The economic impact of Covid-19

[Follyfoot]

19 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Ah, furlough, well I’d imagine Chris Grayling and the tory chums behind Seaborne Freight have seen more than their fair share of discharged seamen.

 

 

https://images.app.goo.gl/rcs7a5V3ytfBg1A2A

Edited August 12, 2020 by Follyfoot

[Demitri_C]

One thing about sunak he doesnt come across like a normal conservative which makes it bizarre

A) how he got to such a high level post

why he is part of the tory party

[Genie]

Sunak basically has cheat mode enabled, he’s handing out tens of millions of pounds every day like confetti with almost no scrutiny. He’ll be judged on his ability to get it back without completely killing the economy. He might also get a bit nervous down the line when the interrogation into some of the spending gathers pace.

[Demitri_C]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Sunak basically has cheat mode enabled, he’s handing out tens of millions of pounds every day like confetti with almost no scrutiny. He’ll be judged on his ability to get it back without completely killing the economy. He might also get a bit nervous down the line when the interrogation into some of the spending gathers pace.

Problem is genie if he didnt do that the whoke country would be its on knees. Unemployment would rocket houses woukd be lost. That hasnt happened yet.

He will have to make some tough decisions be interesting to see what he does. If he taxes the rich a d these fat cat companies avoiding paying the tax then great.

But if its cutting all benefits and nhs staff eho have been saving us then he is going to get a very tough ride and rightly so

[KentVillan]

Just now, Demitri_C said:

Problem is genie if he didnt do that the whoke country would be its on knees. Unemployment would rocket houses woukd be lost. That hasnt happened yet.

The whole country is on its knees and unemployment has rocketed.

What they’ve managed to keep down is the official govt measure of unemployment, which is only vaguely related to how many people are actually out of work. Watch this climb soon as the jobless start looking for work and claiming benefits.

[Genie]

12 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Problem is genie if he didnt do that the whoke country would be its on knees. Unemployment would rocket houses woukd be lost. That hasnt happened yet.

He will have to make some tough decisions be interesting to see what he does. If he taxes the rich a d these fat cat companies avoiding paying the tax then great.

But if its cutting all benefits and nhs staff eho have been saving us then he is going to get a very tough ride and rightly so

“Something” had to be done and I praise him for acting swiftly. The facts will eventually come out, I suspect there will be some good moves but also several billion wasted which he and Boris should rightly be accountable for.

The economy took a worse tanking than the other comparable nations so that needs to be robustly answered. He can’t even say it was a price to pay for saving lives because we’re the worst in Europe at that too.

It would make an interesting project to model what would have happened if we’d not bothered with lockdown.

[Follyfoot]

15 minutes ago, Genie said:

“Something” had to be done and I praise him for acting swiftly. The facts will eventually come out, I suspect there will be some good moves but also several billion wasted which he and Boris should rightly be accountable for.

The economy took a worse tanking than the other comparable nations so that needs to be robustly answered. He can’t even say it was a price to pay for saving lives because we’re the worst in Europe at that too.

It would make an interesting project to model what would have happened if we’d not bothered with lockdown.

Another 50 or 60,000 dead maybe, mostly vulnerable old people at a guess, cannot really put an economic price on that

Edited August 12, 2020 by Follyfoot

[Demitri_C]

22 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The whole country is on its knees and unemployment has rocketed.

What they’ve managed to keep down is the official govt measure of unemployment, which is only vaguely related to how many people are actually out of work. Watch this climb soon as the jobless start looking for work and claiming benefits.

There is nothing that could have been done to prevent this though. We could have been more prepared i agree on that but this would have had a huge impact on peoples jobs no matter what. 

I agree it is definitely going to climb and get a lot worse.

13 minutes ago, Genie said:

“Something” had to be done and I praise him for acting swiftly. The facts will eventually come out, I suspect there will be some good moves but also several billion wasted which he and Boris should rightly be accountable for.

The economy took a worse tanking than the other comparable nations so that needs to be robustly answered. He can’t even say it was a price to pay for saving lives because we’re the worst in Europe at that too.

It would make an interesting project to model what would have happened if we’d not bothered with lockdown.

Of course like any government when they waste money on stupid things we every right to demand answers. Shame we cant do that with our councils who are just guilty wasting money on absolute crap.

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, Genie said:

The economy took a worse tanking than the other comparable nations so that needs to be robustly answered. He can’t even say it was a price to pay for saving lives because we’re the worst in Europe at that too.

No absolutely not. They're intrinsically related.

Here's why. The most extreme early lockdown - a handful of people have this new virus, but the gov't decides to act super fast and locks down the country, bans travel into the country, returnees from abroad have to be quarantined. The Country starts to lose finances, but after 3 weeks or so those handful of cases are over - people either died or recovered. End lockdown, maintain quarantine and travel bans. Limited, very limited deaths and ditto for the economy.

The late lockdown, when cases were rampant, no travel band, no track and trace...that's what we actually did - lock-down had to be longer, the deaths were higher, the economy more damaged. The recovery slower.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

sunak he doesnt come across like a normal conservative....

...

why he is part of the tory party

Because he's a Tory, fiscally to the right of the Party too, less state intervention, heading towards the looney liberatarian right of the party economically. Rumour is that he voted against the measures he's implementing at cabinet. Beware he's a clearing in the woods in Word removed clothing

[bickster]

5 hours ago, Davkaus said:

What would you suggest?

I was sceptical about it, but it appears to have been reasonably successful.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/11/covid-19-eat-out-to-help-out-used-10m-times-in-schemes-first-week

Still down on last year, considerably, but it seems to be incentive enough for some.

 

[Davkaus]

Well, those refugees were also eligible for half price burgers, which is remarkably generous of us.

[bannedfromHandV]

16 minutes ago, bickster said:

Because he's a Tory, fiscally to the right of the Party too, lees state intervention, heading towards the looney liberatarian right of the party economically. Rumoiur is that he voted against the measures he's implementing at cabinet. Beware he's a clearing in the woods in Word removed clothing

Not wolf and sheep?

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Not wolf and sheep?

Far too cuddly on both counts

[KentVillan]

55 minutes ago, blandy said:

No absolutely not. They're intrinsically related.

Here's why. The most extreme early lockdown - a handful of people have this new virus, but the gov't decides to act super fast and locks down the country, bans travel into the country, returnees from abroad have to be quarantined. The Country starts to lose finances, but after 3 weeks or so those handful of cases are over - people either died or recovered. End lockdown, maintain quarantine and travel bans. Limited, very limited deaths and ditto for the economy.

The late lockdown, when cases were rampant, no travel band, no track and trace...that's what we actually did - lock-down had to be longer, the deaths were higher, the economy more damaged. The recovery slower.

I agree. My personal view (I know we disagree on this) is that the second form of lockdown is just too late to even be worth bothering with - by that point you’re stuck with the Sweden strategy IMO.

What I think we can all agree on is that timing matters, and any discussion of strategies needs to be very clear about when you do stuff, at which point the cost/benefit tips the wrong way, etc. Ironically the govt’s whole “right thing at the right is time” line was spot on - they just didn’t do it.

I think the government and its advisers made basic logical errors in their assessment of some of the risks. International travel might be “low risk” in itself, but it is the only method of introducing the virus from a high incidence country to a low incidence country. Failing to recognise that led to a lot of very dumb decisions. In late February / early March, a two-week ban on international travel and quarantine scheme would have bought us some time at (with hindsight) relatively low economic cost.

[Davkaus]

When we should have been taking this thing seriously and considering locking things down, our PM was boasting about shaking hands in hospitals. He shouldn't be allowed to live that down.

We had the benefit of looking at other countries and seeing what would happen, and the morons in charge completely **** it up. 

[Wainy316]

2 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

But if its cutting all benefits and nhs staff eho have been saving us then he is going to get a very tough ride and rightly so

I fully expect that’s what they’ll do and they won’t even get the tough ride you state because they and their media buddies will come up with some bluster and distraction tactic to make people angry at something else.

[HanoiVillan]

24 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Ironically the govt’s whole “right thing at the right is time” line was spot on - they just didn’t do it.

I guess most people have just forgotten by this point, but I'll never forget the sheer smugness of their 'taking the right measures at the right time' line, like it was the rest of the world who were idiots.

Edited August 12, 2020 by HanoiVillan

[KentVillan]

Just now, HanoiVillan said:

I guess most people have ust forgotten by this point, but I'll never forget the sheer smugness of their 'taking the right measures at the right time' line, like it was the rest of the world who were idiots.

Our world leading government and its world leading scientists were on the case

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

When we should have been taking this thing seriously and considering locking things down, our PM was boasting about shaking hands in hospitals. He shouldn't be allowed to live that down.

We had the benefit of looking at other countries and seeing what would happen, and the morons in charge completely **** it up. 

I don't think that is quite the right slant, its actually far too generous in blaming it on a balls up

Lots of the indications and the whispers were about herd immunity if you remember. This wasn't a balls up, were were heading full pelt to do absolutely sod all, then something changed.

We seemed to be heading full on for the equivalent of a UK wide mumps party

Then they changed their mind (for some reason) and by then it was too late.

Saying its because the f***ed up, doesn't quite cut it. It was deliberate but then U-turned, that's a different scale of responsibility for this mess