The economic impact of Covid-19

[Xann]

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

However, it seems "forced" is more than a stretch of the truth with regards Johnson Sr.

Look at Boris's bro Max. Interests in billion$ at the London end of the HS2 development.

[VillaJ100]

4 hours ago, Xann said:

HS2 needs the chop. It's mind bogglingly expensive, much more than bailing out everyone's wages to date.

No thanks I work there! 

[VillaJ100]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

Look at Boris's bro Max. Interests in billion$ at the London end of the HS2 development.

Also HS2 goes through BoJos consistency 

[Xann]

2 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

No thanks I work there! 

£100+ billion dude, sorry, it doesn't make sense.

I work at a European HQ that's shutting down and outsourcing work overseas at a rate of knots, so I'm not chucking stones from a position of safety.

[OutByEaster?]

We could always chop Trident, that's another £200bn we could save.

 

[Robtaylor200]

My daughter and son in-law have both worked from home.

My son in law is normally flying to Ireland and Germany at least once a week, he kept working using Zoom, no expense account, no stopping in hotel rooms, no driving up and down the motorway, no loss of business he loves it.

My daughter hates it - she says she feels like she never leaves work as its all around her, no female company or work banter. She says you miss the joy of clocking out on a Friday, She has asked to go back to the office for her mental health. This has been granted only 5 in her office compared to 30, she is loving being back to work

[bickster]

16 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Yep, something like £35 Billion so far for furlough.

HS2 will be well over £100 Billion, some predictions nudging over £125 Billion.

That gives a bit of perspective on the value for money of a train between two fixed points, versus a zoom conference.

 

 

 

 

One of those is (hopefully) a single year event, the other is a long term capital expediture programme. They aren't directly comparable

Long term capital expenditure programmes are how governments of all hues and all over the world get out of recession

I'm decidely on the fence about HS2 but some of the things that get brought up about it aren't convincing arguments for me. Oddly HS2 as it currently stands, will actually increase my travel time to London - go figure!

[chrisp65]

21 minutes ago, bickster said:

One of those is (hopefully) a single year event, the other is a long term capital expediture programme. They aren't directly comparable

Long term capital expenditure programmes are how governments of all hues and all over the world get out of recession

I'm decidely on the fence about HS2 but some of the things that get brought up about it aren't convincing arguments for me. Oddly HS2 as it currently stands, will actually increase my travel time to London - go figure!

I think it’s a white elephant that will partially address 2005’s needs, but in the year 2035, when the economy is going to be a very different place.

I understand long term capital investment, I’m just not sure new railway to get to London 22 minutes quicker if you live in a very specific place, was the best choice.

We could be building new towns, renewable energy investment, re foresting, all manner of things ahead of this solution tomorrow to yesterday’s problem.

 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

22 minutes quicker

This should never have been the argument, the argument should be about capacity

[chrisp65]

34 minutes ago, bickster said:

This should never have been the argument, the argument should be about capacity

They will continue to manage capacity by making it economically unviable for the majority.

 

[HanoiVillan]

I think I'm with Chris on this one. If capacity was the argument, we could have built a conventional track that would use conventional rolling stock, but just had fewer stops and longer platforms, at much less the price.

[lapal_fan]

I don't mind HS2 - it'll boost the economy, it'll help some people, I do think a part of it will be to make good on promises to make London less important (cynical perhaps).  

Our infrastructure is shit, from roads to motorways to trains - it's Victorian.  We helped Germany demolish their Victorian networks, the Germans helped France - they didn't help us enough.. 

Should have been maglev though, and there should be one line through the spine of the country, all the way into France and the rest of Europe.  That would have future proofed itself better. 

[bickster]

18 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think I'm with Chris on this one. If capacity was the argument, we could have built a conventional track that would use conventional rolling stock, but just had fewer stops and longer platforms, at much less the price.

Why would you build a conventional track? Our railways are already light years behind in terms of speed. Building a conventional track, now that would be a substantial waste of money. If you build a new rail track you make it as fast as you can

[tonyh29]

15 hours ago, Xann said:

Look at Boris's bro Max. Interests in billion$ at the London end of the HS2 development.

you keep posting this , but never offer any link to this information  , Do you have an actual article about it I can read  ?

I ask as I've googled Max loads of times and can't find anything that links him the HS2 other than someone on twitter saying he worked for a firm who employs someone whose dog used to sniff the leg of a man who might profit from HS2

 

 

 

[blandy]

46 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

They will continue to manage capacity by making it economically unviable for the majority.

 

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

If you build a new rail track you make it as fast as you can

The point about capacity and speed - it is necessary to get people off planes and cars and onto trains for internal travel within the UK. So the speed is important. Reducing capacity via pricing also goes counter to that need. Therefore capacity AND speed both require faster rail travel. Faster rail travel cannot be achieved on the existing lines, because of all the local rattlers and separation between inter city fast trains and local short journey trains.

So the argument goes that for both the environment and for facilitating people's mobility we needed a new fast line take inter city trains off the current network, put them on a faster network, move people's travel from aircraft to rail. Moving the express trains off the current network then frees up more slots for more frequent local train journeys.

The downside is that the new HS2 lines are environmentally destructive in their creation, are hugely expensive, and the gov't's ethos is that it will have to pay for itself, so ticket costs will be high, thus dis-incentivising people to move from cars and planes.

And then there's this corolafungus that seems to have changed the way people work and the need for commuting locally and whizzing between cities. So now it looks even more like a white elephant than it did previously.

The Gov't (whichever one it is) will get slated if it's cancelled, because "all that money wasted" and slated if they continue it because "all that cost and destruction for something no longer needed".

Prediction: It gets "put on hold" indefinitely at some point in the next 12-18 months, and corollafungus is named as the reason.

[tonyh29]

 

21 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I don't mind HS2 - it'll boost the economy, it'll help some people, I do think a part of it will be to make good on promises to make London less important (cynical perhaps).  

Our infrastructure is shit, from roads to motorways to trains - it's Victorian.  We helped Germany demolish their Victorian networks, the Germans helped France - they didn't help us enough.. 

Should have been maglev though, and there should be one line through the spine of the country, all the way into France and the rest of Europe.  That would have future proofed itself better. 

yeah exactly ,  build using  old tech now or spend a bit more and build feature tech like maglev  .. trouble is we've seen in the HS2 debate  that people kinda want to think of everything in terms of pounds , shillings and pence  , some info structure should be about improvement , not the cost

[chrisp65]

33 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I don't mind HS2 - it'll boost the economy, it'll help some people, I do think a part of it will be to make good on promises to make London less important (cynical perhaps).  

Our infrastructure is shit, from roads to motorways to trains - it's Victorian.  We helped Germany demolish their Victorian networks, the Germans helped France - they didn't help us enough.. 

Should have been maglev though, and there should be one line through the spine of the country, all the way into France and the rest of Europe.  That would have future proofed itself better. 

Not absolutely sure how a train to London makes good on a promise to make London less important?

Might that have been better going any combination of Plymouth / Exeter / Bristol / Cardiff / Birmingham / Manchester / Liverpool / Leeds / Newcastle ?

 

[chrisp65]

13 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

 

yeah exactly ,  build using  old tech now or spend a bit more and build feature tech like maglev  .. trouble is we've seen in the HS2 debate  that people kinda want to think of everything in terms of pounds , shillings and pence  , some info structure should be about improvement , not the cost

We definitely need improved infrastructure, I can completely buy in to that and it shouldn’t be pure pounds / shillings / pence.

 

But one hundred billion for yet another London transport hub? Come on.

 

[lapal_fan]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Not absolutely sure how a train to London makes good on a promise to make London less important?

Might that have been better going any combination of Plymouth / Exeter / Bristol / Cardiff / Birmingham / Manchester / Liverpool / Leeds / Newcastle ?

 

I dare say it won't stop with HS2.  They'll branch. 

Edited August 20, 2020 by lapal_fan

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Not absolutely sure how a train to London makes good on a promise to make London less important?

Might that have been better going any combination of Plymouth / Exeter / Bristol / Cardiff / Birmingham / Manchester / Liverpool / Leeds / Newcastle ?

 

It won't make London less important. It will mean that middle managers who work in London can live east of Birmingham and still commute to work occasionally, so they will be able to buy bigger houses with bigger gardens than they would get in the South East. It's great news for garden centres and estate agents in the Shirley area, not sure how much it will do for anything else.