contest them. Given how transparent his emotions are, I really don't think he'd have another account running a double bluff.

    Anyhow his writing tics and run of opinion are ENTIRELY clear and Mystic doesn't have any of them.
    I disagree totally on both counts, but it just does to show that two people can read the same thing entirely differently.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    Pagan2 said:

    FF43 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    FF43 said:

    I get the impression social distancing is a personal responsibility in Sweden rather than government enforced. You are expected to do it.

    I wouldn't interpret any Swedish success in minimising infection as a green light to remove restrictions elsewhere, unless people take a similar personal responsibility.

    Presumably the Swedish government reserves the right to impose measures if the the advisory ones aren't effective.

    It does highlight the personal liberty question. We need to take more personal responsibility if we want to avoid governments removing our liberties.

    No, they are doing things substantively differently. guardian 2 days ago

    While every other country in Europe has been ordered into ever more stringent coronavirus lockdown, Sweden has remained the exception. Schools, kindergartens, bars, restaurants, ski resorts, sports clubs, hairdressers: all remain open, weeks after everything closed down in next door Denmark and Norway.
    I think you (and others) are missing my point. And because of that people are likely to draw the wrong conclusions from the Swedish experiment.Swedes are working from home just as they are elsewhere. If they do go to cafes etc they maintain strict social distancing on their personal responsibility. Whether it works in reducing transmissions depends on the effectiveness of that collective personal responsibility.
    I regularly chat to a long time friend in Sweden over skype while she is out for a walk with her baby. She doesn't think people are paying much attention to social distancing over there and its common to hear her shouting at people for not doing so. She also tells me that cafe's and bars are being used as normal.

    Is she right? No idea as its voice only but you seem to be making the assumption swedes are actually doing it.
    Normally when people tell us that over in another country or place they are better, do things better, eat better, dress better...... it is usually a total load of horse-***t.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911

    IanB2 said:

    Stocky said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Well, the last one isn`t saying much if Mysticrose is also SeanT.
    I'd take it as proof that she isn't (as if being up bright and early each morning isn't sufficient).
    Why? If anything it smacks of double bluff and a rather odd predilection for commenting on Eadric/SeanT related issues for such an occasional poster .
    Perhaps rose is eadrics mum.
    Eadric doesn't get up in the mornings, or, at least, doesn't seem to post until the first eye-opener of the day.

    Unless there is a Tyler Durden thing going on I don't think they are the same person.

    Perhaps we could bet on it. God knows, it's got to be more exciting than Armenian snooker.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    On topic. Biden voters may not be very enthusiastic about him, but I expect them to be highly motivated to vote against Trump. The two are not quite the same.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    IanB2 said:

    TGOHF666 said:

    Spanish daily deaths dropped a bit today.

    812.

    Do people only die in the morning in Spain? ;)
    ROFL - no but what with the siesta and everything - mañana mañana mañana - it's the only way to go. :smiley:
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Yep. And when they did add armament it was offensive rather than defensive. A great plane. I dimly remember seeing one flying at an air show years ago. Wonder if there still are any flying examples around.
    The project only got the go-ahead after De Havilland promised to try a turret behind the cockpit. One prototype was fitted with a mock up turret - not sure if it flew.

    There are several new builds out there - some in progress. Ancient wooden aircraft are quite a danger. The Mosquito was, in fact, quite unpopular in a way with crew - quite a number just fell apart in the air.

    The attempts to build a new Hornet highlight the issues..
    Interesting. I recall a colleague, who served in the Far East, recalling that they had a disconcerting habit of losing their wings - simply fell off due to the heat.
    Cousin of mine flew off from Malta in one in 1948 (IIRC) and was never seen again. Left his pregnant wife and 18th month old daughter.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    Well that should certainly assist their access to the money markets if they need more capital.

    What are they going to do without London to hold their hands and explain the more difficult bits?
    Maybe holding onto capital would be a better use of it than distributing it, getting into trouble and then asking for more?
    Banks are almost certainly going to need more capital as a lot of their security turns out to be worthless in a market far beyond anything that the BoE/ECB did testing for. Why would they be an attractive investment if they cannot issue dividends? Look at how long the UK government has been waiting to recoup its "investments" in banks in 2008. Do you think that a de facto restriction on dividends helped that?

    Short term, stupid, wood from the trees mindset, in my view. But hey, what do I know?
    It may be the lesser of two evils. If they are going to be stress tested beyond anything imagined a few years ago then maintaining capital reserves seems to be a good move. Or at least a better move than acting as if markets and economies are normal right now.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387
    Foxy said:

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    It is the same here, only hospital deaths with confirmed positive swabs are counted in the figures.
    We will get the weekly UK death figures soon, though. We currently have up to w/c 13 March, when CV was not a material contributor to overall numbers.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    I think it is standard, and we do it to. UK announcements say "Of those hospitalized in the UK n have sadly died."
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,542
    edited March 2020
    Pagan2 said:

    FF43 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    FF43 said:

    I get the impression social distancing is a personal responsibility in Sweden rather than government enforced. You are expected to do it.

    I wouldn't interpret any Swedish success in minimising infection as a green light to remove restrictions elsewhere, unless people take a similar personal responsibility.

    Presumably the Swedish government reserves the right to impose measures if the the advisory ones aren't effective.

    It does highlight the personal liberty question. We need to take more personal responsibility if we want to avoid governments removing our liberties.

    No, they are doing things substantively differently. guardian 2 days ago

    While every other country in Europe has been ordered into ever more stringent coronavirus lockdown, Sweden has remained the exception. Schools, kindergartens, bars, restaurants, ski resorts, sports clubs, hairdressers: all remain open, weeks after everything closed down in next door Denmark and Norway.
    I think you (and others) are missing my point. And because of that people are likely to draw the wrong conclusions from the Swedish experiment.Swedes are working from home just as they are elsewhere. If they do go to cafes etc they maintain strict social distancing on their personal responsibility. Whether it works in reducing transmissions depends on the effectiveness of that collective personal responsibility.
    I regularly chat to a long time friend in Sweden over skype while she is out for a walk with her baby. She doesn't think people are paying much attention to social distancing over there and its common to hear her shouting at people for not doing so. She also tells me that cafe's and bars are being used as normal.

    Is she right? No idea as its voice only but you seem to be making the assumption swedes are actually doing it.
    I sort of did make that assumption in my comment. My main point is that the success or otherwise of the Swedish experiment depends on collective personal responsibility being effective.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Fair cop on @Mysticrose's January predictions but where do you see the markets going over the coming months? I can only see down, up, down, down, with an overall bear trend until the autumn at the earliest.
    On the medium term picture I actually agree with Mystic (but not as low as 2000) - and have said so multiple times - so why she is offering me a bet on it, I don't know.

    It seems to be a failing of this site that we take more notice of the posters who scream in panic - even if the detail (such as it is) in such posts turns out mostly wrong - than of those who make calm and reasoned predictions that turn out nearer the mark?

    Markets are notoriously short term in their outlook. They have now normalised the virus crisis and the measures taken so far. They have more faith in the rescue package as an economic stimulus than is justified. But they have yet to take in the likely duration of this crisis and its associated lockdown, nor of the severity of what looks likely to hit the US.

    One fact worth noting is that most of the biggest one-day jumps in the US stock market happened in the aftermath of major crises, and before we reached the bottom. We've already had one such, with the Dow's biggest daily rise earlier this month. I suspect we are in for some big swings, up and down, and agree that we surely haven't reached the bottom.

    The caveat is that a surprise vaccine or cure breakthrough sends everything back up.
    I havent followed stocks but shouldn't power companies be safe? demand for gas and electirc might fall from companies but domestically it should be minimal. and their input costs should be well down.
  • MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.
    Do people war game this kind of thing? That is interesting, I never knew that kind of retrospective thing went on. Any YouTube channels or anything like that about that kind of thing?
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    The director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, is waiting for a second test for coronavirus after having given a first positive this Sunday night, as reported by Moncloa.

    For this reason, as confirmed by the Government, this Monday the daily press conference, after the meeting of the Coronavirus Technical Management Committee, chaired by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will be offered by Dr. María José Sierra , attached to Simón at the Center for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    ABZ said:

    felix said:

    TGOHF666 said:

    Spanish daily deaths dropped a bit today.

    812.

    And a smaller rise in cases too I think.
    All positive then. But the strain on ICUs must be immense - if I read the table below correctly, there are >5000 people there at present?
    You are correct. At least 6 ACs are operating at or beyond capacity.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    Is Phillip Schofield still at home with the wife and kids? Must be quite frustrating if so for a man who has just come out
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    Cyclefree said:

    Foxy said:



    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:
    What's the point in that? Why are they wasting time on shit like this?
    One thing I’d fervently like to see in a post-virus world is no more of this sort of nonsense, no more asking celebrities what they think of things they know nothing about, no more tweets from them telling us of their feelings, no more arse licking of people whose main talent is having make up applied to them etc, no more of all this fake concern and emoting etc. It is all so vapid and empty.

    I hesitate to say this but even the NHS Clapathon made me feel a little uneasy. I am hugely in awe of those working in the NHS especially at this time and expressing our appreciation is a good thing. But providing them with proper equipment and paying them properly is more useful than a clap.

    Gestures instead of practical help are cruel.

    And what about all the others doing vital work: farmers, delivery drivers, supermarket staff etc etc?
    Lady Gaga is not my cup of tea either, but getting people with large social media followings to support social distancing is not facile, it is a good public health approach. You need to reach people where they are.
    There is also the thought that people who neither read a newspaper, 'real' or on-line, or watch TV news are quite likely to 'follow' celebrities on line.
    Yes I get that. I just find the whole celebrity culture thing ghastly. Instagramming your “lifestyle” for God’s sake. It’s ludicrous narcissism.

    Checkout assistants and supermarket packers are also taking risks and doing a vital job. I’d like to see some recognition of them and all the others who keep our society going at a time like this.
    "They also serve who only stand and wait."
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Fair cop on @Mysticrose's January predictions but where do you see the markets going over the coming months? I can only see down, up, down, down, with an overall bear trend until the autumn at the earliest.
    On the medium term picture I actually agree with Mystic (but not as low as 2000) - and have said so multiple times - so why she is offering me a bet on it, I don't know.

    It seems to be a failing of this site that we take more notice of the posters who scream in panic - even if the detail (such as it is) in such posts turns out mostly wrong - than of those who make calm and reasoned predictions that turn out nearer the mark?

    Markets are notoriously short term in their outlook. They have now normalised the virus crisis and the measures taken so far. They have more faith in the rescue package as an economic stimulus than is justified. But they have yet to take in the likely duration of this crisis and its associated lockdown, nor of the severity of what looks likely to hit the US.

    One fact worth noting is that most of the biggest one-day jumps in the US stock market happened in the aftermath of major crises, and before we reached the bottom. We've already had one such, with the Dow's biggest daily rise earlier this month. I suspect we are in for some big swings, up and down, and agree that we surely haven't reached the bottom.

    The caveat is that a surprise vaccine or cure breakthrough sends everything back up.
    I havent followed stocks but shouldn't power companies be safe? demand for gas and electirc might fall from companies but domestically it should be minimal. and their input costs should be well down.
    They are off a little bit, but less so than the market generally.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    DougSeal said:

    The Nightingale Hospital in London really looks incredible. What a fantastic achievement all around.

    It seems a good model for London full stop. Why build all these pissy little local general hospitals? Having said that Whipps Cross is a bit of a mega hospital and certainly used to be a shit hole (my grandparents spent time there, and my grandfather died there) so maybe there is a size you don't want to go above for the long term.
    Lived in the catchment area for Whipps Cross until 2002. The locals actively avoided where possible - to the extent of asking ambulances to take them to North Mid hospital if possible. Notorious for a disorganised A&E and the only decent service was the Maternity. Things got so bad there were rumours they were going to close it down as it was so dysfunctional. Apparently they claim its improved, although my mum who is retired nurse is sceptical.
    Me and David Beckham were born there and we turned out ok. Or at least I did.
    "Me" was not born there... # grammar police
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    Virtually every country has slight differences in the way they report deaths. This is why comparisons are meaningless - and also why so much press reporting is so poor - especially when compounded with their 'gotcha' mentality so prevalent among them.
  • isam said:

    isam said:

    DavidL said:

    On depression: I understand.

    There will come a time (possibly not too far away) when I’d prefer to take my chances with Covid19 - even at risk to my own life - than spend one more day locked down inside my house.

    It’s no life.

    This is not a personal criticism but it is not about "you". If people respond in this way the more vulnerable members of our society are at increased risk as the virus will have more vectors to facilitate spread.

    I can sympathise with your state of mind, indeed I share it. I am lucky enough to live in a place where I can go for a fairly long walk each day with absolutely minimal proximity to anyone. Without that I would be going mad and I still miss meeting up with friends, going for coffee or lunch together, etc enormously. I have some written work to do but I find it incredibly hard to focus on it. My productivity has collapsed. I recognise precursors to depression in this.

    It does suggest that the behavioural psychologists who argued that it was important that we didn't lock down too soon rather knew what they were talking about, doesn't it?
    Like when people retire. I started working from home, and being single, about ten years ago and it does change you
    Apparently a big change in retirement was the take up in activities and hobbies by the retired. Previously, the model was very much people retiring and lapsing into inactivity and going downhill quite rapidly.

    The difference between the previous generations and the current lot of 70s is staggering.
    My parents are both 73 and neither have retired for fear of what would have happened to them... it seems playing computer games on a a retro Atari is the answer to their fears
    The difference you see in the previous generations between those who kept active vs those who sat in a corner is staggering. I've seen some relatives of friends - siblings where the active ones look and act 20-30 years younger.
    My Grandad's basically sat on his backside doing nothing physically or intellectually stimulating for 30 years, he's 92 now. Not a strategy I would follow but it's worked for him!
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    isam said:

    Is Phillip Schofield still at home with the wife and kids? Must be quite frustrating if so for a man who has just come out

    Intensive wrist exercises while Joe Wicks streams.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    In other news Alex Salmond's defence counsel has got into hot water for some revealing comments.

    Various commentators up here contrasting the dignified comments of the disbelieved witnesses with Salmond's high fiving outside the court after the verdict.

    Can SNP really be serious about rehabilitating him and letting him run in next year's Holyrood elections?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/29/alex-salmond-qc-to-be-investigated-after-naming-trial-women
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    edited March 2020
    edit
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.

    We are in WW2 and Great Depression territory. A once-in-a-generation or even century event, the magnitude of which is only slowly dawning on some commentators.

    My advice? Don't touch stocks and shares until at least the autumn, possibly longer. Although be ready to go big if a vaccine is proven.

    As for withdrawing cash to buy other commodities, that is fantastically daft. Unless you think the banking system is about to crash why get out of cash when the world economies are deflationary? Cash is going up in relative value, not down.

    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Fair cop on @Mysticrose's January predictions but where do you see the markets going over the coming months? I can only see down, up, down, down, with an overall bear trend until the autumn at the earliest.
    On the medium term picture I actually agree with Mystic (but not as low as 2000) - and have said so multiple times - so why she is offering me a bet on it, I don't know.

    It seems to be a failing of this site that we take more notice of the posters who scream in panic - even if the detail (such as it is) in such posts turns out mostly wrong - than of those who make calm and reasoned predictions that turn out nearer the mark?

    Markets are notoriously short term in their outlook. They have now normalised the virus crisis and the measures taken so far. They have more faith in the rescue package as an economic stimulus than is justified. But they have yet to take in the likely duration of this crisis and its associated lockdown, nor of the severity of what looks likely to hit the US.

    One fact worth noting is that most of the biggest one-day jumps in the US stock market happened in the aftermath of major crises, and before we reached the bottom. We've already had one such, with the Dow's biggest daily rise earlier this month. I suspect we are in for some big swings, up and down, and agree that we surely haven't reached the bottom.

    The caveat is that a surprise vaccine or cure breakthrough sends everything back up.
    I havent followed stocks but shouldn't power companies be safe? demand for gas and electirc might fall from companies but domestically it should be minimal. and their input costs should be well down.
    Utilities had a huge jump post Dec 12 because the threat of nationalisation was suddenly lifted from them. Irony of ironies, the threat is now back (if not of nationalisation, years of price caps). There are no safe havens, and certainly not in the stock market. To invest now is to bet that this is going to end markedly better than 2008/9.
  • Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.

    Another win for questioning the conventional wisdom of Captain Obvious
    The B24 Liberator, with its longer range was extensively used for that role as I recall.
    IIRC none of the big bombers had the range to cover the gap? Didn't it come down to carrier protection in the end? Long time since I've read anything about the Battle of the Atlantic so I could be wrong.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,581

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.
    Do people war game this kind of thing? That is interesting, I never knew that kind of retrospective thing went on. Any YouTube channels or anything like that about that kind of thing?
    War gaming is borrowed from real life military planning. The Sandhurst game of Operation Sealion was annual event - not sure if they still run it.

    Did you know that before the battle of Midway, the Japanese gamed the battle. Yamamoto "fixed" the results when he lost massively.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    Well that should certainly assist their access to the money markets if they need more capital.

    What are they going to do without London to hold their hands and explain the more difficult bits?
    Maybe holding onto capital would be a better use of it than distributing it, getting into trouble and then asking for more?
    Banks are almost certainly going to need more capital as a lot of their security turns out to be worthless in a market far beyond anything that the BoE/ECB did testing for. Why would they be an attractive investment if they cannot issue dividends? Look at how long the UK government has been waiting to recoup its "investments" in banks in 2008. Do you think that a de facto restriction on dividends helped that?

    Short term, stupid, wood from the trees mindset, in my view. But hey, what do I know?
    It may be the lesser of two evils. If they are going to be stress tested beyond anything imagined a few years ago then maintaining capital reserves seems to be a good move. Or at least a better move than acting as if markets and economies are normal right now.
    Was pondering your bonnets comment. Interesting because although I am not a bonnet drama fan, surely if people are in bonnets then the women were usually subservient, subordinate, and powerless.

    Whereas today's dramas are full of strong, independent women, I suppose The Good Wife (and sequel The Good Fight) being prime examples.

    And to all: On the @Mysticrose @eadric thing - totally different voices and as has been noted, in the absence of such authorial ability, different people.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Foxy said:

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    It is the same here, only hospital deaths with confirmed positive swabs are counted in the figures.
    IshmaelZ said:

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    I think it is standard, and we do it to. UK announcements say "Of those hospitalized in the UK n have sadly died."
    Thanks. R4 should have made that clear.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    nichomar said:

    There was a major worrying development in the current crisis this weekend. My mum has worked out how to make WhatsApp video calls.

    Whoever is out there in the land teaching these skills, we need to isolate them....from all technology.
    Talking of learning skills this would be a good time for those who claim they can’t cook to learn, as with the washing machine etc. Also those that leave the ‘finances’ to the other half to get a grip on where they are and how it’s spent. You never know when you are going to need these skills.
    A post appeared on my Facebook page, to the effect that at the end of this crisis 50% of us will have become excellent cooks and 50% alcoholics.
    I'm on about Day 7 of my PB Gardening Course.

    Do keep up :-D
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1244542496434257922?s=19
    Not really a Brexit meeting, so much as implementing the WA, as passed. Or at least that's what it looks like to me.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    geoffw said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Foxy said:



    Cyclefree said:

    HYUFD said:
    What's the point in that? Why are they wasting time on shit like this?
    One thing I’d fervently like to see in a post-virus world is no more of this sort of nonsense, no more asking celebrities what they think of things they know nothing about, no more tweets from them telling us of their feelings, no more arse licking of people whose main talent is having make up applied to them etc, no more of all this fake concern and emoting etc. It is all so vapid and empty.

    I hesitate to say this but even the NHS Clapathon made me feel a little uneasy. I am hugely in awe of those working in the NHS especially at this time and expressing our appreciation is a good thing. But providing them with proper equipment and paying them properly is more useful than a clap.

    Gestures instead of practical help are cruel.

    And what about all the others doing vital work: farmers, delivery drivers, supermarket staff etc etc?
    Lady Gaga is not my cup of tea either, but getting people with large social media followings to support social distancing is not facile, it is a good public health approach. You need to reach people where they are.
    There is also the thought that people who neither read a newspaper, 'real' or on-line, or watch TV news are quite likely to 'follow' celebrities on line.
    Yes I get that. I just find the whole celebrity culture thing ghastly. Instagramming your “lifestyle” for God’s sake. It’s ludicrous narcissism.

    Checkout assistants and supermarket packers are also taking risks and doing a vital job. I’d like to see some recognition of them and all the others who keep our society going at a time like this.
    "They also serve who only stand and wait."
    Boris gave supermarket workers (and others) a shout out in his recent There really is such a thing as society video, iirc.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,581

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.

    Another win for questioning the conventional wisdom of Captain Obvious
    The B24 Liberator, with its longer range was extensively used for that role as I recall.
    IIRC none of the big bombers had the range to cover the gap? Didn't it come down to carrier protection in the end? Long time since I've read anything about the Battle of the Atlantic so I could be wrong.
    Take all the defensive armament out (no enemy fighter 1500 miles into the Atlantic). Fuel tanks in half the bomb bay. You could fly a Lancaster to New York, practically, like that.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    War gaming is borrowed from real life military planning. The Sandhurst game of Operation Sealion was annual event - not sure if they still run it.

    Did you know that before the battle of Midway, the Japanese gamed the battle. Yamamoto "fixed" the results when he lost massively.

    TEWTS and NEWS.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    edited March 2020
    Foxy said:

    On topic. Biden voters may not be very enthusiastic about him, but I expect them to be highly motivated to vote against Trump. The two are not quite the same.

    That is a good point. You really need more information about the people answering the question (ie from other questions) to make a judgement from this.

    So for instance someone tanking because they are bonkers will lose their sensible followers but keep their fantastic. That may then show up with a very high figure on the 'Very' column and a low figure on the 'Not so' column as these people may have left, whereas the fanatics are unmoved and still think he is god. It may also boost the 'Not so' on the opponents column for the reluctant transfers which will reduce the 'Very' and 'Somewhat' columns because we are showing percentages.

    I'm not saying this is the case and doubt it is but the intuitive reading could be 100% wrong in that scenario and will only be apparent if you have other data like overall changes in support for both candidates.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.

    Another win for questioning the conventional wisdom of Captain Obvious
    The B24 Liberator, with its longer range was extensively used for that role as I recall.
    IIRC none of the big bombers had the range to cover the gap? Didn't it come down to carrier protection in the end? Long time since I've read anything about the Battle of the Atlantic so I could be wrong.
    My knowledge is based on extensive Airfix activity in the 1970's, rather than anything professional!
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Above, that reminds me, I hope ColinW's mum is alright.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,879
    felix said:

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    Virtually every country has slight differences in the way they report deaths. This is why comparisons are meaningless - and also why so much press reporting is so poor - especially when compounded with their 'gotcha' mentality so prevalent among them.
    One thing I'm wondering is... what is the correct metric for judging how successful a country's corona virus response has been?

    Arguably going into lockdown early reduces coronavirus deaths, but it will likely increase avoidable deaths from cancelling non-urgent health services etc.

    Overall mortality compared to the previous year might be reasonable, but I'd expect the more locked-down countries to see significant drop-off in road traffic accidents... which is kind of a secondary benefit that shouldn't be counted perhaps.

    My sense is that the narrative "we should have locked down earlier" is relatively well-established. That may shift over the coming months.
  • AramintaMoonbeamQCAramintaMoonbeamQC Posts: 3,569
    edited March 2020
    Foxy said:

    isam said:

    IanB2 said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    For those of you interested in the stock markets, I think we are now about to have a long, long, bear run. The little peaks of unreality, to which the US is particularly prone, are going to be flattened as the reality bites.


    I mean, obviously, Gold would have been great in January when I advised buying it but I'm not sure that it's great value now.


    Do you even look at the markets when you think up this drivel?
    You're lecturing someone who has been near 100% correct about this pandemic and predicted the crash back in January? Chutzpah!

    Obviously last week saw a dead-cat bounce across the pond, hence Gold dipped.
    The Dow rebounded off its low of around 18000 a week ago, and the recovery ran out of steam on Friday. It's now at 21000-ish, just off last week's high of 22000.

    Gold started the same period sub-1500 and increased steadily through last week, pretty much matching the stock market. It capped out at around 1600 sometime on Thursday, and has been there ever since.

    The mini-crash in the gold price took place during the second week in March, at a time when stock markets were also falling. The two have been pretty closely correlated the whole way through March.

    I repeat: do you actually look at the markets before posting your predictions?
    The one thing I would recommend people do, when we get fed this "I told you so" BS, is to take a peek at the comment history. It's easy to do. Especially in Mystic's case, as there are hardly any posts for January.

    None of them predict a stock market crash.

    What Mystic did predict in January is:

    - Trump's re-election is near certain. A "shoo-in" (quote).
    - the UK's future lies in trading with China; Huawei should go ahead
    - Byronic is SeanT

    One out of three isn't bad, I suppose.
    Fair cop on @Mysticrose's January predictions but where do you see the markets going over the coming months? I can only see down, up, down, down, with an overall bear trend until the autumn at the earliest.
    Perhaps you should check which posters *did* predict a stock market crash. Might be interesting.
    I asked whether I should sell EasyJet on the spreads at 1115p and was told I’d missed the boat
    Easyjet grounded all flights today.

    I think their current price is still way too high. Staying solvent must be a real concern.
    They're trying to prevent customers claiming refunds by removing the option from the website, and not taking inbound calls to their call centre. Looking very shaky.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,542
    kyf_100 said:
    Countries blocking exports of critical goods is becoming a new and big theme in this pandemic. Above all China because it makes a large part of the basic medical equipment used around the world. I think we will see a greater focus on national resource security.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,724
    egg said:

    MikeL said:

    Petrol prices are down a lot - unleaded £1.069 at Tesco today.

    That's down 10p in approx the last week.

    I thought there was a track record of not passing the savings onto Pumps very quickly?
    Asda and Morrisons started a price war last Monday, cutting unleaded to 1.02 over the course of about four hours. Everyone else has been running to catch up ever since.
  • MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.
    Do people war game this kind of thing? That is interesting, I never knew that kind of retrospective thing went on. Any YouTube channels or anything like that about that kind of thing?
    War gaming is borrowed from real life military planning. The Sandhurst game of Operation Sealion was annual event - not sure if they still run it.

    Did you know that before the battle of Midway, the Japanese gamed the battle. Yamamoto "fixed" the results when he lost massively.
    That's interesting, thanks. I never knew about the Yamamoto fix either. Maybe the success of the raid shows the limits of war gaming!
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Interesting experiences in cancelling travel. Almost all airlines want to issue vouchers, not cash refunds - where I can I'm asking for cash. Qatar (cancelled my flights) insist (via Travel Agent) that voucher is only available - but will take 6-8 weeks. BA (Cancelled my flights) has online form for cancelling flights but says that "refunds in line with fare rules" which is a bit of a bind on a non-refundable ticket. Yotel Changi cancelled and refunded my "non-refundable booking" in four minutes.....even though it was out of office hours.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,836
    edited March 2020
    Foxy said:

    On topic. Biden voters may not be very enthusiastic about him, but I expect them to be highly motivated to vote against Trump. The two are not quite the same.

    Very good point.

    To the question, "How enthused are you about Joe Biden?" I would answer "Not very."

    Yet if - come Nov 3rd - there were a lagoon full of deadly snakes separating me from the ballot box where I could vote for Biden in a contest against Donald Trump, I would without a moment's hesitation dive in and start swimming.

    Unfortunately, I don't have a vote, so the situation will not arise - but the point stands.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rkrkrk said:

    felix said:

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    Virtually every country has slight differences in the way they report deaths. This is why comparisons are meaningless - and also why so much press reporting is so poor - especially when compounded with their 'gotcha' mentality so prevalent among them.
    One thing I'm wondering is... what is the correct metric for judging how successful a country's corona virus response has been?

    Arguably going into lockdown early reduces coronavirus deaths, but it will likely increase avoidable deaths from cancelling non-urgent health services etc.

    Overall mortality compared to the previous year might be reasonable, but I'd expect the more locked-down countries to see significant drop-off in road traffic accidents... which is kind of a secondary benefit that shouldn't be counted perhaps.

    My sense is that the narrative "we should have locked down earlier" is relatively well-established. That may shift over the coming months.
    Road traffic is a red herring; 1800 deaths a year of late. We will exceed that in a day at some stage.

    https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2019/09/27/uk-road-casualty-statistics-labelled-dsigraceful
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Scott_xP said:
    The virus is doing well and thinks it can beat this thing.
  • Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.

    Another win for questioning the conventional wisdom of Captain Obvious
    The B24 Liberator, with its longer range was extensively used for that role as I recall.
    IIRC none of the big bombers had the range to cover the gap? Didn't it come down to carrier protection in the end? Long time since I've read anything about the Battle of the Atlantic so I could be wrong.
    Take all the defensive armament out (no enemy fighter 1500 miles into the Atlantic). Fuel tanks in half the bomb bay. You could fly a Lancaster to New York, practically, like that.
    Yes good points. I guess they didn't do that because they were keeping all the Lancs for Bomber Command.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Dura_Ace said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The virus is doing well and thinks it can beat this thing.
    :lol:
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    IshmaelZ said:

    rkrkrk said:

    felix said:

    R4 reporting this morning that "France only reports Covid-19 deaths in hospitals" and "excludes deaths in care homes" - is that from the daily update, and they get included later, or absolutely - anyone know?

    Virtually every country has slight differences in the way they report deaths. This is why comparisons are meaningless - and also why so much press reporting is so poor - especially when compounded with their 'gotcha' mentality so prevalent among them.
    One thing I'm wondering is... what is the correct metric for judging how successful a country's corona virus response has been?

    Arguably going into lockdown early reduces coronavirus deaths, but it will likely increase avoidable deaths from cancelling non-urgent health services etc.

    Overall mortality compared to the previous year might be reasonable, but I'd expect the more locked-down countries to see significant drop-off in road traffic accidents... which is kind of a secondary benefit that shouldn't be counted perhaps.

    My sense is that the narrative "we should have locked down earlier" is relatively well-established. That may shift over the coming months.
    Road traffic is a red herring; 1800 deaths a year of late. We will exceed that in a day at some stage.

    https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2019/09/27/uk-road-casualty-statistics-labelled-dsigraceful
    Paradoxically, hospital mortality may well go down in many areas in the short term, due to reduced elective activity. Trauma related too as fewer going out and injuring themselves.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    The highest ranks of government clearly have not been practising what they preach about social distancing.

    Get well soon, Mr Cummings.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,747
    FF43 said:

    kyf_100 said:
    Countries blocking exports of critical goods is becoming a new and big theme in this pandemic. Above all China because it makes a large part of the basic medical equipment used around the world. I think we will see a greater focus on national resource security.
    Indeed, long international chains of supply for just in time manufacturing is going to seem seriously out of fashion. This is not necessarily bad news for UK plc as @Alanbrooke has been arguing on these pages for a very long time.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,581

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.

    Another win for questioning the conventional wisdom of Captain Obvious
    The B24 Liberator, with its longer range was extensively used for that role as I recall.
    IIRC none of the big bombers had the range to cover the gap? Didn't it come down to carrier protection in the end? Long time since I've read anything about the Battle of the Atlantic so I could be wrong.
    Take all the defensive armament out (no enemy fighter 1500 miles into the Atlantic). Fuel tanks in half the bomb bay. You could fly a Lancaster to New York, practically, like that.
    Yes good points. I guess they didn't do that because they were keeping all the Lancs for Bomber Command.
    Conventional wisdom (in most airforces) was that strategic bombing was the way to win...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Cyclefree said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    I hope Andrew Bailey shows some balls and stops Barclays here doing the same.
    I don't know if that's a good idea. I'd spell out that any government support will come at the cost of recouping any paid dividends from shareholders via a rights issue etc...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,581

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.
    Do people war game this kind of thing? That is interesting, I never knew that kind of retrospective thing went on. Any YouTube channels or anything like that about that kind of thing?
    War gaming is borrowed from real life military planning. The Sandhurst game of Operation Sealion was annual event - not sure if they still run it.

    Did you know that before the battle of Midway, the Japanese gamed the battle. Yamamoto "fixed" the results when he lost massively.
    That's interesting, thanks. I never knew about the Yamamoto fix either. Maybe the success of the raid shows the limits of war gaming!
    You are thinking of Pearl Harbour

    Midway was the battle where the Japanese lost all the carriers deployed - most of their front line carrier strength. Which ensured they lost the war a year earlier, if nothing else.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    If I'm reading this right, while "It started in China" looks like a lot of UK cases have come via the USA:

    https://nextstrain.org/ncov?f_country=United Kingdom
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    Well that should certainly assist their access to the money markets if they need more capital.

    What are they going to do without London to hold their hands and explain the more difficult bits?
    Maybe holding onto capital would be a better use of it than distributing it, getting into trouble and then asking for more?
    Banks are almost certainly going to need more capital as a lot of their security turns out to be worthless in a market far beyond anything that the BoE/ECB did testing for. Why would they be an attractive investment if they cannot issue dividends? Look at how long the UK government has been waiting to recoup its "investments" in banks in 2008. Do you think that a de facto restriction on dividends helped that?

    Short term, stupid, wood from the trees mindset, in my view. But hey, what do I know?
    It may be the lesser of two evils. If they are going to be stress tested beyond anything imagined a few years ago then maintaining capital reserves seems to be a good move. Or at least a better move than acting as if markets and economies are normal right now.
    Was pondering your bonnets comment. Interesting because although I am not a bonnet drama fan, surely if people are in bonnets then the women were usually subservient, subordinate, and powerless.

    Whereas today's dramas are full of strong, independent women, I suppose The Good Wife (and sequel The Good Fight) being prime examples.

    And to all: On the @Mysticrose @eadric thing - totally different voices and as has been noted, in the absence of such authorial ability, different people.
    Hmm.... often some of the best dramas are about women in bonnets trying not to be subordinate and powerless.

    Jane Eyre, for instance. Or the women in Middlemarch. Or Far From the Madding Crowd.

    Prime Suspect was a very good drama indeed about a woman in a man’s world.

    I do like a bit of escapist bonnet drama - the last film I saw a few weeks back was Emma, which I enjoyed hugely, partly because it got the humour but also the sheer desire between the two leads and the complexity of someone (Emma) who could be both lovely and an absolute cow.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Monkeys said:

    egg said:

    Endillion said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I can't work out if we're going to have rampant deflation or rampant inflation from this.
    I think house prices could take a hit mind.

    Who knows. But I reckon it will be inflation.
    There's almost no velocity of money now though. Unless you're trying to buy PPE, inflation needs to have a large velocity of money and that has almost stopped.
    High unemployment + negative economic growth = downwards pressure on inflation, usually. Oil prices are also at recent lows, and as you say spending is grinding to a halt. The main upwards indicator right now is low interest rates, bu they were already pretty low to start with, so the minor cut shouldn't change much. The massive increase in government spending is mostly just replacing what would've been regular income. My vote is for deflation.
    So those people who spent all weekend moving money out of their bank accounts are ahead of the game and writing mug on our foreheads for being slow to act on this? Moving it it to what though? What assets won’t depreciate? jewellery? Water?
    Rice. Wheat.
    If you can still get it.

    https://twitter.com/maxlambertson/status/1243525558157352970
    Remember again there's someone still working in Downing Street who said Britain didn't really need its farms and fishing fleet.
    Sigh - that was in the context of an extreme hypothetical - quite common in Operational Research. You ask - if we take X to an extreme, what is the result Y.

    In the case of farming - a large amount of money is spent on subsidy. What do we get for it? What would the landscape be, if we removed it?

    A classic in this field was the study in WWII proposing to remove all defensive armament from RAF bombers. If you went all the way to redesigning the planes to not have the structural capability to carry the armament, then they would be 100mph faster and have half the crew. While not adopted, due to the politics of the matter, it is noteworthy that the Air Ministry dropped defensive armament for future designs.
    If I recall correctly that was the Mossie, and de Havilland had to virtually build it themselves (full size mockup?) before the Air Ministry would order a single prototype.
    Nope - later, after the Mosquito. The idea had been mooted several times by aircraft designers - the basic reasoning was that if you designed for speed, a bomber would be as fast as a fighter. Or nearly. So the intercept curve would be close to impossible.

    The Mosquito was nearly binned by the failure of the Blenheim to do exactly that - survive by speed. It worked because the onset of compression effects made speeds above 400mph really, really difficult - otherwise by the time it was in production, speeds would have jumped again, and it would have been another Blenheim. The Mosquito survived with clever lobbying and the promise of testing armament - got as far as a mocked up turret in one prototype IIRC.

    De Havilland had some idea of compression issues. As did Supermarine. Famously, Hawker didn't.

    The study to remove all defensive armament was after Mosquitos demonstrated *cruise* speeds north of 300, while loaded.
    The Mosquito is one of my two fave aircraft of WW2, the other being the Short Sunderland.

    A few years I did knock up a spreadsheet of the (my estimated) cumulative effect of hypothentically replacing all our 4 engned bombers with Mossies. The initial total bombload was much lower but with a much smaller rate of loss I think I had the Mosquitoes overtaking within about 6-12 months. Can't remember my input parameters though.
    Not enough piano makers...

    The study I am talking of was essentially - 4 Merlins, 10K payload, 3 crew, metal construction. Think Lancaster with a much smaller and lighter fuselage.

    IIRC De Havilland did some sketches for a 4 engined Super Mosquito. Along with a Sabre engined derivative.

    The Mosquito got its performance from being the minimum aircraft to carry the load, not from the wooden construction.
    At a tangent, has anyone looked at giving Coastal Command some Lancasters to close the submarine gap much earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic?
    Yes - war-gamed by the pros quite frequently. Just keeping the uboats underwater all the time, crawling around at 5 knots makes a huge difference.

    Another win for questioning the conventional wisdom of Captain Obvious
    The B24 Liberator, with its longer range was extensively used for that role as I recall.
    IIRC none of the big bombers had the range to cover the gap? Didn't it come down to carrier protection in the end? Long time since I've read anything about the Battle of the Atlantic so I could be wrong.
    My knowledge is based on extensive Airfix activity in the 1970's, rather than anything professional!
    Very Long Range (VLR) Liberators could and did close the air gap in 1943. Escort carriers were becoming available in numbers at a similar time. I think the former were more significant.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    Scott_xP said:
    Some people just cannot help being nasty about people being ill. Says way more about them than the ones they don't like.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    John Prine critically ill with covid. He is 73.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52089768
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,542
    DavidL said:

    FF43 said:

    kyf_100 said:
    Countries blocking exports of critical goods is becoming a new and big theme in this pandemic. Above all China because it makes a large part of the basic medical equipment used around the world. I think we will see a greater focus on national resource security.
    Indeed, long international chains of supply for just in time manufacturing is going to seem seriously out of fashion. This is not necessarily bad news for UK plc as @Alanbrooke has been arguing on these pages for a very long time.
    I think the assumption has been that no-one would want to put barriers in the way of their own exports. That assumption no longer holds.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,836
    TOPPING said:

    Hope you bought those 6,000 calls when we discussed it at <5,000.</p>

    Nearly did but didn't. Doing the more prosaic "dripping in on bad days" on real shares. Staying mainly in cash though atm.

    Re multiple IDs on here - to my eye (ear) there are none. There are people who disappear and come back with a different handle (lots of those) but I have not spotted anybody who I think is posting simultaneously under more than one name. Still, I don't specifically look for it so maybe it does happen.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    On topic. Biden voters may not be very enthusiastic about him, but I expect them to be highly motivated to vote against Trump. The two are not quite the same.

    Very good point.

    To the question, "How enthused are you about Joe Biden?" I would answer "Not very."

    Yet if - come Nov 3rd - there were a lagoon full of deadly snakes separating me from the ballot box where I could vote for Biden in a contest against Donald Trump, I would without a moment's hesitation dive in and start swimming.

    Unfortunately, I don't have a vote, so the situation will not arise - but the point stands.
    Good point.
  • Scott_xP said:
    *sigh* If Fox News goes pop as a result of being Sued to Death after deliberately lying, the supporters of Trump will simply blame the librul elite. Its their God Given Right to be lied to etc etc.

    We aren't that far behind. There are some absolute tools out there, harrumphing away with their scarlet faces desperately blaming their personal bogeymen to try and hide their sense of inadequacy. People have decided what the facts are and aren't going to stop passing off their opinions as facts no matter how flat-earther they look.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    IshmaelZ said:

    John Prine critically ill with covid. He is 73.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52089768

    And has only one lung, I believe ?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    edited March 2020

    Scott_xP said:
    *sigh* If Fox News goes pop as a result of being Sued to Death after deliberately lying, the supporters of Trump will simply blame the librul elite. Its their God Given Right to be lied to etc etc.

    We aren't that far behind. There are some absolute tools out there, harrumphing away with their scarlet faces desperately blaming their personal bogeymen to try and hide their sense of inadequacy. People have decided what the facts are and aren't going to stop passing off their opinions as facts no matter how flat-earther they look.
    The only people likely to have been misled are the supporters of Trump.
    Are they likely to sue ?

    If so, they are not going to be blaming the 'liberal elite'.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Cyclefree said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    Well that should certainly assist their access to the money markets if they need more capital.

    What are they going to do without London to hold their hands and explain the more difficult bits?
    Maybe holding onto capital would be a better use of it than distributing it, getting into trouble and then asking for more?
    Banks are almost certainly going to need more capital as a lot of their security turns out to be worthless in a market far beyond anything that the BoE/ECB did testing for. Why would they be an attractive investment if they cannot issue dividends? Look at how long the UK government has been waiting to recoup its "investments" in banks in 2008. Do you think that a de facto restriction on dividends helped that?

    Short term, stupid, wood from the trees mindset, in my view. But hey, what do I know?
    It may be the lesser of two evils. If they are going to be stress tested beyond anything imagined a few years ago then maintaining capital reserves seems to be a good move. Or at least a better move than acting as if markets and economies are normal right now.
    Was pondering your bonnets comment. Interesting because although I am not a bonnet drama fan, surely if people are in bonnets then the women were usually subservient, subordinate, and powerless.

    Whereas today's dramas are full of strong, independent women, I suppose The Good Wife (and sequel The Good Fight) being prime examples.

    And to all: On the @Mysticrose @eadric thing - totally different voices and as has been noted, in the absence of such authorial ability, different people.
    Hmm.... often some of the best dramas are about women in bonnets trying not to be subordinate and powerless.

    Jane Eyre, for instance. Or the women in Middlemarch. Or Far From the Madding Crowd.

    Prime Suspect was a very good drama indeed about a woman in a man’s world.

    I do like a bit of escapist bonnet drama - the last film I saw a few weeks back was Emma, which I enjoyed hugely, partly because it got the humour but also the sheer desire between the two leads and the complexity of someone (Emma) who could be both lovely and an absolute cow.
    Yes I agree although the fact that they are "trying" and therefore the (mythical) exception - if they succeed - is telling.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,724

    Scott_xP said:
    *sigh* If Fox News goes pop as a result of being Sued to Death after deliberately lying, the supporters of Trump will simply blame the librul elite. Its their God Given Right to be lied to etc etc.

    We aren't that far behind. There are some absolute tools out there, harrumphing away with their scarlet faces desperately blaming their personal bogeymen to try and hide their sense of inadequacy. People have decided what the facts are and aren't going to stop passing off their opinions as facts no matter how flat-earther they look.
    Would be very funny to watch though.

    Would be nice to think it could apply here, to Richard Horton...
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    There's about as much chance of China facing a great reckoning as there is of Fox News being sued.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Hope you bought those 6,000 calls when we discussed it at <5,000.</p>

    Nearly did but didn't. Doing the more prosaic "dripping in on bad days" on real shares. Staying mainly in cash though atm.

    Re multiple IDs on here - to my eye (ear) there are none. There are people who disappear and come back with a different handle (lots of those) but I have not spotted anybody who I think is posting simultaneously under more than one name. Still, I don't specifically look for it so maybe it does happen.
    Yes agree.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    I do wonder which large company will be the first to abandon Chinese manufacturing and where they will shift to. SE Asia and India could benefit a lot in the next few years if they play things right.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    FF43 said:

    kyf_100 said:
    Countries blocking exports of critical goods is becoming a new and big theme in this pandemic. Above all China because it makes a large part of the basic medical equipment used around the world. I think we will see a greater focus on national resource security.
    We may well.
    But what about the next twelve months ?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    NEW THREAD
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Nigelb said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    John Prine critically ill with covid. He is 73.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52089768

    And has only one lung, I believe ?
    Seems to be right. Shit.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    Cyclefree said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    ECB ban all eurozone banks from paying dividends

    Well that should certainly assist their access to the money markets if they need more capital.

    What are they going to do without London to hold their hands and explain the more difficult bits?
    Maybe holding onto capital would be a better use of it than distributing it, getting into trouble and then asking for more?
    Banks are almost certainly going to need more capital as a lot of their security turns out to be worthless in a market far beyond anything that the BoE/ECB did testing for. Why would they be an attractive investment if they cannot issue dividends? Look at how long the UK government has been waiting to recoup its "investments" in banks in 2008. Do you think that a de facto restriction on dividends helped that?

    Short term, stupid, wood from the trees mindset, in my view. But hey, what do I know?
    It may be the lesser of two evils. If they are going to be stress tested beyond anything imagined a few years ago then maintaining capital reserves seems to be a good move. Or at least a better move than acting as if markets and economies are normal right now.
    Was pondering your bonnets comment. Interesting because although I am not a bonnet drama fan, surely if people are in bonnets then the women were usually subservient, subordinate, and powerless.

    Whereas today's dramas are full of strong, independent women, I suppose The Good Wife (and sequel The Good Fight) being prime examples.

    And to all: On the @Mysticrose @eadric thing - totally different voices and as has been noted, in the absence of such authorial ability, different people.
    Hmm.... often some of the best dramas are about women in bonnets trying not to be subordinate and powerless.

    Jane Eyre, for instance. Or the women in Middlemarch. Or Far From the Madding Crowd.

    Prime Suspect was a very good drama indeed about a woman in a man’s world.

    I do like a bit of escapist bonnet drama - the last film I saw a few weeks back was Emma, which I enjoyed hugely, partly because it got the humour but also the sheer desire between the two leads and the complexity of someone (Emma) who could be both lovely and an absolute cow.
    So you do occasionally watch TV ? :smile:

    Emma is my favourite Austen novel. Haven't yet seem the new adaption, so thanks for the reminder.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    felix said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Some people just cannot help being nasty about people being ill. Says way more about them than the ones they don't like.
    I wish anyone who has the virus a speedy recovery, however repulsive they are. It is difficult not to feel a certain amount of schadenfreude toward Cummings after his tasteless "so be-it" comment about the deaths of the elderly.

    Let us hope he does recover, but while he does, I hope he might reflect on his sociopathic utterances, and if it takes him a while longer than many others, so be-it!
This discussion has been closed.