Coronavirus (OLD)

[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Protecting the vulnerable is all that's required. Shutting down the economy is not something that can be sustained, repeated or enforced.

There’s no clear definition of “vulnerable” for the virus. Yes, there are higher at risk groups but there are also those outwith having severe health impacts, and ultimately deaths.

Shutting down the economy can easily be sustained, repeated and enforced if that’s the most cost effective way of dealing with the virus.

In comparing the number of deaths in this country with that of others, I stand by my statement that it is too early to make those comparisons. Not only will there be future waves, but we are all counting differently.

You can continue to stand by statements all you like however when they are flawed and against all known evidence then it simply discredits your arguments.

Most people accept that we have to get the country back to work now, and if we have to mandate that masks be worn and proective screens erected to reassure those who are scared, so be it. But the economy must be working effectively again without delay.

Again based on the flawed belief that human behaviour returns to normal or that businesses can survive on reduced demand in the economy. For many they cannot - and when they scale back and put people on the dole the outcome is inevitable. An entrenched long term recession that will be harder to get out of and cost the public purse more in the long run.

Unless the Government intends to stimulate demand in the economy - but that goes against your ideology and defeats your original intent which is to keep the state out of it.

Doesn't it depend on what further measures are put in place.

Had they simply protected the vulnerable, the numbers would not have been anywhere near as high as they have been and the economy would still be in good shape. There was no need for this global over-reaction.

How would the numbers be lower by “protecting the vulnerable”. We protected the vulnerable, and everyone else while we were at it, and still had devastating figures.

It’s a flawed logic, ignores reality and distracts from the steps that we, and all other countries, must take if there’s to be any meaningful return to normal for the foreseeable future.

---------- Post added at 12:50 ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 ----------

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Sadly, I think he is right, but I anticipate that a resurgence will be sooner rather than later. And indeed, if anyone thinks we will get everyone vaccinated in the near future, they are deluding themselves. No effective vaccine has been discovered yet, although I am told it won't be long before one is found. But then it needs testing on animals, testing on humans, it then needs to be mass produced, distributed to hospitals and doctors' practices and then inoculations will commence. This process will not have been completed until 2022 at the earliest, I would have thought.

Which is why elimination should have been the obvious choice. While it’s a high short term cost, it has the greatest long term gains.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Sadly, I think he is right, but I anticipate that a resurgence will be sooner rather than later. And indeed, if anyone thinks we will get everyone vaccinated in the near future, they are deluding themselves. No effective vaccine has been discovered yet, although I am told it won't be long before one is found. But then it needs testing on animals, testing on humans, it then needs to be mass produced, distributed to hospitals and doctors' practices and then inoculations will commence. This process will not have been completed until 2022 at the earliest, I would have thought.

Who told you?

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Do you mean EXPRESS-style?

Well, whatever the glitch was. it's passed as has the moment.

[tweetiepooh]

Can't say I'm too sympathetic with those who are simply scared. I do understand those who are vulnerable or related to someone who is or works in a "high risk" capacity. By now people should have a better understanding of risks and should be able to "work" within the frameworks in place.

It's all a hard thing to work out and I'm glad I don't have to make the choices needed at national levels. They can't look at individual cases and have to balance totals dead, load on services, cost to economy, reaction of the public. Look at the music festival in France - no social distancing, no masks regardless of what the law may be saying. If the public doesn't want to comply in a large enough way then it doesn't matter much what rules you bring in. Are there things to be learnt - certainly, can we change the past - nope? So rather than simply criticising we need all parties to work together so future responses are better. Learn from other nations successes and failures, work out what successes would work here.

Germany have "locked down" a tower block at centre of a flareup. It's this sort of response that seems sensible once some general control is present, yes the virus is still present but if there is a way to control such incidents we are able to relax things in other areas.

Just had a chat with my bro-in-law, who is a research SVP for a large* biosimilars company in the USA - they are, and I quote

currently preparing a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins and UPenn to kick in the autumn when we expect a resurgence in the northeast

No matter what Governments are saying, he says most of the Pharma and biosimilar companies are expecting the 2nd wave September/October, and are planning for that - it’s not just following the science, it’s following the money behind the science.

The company he works for has already started human testing of an experimental Covid-19 antibody cocktail designed as a treatment for the disease, and they should know within a month whether the treatment is effective.



*market cap of $70 billion

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

Shutting down the economy can easily be sustained.

You know, I had a fantastic JFman holiday, you have the auspicious accolade of being the only person I have used the ignore function on in my 17 year tenure to this site ( and I’m pretty sure it’s longer than that including previous incarnations)

So I take you off ignore and this is the first thing I read.

Complete bollocks.

Have you read the story on Sky news Today that earlier on In the pandemic the government couldn’t sell their bonds?

The money markets are just like banks, they look at your ability to pay, and any country that has no economy, no tax, or much reduced, tax income, and is shelling out free money to it’s citizens by the billion, would look like a tramp asking for a mortgage.

Anyway, when are you an Old Boy going to stop fooling yourselves and get a room already?

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

You know, I had a fantastic JFman holiday, you have the auspicious accolade of being the only person I have used the ignore function on in my 17 year tenure to this site ( and I’m pretty sure it’s longer than that including previous incarnations)

So I take you off ignore and this is the first thing I read.

Complete bollocks.

Have you read the story on Sky news Today that earlier on In the pandemic the government couldn’t sell their bonds?

The money markets are just like banks, they look at your ability to pay, and any country that has no economy, no tax, or much reduced, tax income, and is shelling out free money to it’s citizens by the billion, would look like a tramp asking for a mortgage.

Anyway, when are you an Old Boy going to stop fooling yourselves and get a room already?

Feel free to continue to ignore reality as you wish, however you cannot simply be offensive and dismiss the post as “complete bollocks” without any evidence whatsoever.

Another subscriber to the fallacy that Government budgets are somehow equivalent to household budgets. You do realise that this money doesn’t physically exist - there’s no pot of gold you can walk into the Bank of England and claim? It’s created and introduced into the economy, and just as easily rremoved, by the touch of a button on spreadsheets.

You have ignored the important role of Central Banks in increasing money supply and underwriting the Government position as a lender of last resort. I can’t meaningfully say any more than that and if you want to dismiss that as “complete bollocks” instead of engage with the subject then I can’t help you.

By simplistic analogy that’s like someone in the pub saying they can’t afford a round because they’ve got a fiver in their pocket forgetting they’ve got their bank card in their pocket and there’s a cash machine outside.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

Feel free to continue to ignore reality as you wish, however you cannot simply be offensive and dismiss the post as “complete bollocks” without any evidence whatsoever.

Another subscriber to the fallacy that Government budgets are somehow equivalent to household budgets. You do realise that this money doesn’t physically exist - there’s no pot of gold you can walk into the Bank of England and claim? It’s created and introduced into the economy, and just as easily rremoved, by the touch of a button on spreadsheets.

You have ignored the important role of Central Banks in increasing money supply and underwriting the Government position as a lender of last resort. I can’t meaningfully say any more than that and if you want to dismiss that as “complete bollocks” instead of engage with the subject then I can’t help you.

I’ll keep you off ignore for as long as I can stand it.

1. Governments raise capital by selling government bonds.

2. Investors buy the bonds expecting a return on their investment.

3. Governments need an income from taxation to repay those bonds.

4 in order to have an income from taxation they need to have a functioning economy with individuals and companies paying tax on the money they earn.

5. Printing money, quantitative easing, is an option available to central banks to inject into the economy or use to buy government bonds as a Lender of last resort.

6. Printing money can* cause inflation. * not always, in a global recession Like 2008 it is unlikely, however this isn’t 2008, and there is no knowing yet what the global reaction to this will be if we’re happily printing bank notes like confetti and no else is...............

7. Inflation can affect the value of Government bonds Making them less attractive and forcing the government to offer higher interest rates.

8. Blah blah hyper- inflation, currency devaluation and death.

Here are some simple explanations

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6...rinting-money/

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/8...and-inflation/

Your belief that Money is something intangible and can just be created without consequence is bizarre.

[jfman]

Nobody said “without consequence”. You are putting words into my mouth and have shifted the goalposts to a different point from that which you made originally which was summarised by “complete bollocks”.

You’ve at least acknowledged the role of Central Banks and that there are other ways of the Government raising money from the “money markets” and that in 2008 this was successful at increasing money supply WITHOUT causing the Venezuelan style hyper inflation that’s a cheap, lazy and ignorant dig at a reasonable macroeconomic policy.

Thanks for sharing with me some basic economics websites. I think you’ll probably find them useful reading given how much your knowledge has developed in a mere one hour and seven minutes I think you could grasp this economics lark fully within a couple of weeks if you dropped your ideological barrier at the state having a role in anything.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

Nobody said “without consequence”. You are putting words into my mouth and have shifted the goalposts to a different point from that which you made originally which was summarised by “complete bollocks”.

Oh no, I totally standby the Complete Bollocks statement whole heartedly.

OK, you didn’t put a time frame - so just how long can a shutdown of the economy be “easily” sustained?

Given that we’ve done it for three months and already predictions are that will cost £337B

Sorry I mis-interpreted “easily”, so you admit there will be consequences, potentially very harsh consequences that won’t be so Easy for people in the future.

Thanks for sharing with me some basic economics websites.

Well I certainly think you needed them.

As you seem to be unable to get over the very simple premise that borrowed money need to be repaid, eventually.

In comparing the number of deaths in this country with that of others, I stand by my statement that it is too early to make those comparisons. Not only will there be future waves, but we are all counting differently.

Originally Posted by jfman

You can continue to stand by statements all you like however when they are flawed and against all known evidence then it simply discredits your arguments.

What is "flawed" about the statement

Its most certainly too early to be making comparisons.
There is already evidence they are likely to be second waves.
Countries most certainly do count differently, unless you can prove otherwise.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Oh no, I totally standby the Complete Bollocks statement whole heartedly.

OK, you didn’t put a time frame - so just how long can a shutdown of the economy be “easily” sustained?

Given that we’ve done it for three months and already predictions are that will cost £337B

Sorry I mis-interpreted “easily”, so you admit there will be consequences, potentially very harsh consequences that won’t be so Easy for people in the future.

Well I certainly think you needed them.

As you seem to be unable to get over the very simple premise that borrowed money need to be repaid, eventually.

Considering we didn’t fully pay off the debt to free slaves until 2015 it’s important to remember Government borrowing in context. We are already £2 trillion in debt, and nobody regrets the glory days of cheap council houses and selling off nationalised industry on the cheap. Nor is there any clamour to reform the tax system in order to repay that debt. The Government will always be in debt.

You are under the false belief that we won’t have a recession either way, with a long and protracted one costing far more in the long run and that a normal economy is an option on the table. That’s absolutely fanciful, or to use your terminology “complete bollocks”.

Under one scenario the Government has control, can protect the “normal” economy and under the other it does not.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by jfman

Considering we didn’t fully pay off the debt to free slaves until 2015 it’s important to remember Government borrowing in context. We are already £2 trillion in debt, and nobody regrets the glory days of cheap council houses and selling off nationalised industry on the cheap. Nor is there any clamour to reform the tax system in order to repay that debt. The Government will always be in debt.

You are under the false belief that we won’t have a recession either way, with a long and protracted one costing far more in the long run and that a normal economy is an option on the table. That’s absolutely fanciful, or to use your terminology “complete bollocks”.

Under one scenario the Government has control, can protect the “normal” economy and under the other it does not.

Do you have a link for that?

It's OK I've found it.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Paul

What is "flawed" about the statement

Its most certainly too early to be making comparisons.
There is already evidence they are likely to be second waves.
Countries most certainly do count differently, unless you can prove otherwise.

How those second waves affect each country remains to be seen, so it’s speculative on Old Boys part to assume this ends up the same way for everyone, regardless of what measures or mechanisms they put on place. While countries are counting differently there will always be the excess deaths figures as an indicator.

I suspect you will disagree, so I’ll make that my last post on that for now so as to not go in circles as I’m sure we’ve already disagreed on it, probably more than once.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Temporary tax reductions for the leisure sector sound sensible. I don't know how much capacity there is for public spending cuts though. Now is a time to be inventive and not same old, same old.

https://www.ft.com/content/b6cc50e8-...e-a825ec865b69

That's good. I'm looking to replace all my kitchen appliances anyway.

---------- Post added at 21:23 ---------- Previous post was at 21:21 ----------

Originally Posted by Taf

All down to The Bank of England doing a lot of Quantitative Easing. But who do they borrow from? And at what rates?

The very low Base Rate means the banks can get income for almost nothing, so they don't need to attract Depositors any more. Hence large drops in Depositor interest rates.

So the Capitalist System demands we "Spend! Spend! Spend!" to support the economy, rather than save for leaner times.

Unfortunately, many have noticed during lockdown that we used to spend far too much money on frivolous things. The missus, for example, sorted out all her clothes and footwear and announced "I never need to buy more ever again!"

They say that printing more money pushes up inflation, but I doubt that will be a problem for some time to come. I think that quantitative easing is a form of this.