Monday 12 April 2021

Lockdown ends and with it threat of recession for a while to come

The great reckoning will come, too much debt, too much government profligacy and not a lot more that can be done to raise taxes anymore. The UK will not escape another decade of 'austerity' in the 2020's, notably as more and more money is piled into the NHS with less and less of a success due to the law of diminishing returns. 

However today is a happy day, as we wait to go for lunch outdoors in the snow, the economy is finally opening up after a very long winter hibernation. Only foreign travel of the big industries will now be still a moribund outlier. 

The FTSE has performed less well than many of the world indexes - the UK media has a part to play here in the unabated portrayal of the UK as the worst place in the world last year to be avoided at all costs. The quick roll out of vaccines have changed the tune and along with the USA we are likely to have the strongest economic re-bound this year. 

Lots of savings have been gathered up, fewer jobs lost than thought and soon maybe a million more jobs will be created in the newly re-opened up service industries. The only blot of the horizon must be the threat of inflation and rising interest rates, but as I have discussed before, with the BOE owning so many Government bonds there are plenty of macro-tools available to stave off inflation. Plus, with other parts of the world still in the grasp of the virus, there won't be global supply shortages for a while any worse than there are now.

So happy days ahead for a the summer at the very least - maybe a horrid variant may come back to haunt us, but even then it won't escape the vaccine that quickly. 

33 comments:

Sobers said...

"So happy days ahead for a the summer at the very least - maybe a horrid variant may come back to haunt us, but even then it won't escape the vaccine that quickly. "

Don't worry, the State has no intention of letting us out of its grasp. They are showing no signs of getting rid of their massive testing network now that vaccines have been given to all the vulnerable, and will have been given to anyone who wants one by the autumn. Come Oct/Nov 'cases' of CV will be on the rise again (as CV is a season respiratory disease) and a pound to a penny it will be used to take us all back into lockdown again, to 'save the NHS' of course, despite the vaccines allegedly (if one believes the drug company data) being almost 100% successful at preventing hospitalisation. Continuing to test millions for a disease that the vaccines have supposed turned into nothing more than a sniffle or a few days on the sofa makes no sense at all, unless you plan to use those 'cases' to frighten the populace to death with them, and maintain your iron grip over them.

Thud said...

Plus the Dems are going to pump trillions into american market....I'll be drwaing down on some shares as they continue to climb, divs increasing nicely too.

E-K said...

I'm with Sobers.

Lockdown is a Leftist's wet dream come true so they are studiously ignoring the vaccine successes in order to keep control.

We are still nowhere near back to normal. Nothing like it. We must not get used to this.

And the use of 'cases' ? Bang on the money, Sobers.

One suspects the use of twice weekly testing is knowing that false positives will keep 'cases' nicely high.

Anonymous said...

E-K/Sobers - yes. The lockdown has given the government a taste of power beyond it's wildest dreams. At the start of lockdown 1 I was called paranoid for telling people that once we gave the government this power it would not easily be relinquished. I take no pleasure in being right and am quite gloomy about how we get out of this mess.

As for increased NHS spending, it will of course have little or no effect. This is because there is no spare resource in the economy. There are not thousands of unemployed doctors sitting around at home because the trust has no money to pay them. The only answer here is a massive expansion of medical training (nurses, doctors and other clinical staff). This should have been done about twenty or thirty years ago as it was quite obvious that with a large number of middle age boomers, you would land up with a large number of boomer pensioners. However the NHS is about as bad at planning as it is at almost every other managerial task, so it is no surprise that it made a mess of planning it's staff requirements.

andrew said...


I dont think the NHS is particularly bad at planning (or particuarly good).

The govt (on both sides) has not seen the consequences of a sudden surge of demand that is about to completely overwhelm current resources first hand for over ... at least 40 years.
It is only natural to push the budget down to just above the failure point - and then the NHS finds a way of not letting people die on a trolley in winter and so the govt pushes down a bit harder the next year...

You dont get to do much planning in such an environment, only find ways of minimising the failures / optimising processes in a reactive manner.

...repeat until the system suddenly breaks due to a surge in demand - which it probably did in some parts of the country last year (watch the cancer stats for the next 5 years or so)


The Germans did build resiliency into the system and benefited from that in the pandemic, but they pay 20%-30% more than we do for that resiliency every year.
Was that insurance worth it? - no idea.




Timbo614 said...

E-K/Sobers/Anonymous(12:51),
I'll wait and see, Firstly I do know that Boris likes to be popular so I don't see him starting another lockdown if he can possibly avoid it. Secondly unless it was blatantly obvious to the populous that a lockdown was needed, it might just get totally ignored.

Boris must also ensure that Johnny Foreigner is kept at bay. Brits must not book en-mass to go and see him and Johnny can't come here either until the world catches up with our case/death rate (which is now minimal).

At the moment we seem to have beaten the virus into a corner, vaccines have worked as well or better than we hoped but we should be cautious.

Timbo
P.S. Second Jab now booked for Thursday AM.

lilith said...

All power to this lot taking the vaccine scandal to the Hague
https://greatreject.org/nuremberg-israel-pfizer-genocide/

The Gov does NOT get to tell me what medical treatment/apparatus I must succumb to, nor give away access to my medical records. I don't care who Pfizer think they are...(pretty damn chuffed with themselves getting government properties and military installations as "security" against delivering the vaccine to South American countries, and the medical records of all Israelis.....)

lilith said...

Bath is pretty buzzing , however people seem to have forgotten their manners during lockdown so buying a coffee this morning was a deeply unpleasant experience. Won't be doing that again in a hurry.

Sobers said...

"I'll wait and see, Firstly I do know that Boris likes to be popular so I don't see him starting another lockdown if he can possibly avoid it. Secondly unless it was blatantly obvious to the populous that a lockdown was needed, it might just get totally ignored.

Boris must also ensure that Johnny Foreigner is kept at bay. Brits must not book en-mass to go and see him and Johnny can't come here either until the world catches up with our case/death rate (which is now minimal)."

Well a) Boris wanting to be popular and him instituting another lockdown next winter are not mutually exclusive. It may have escaped your notice but a significant proportion of the public (a majority?) actually like lockdowns and restrictions. One can only assume they have been so frightened by all the scaremongering that such measures give them some degree of psychological comfort.
In fact I'd say that its far more likely that public demand for another lockdown in the face of a 'rise in cases' next autumn could easily drive Boris to do implement one, in order to be popular. If he wanted to escape that pressure he'd stop testing millions of people for what is now a non fatal disease (or at least no more fatal than many other diseases we manage without any restrictions on public freedoms) and not give the bedwetters a stick to beat him with. The fact he is keeping the testing system suggests he wants another lockdown, and will use the psychologically browbeaten public as cover - they'll demand exactly what he (and Big State) want, endless lockdowns.

And b) wanting to keep Johnny Foreigner out and Joe Public in is not exactly my idea of 'ending lockdowns'. Not being able to leave the country is a lockdown in itself. Its a bit like saying prisoners are entirely free, they just can't leave prison........

CityUnslicker said...

Why are people so pro lockdown?

- I don't have see their extended family most of I have seen mine once in a year. Amazeballs. No massive xmas to cater for, double bonus points.
- I have not seen my boss for over a year, I can always claim poor signal and drop calls, handily, this is even true more often that not!
- I dont drink so not hugely missing pubs and i am too old to go out otherwise.
- My missus is obsessed with expensive foreign holidays - not being able to do these is a real boon and massive saving.
- I have saved a fortune not commuting. Commuting is horrible too. Not only not commuting but no crappy business travel either that ate up whole weeks.
- Love watching sport and now it is all on TV instead of restricted.

In short, many of the 'freedoms' I have lost turn out to be obligations that I don't like..

what is bad about lockdown - spending endless days with wife and kids is a bit trying but the gains above are far more. I get everyone has a different situation. Just pointing out that I am only keen on re-opening because it is good for the economy and other people. For me, it will be a return to a normality worse than the current one. There are a lot of people like me, maybe even a majority, the average age in the country after all is over 40.

E-K said...

I miss the great social life we used to have. We're not much in the way of being boozers but a Sunday evening pint and a bag of crisps catching up with all the other dog owners was lovely.

Going for a pub lunch after a 10 mile hike is sorely missed.

Being able to dress up and go to a concert, comedy night, cinema, out for a meal or - best of all - a ball and show off my missus (and look at other bloke's missus) is something I crave before we all get old and lose our looks completely.

To go into a shop that isn't a supermarket or a chemists. And not have to wear a bloody mask all over the place !!!

Commuting horrible, I totally get that. Not seeing the boss - that too. Meeting up with family, yes and no. I dislike holidays abroad and whenever I did just wanted to get back home.

Why ?

The UK's USP is its taverns. Nowhere in the world is there anything like them. They are being killed off.

Elby the Beserk said...

"German Ministry Of Health Spokesman Can’t Cite One Single Scientific Study Showing Lockdowns Are Effective"

Well, if they worked they wouldn't have to keep doing them would they?

Indeed. USA - states that locked down and those that did not had near identical mortality rates.

Countries that locked down and those that did not had near identical mortality rates.

https://notrickszone.com/2021/04/11/german-ministry-of-health-spokesman-cant-cite-one-single-scientific-study-showing-lockdowns-are-effective/


Good news that the ICC have accepted a case against Israel for breaching the Nuremberg Convention; somewhat ironic that it was German lawyer who brought this about

https://greatreject.org/nuremberg-israel-pfizer-genocide/

And medics in the USA properly tested 1500 cases that the PCR test returned positive on, only to find COVID was not there, rather Influenza-A and B. Confirmed by other academic sources. They are now suing CDC for fraud.

https://greatreject.org/laboratories-cant-find-covid-19-in-positive-tests/

All fall down...


Timbo614 said...

Sobers,
Unlike prison if you really wanted to get away to foreign parts you could. You just have pay a £5k excess and be prepared to be sent to your room for two weeks (possibly at both ends of your journey).

Even in our small sample of posters/commenters we have those who don't want the bloody expensive foreign jollies & those that do. Personally, except for pubs I don't really get out a lot any more. I used to be a real extrovert - life and soul of the party, got up to all sorts of antics just for a laugh ;) Older now (like it seems most of us here) I'm not all that bothered and like EK a few hours talking bollocks with a few other "grumpies" over a few beers sorts me out for the week and despite many downsides my walkable local did used to put on a good band once a month I do like a bit of live music (even if it is far too loud sometimes).

And as an older generation we are forgetting the teenage and young adults and those (especially women) starting families. Getting together and cooing over your latest is, it seems to me, really important to them :) These are the people who will probably only pay lip-service to another lockdown. I would in their shoes.

Me and the wife have pretty much stuck to shielding rules until recently - we are both vulnerable to this thing even so we broke the rules quite often.

As for other points sure there are going to be a lot of awkward questions asked of a lot of organisations and rightly so. Even to me the last few weeks of testing versus cases versus deaths looks like manipulation. The addition millions of tests kept the cases higher but the deaths refused to budge from their downward trajectory.

Be good and if you can't be good, be careful :)

Timbo.

Elby the Beserk said...

Timbo614 said...
Sobers,


As for other points sure there are going to be a lot of awkward questions asked of a lot of organisations and rightly so. Even to me the last few weeks of testing versus cases versus deaths looks like manipulation. The addition millions of tests kept the cases higher but the deaths refused to budge from their downward trajectory.

Be good and if you can't be good, be careful :)

================================

PCR testing has ben shown by many different sources to be a bowl of shit.

1. The bloke who invented them has stated clearly that they are NOT fit for detecting infectious diseases. He put up a video on YouTube about this. They took it down.

2. To work the test has to use repeated cycles. Above 30, the chances of a false positive are 90% to 95%. I repeat. 90% to 95%.The real epidemic has been of false PCR tests. Also very strict environmental conditions are need to ensure they are accurate - this we know (Panorama, and again reports all over the globe) has not happened.

So when they report a huge surge in cases, you'll also find a huge surge ih testing.

This is a pretty good summary of the above. We've been used.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/the-pcr-false-positive-pseudo-epidemic/

The above has been multiply reported by many in the medical profession all over the world.

CityUnslicker said...

EK / Elby - the pandemic is not a casedmic. Everytime I see this I despair, the deaths are real, people dying of or with covid. there is a very strong correlation (until vaccines) of cases rising and deaths following a couple of weeks later - everywhere in every country. False positives all come out in the wash 95% are right. Please, anyone pushing this line is a moron, ignore it.

Vaccines have broken the link and at very low levels of infection (e.g. below 500 a day) then false positives start to matter a tiny bit. But we are not there and even then it is not significant mathematically speaking.

Anonymous said...

Whether PCR testing is crap or not, something has been killing people in large numbers. My locus classicus is a chap called Steve Cottrill, about 56, fit soccer manager ("tracksuit manager"), who ended up in ITU, hospital for 6 weeks or so, finally released only to be back inside with pneumonia a month later - obviously much weakened by the virus.

OTOH it must be said that covid deaths fell last summer with warm weather and only started to rise again in October. This time last year the first peak was at its height and excess mortality (compared with 2014-9 average) was 108% on April 12, in lovely weather (unlike this snowy April). Excess deaths were back at 42% on Jan 31 and have been falling since then.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?country=~GBR

Quite apart from flu, anyone else noticed their much lower levels of colds and "man-flu" this last winter?

E-K said...

CU @ 9.58

Cases are very different to death rates before and after vaccine. And that is why I say we should be hearing the death and hospitalisation rates before anything else now.

A) Successful testing is bound to result a higher case rate

So

B) Report it in the context of how weak the disease has actually become rather than ...

C) Tell us that more cases means we need more lockdown. With the advent of vaccines and falling death rates you fail to say why, CU.

After next month I will have done my bit. Locked down. Followed social distancing. Not seen friends or relatives or socialised, missed landmark events and - worst of all - taken two jabs of an experimental and synthetic substance that I really really didn't want in my body.

After all the radio and TV advertising building everyone up for the great escape there will be a mass rebellion if the Government backtracks now.

Now Boris is saying "We're finding that the vaccines aren't 100% effective." Err... when did anyone ever say that ?

I can hear the scraping sounds of goalposts being moved again.





E-K said...

PS Dying "of" or "with" CV-19 was the first deceit by the authorities. The second lie is to report case rates as though it means the same thing as it did last year.

Let's say we've had the vaccine and we still get forced back into lockdown. And that this whole thing runs for two years.

Knowing what was ahead of them and how long it would last, would the people have accepted this strategy in the beginning ?

Two years and they know it.

My idea of a pandemic is bodies piled up in streets, mass graves and memorials in towns, crosses on doors and a populace so scared that they don't need to be fined to stay indoors.... and wouldn't dream of popping out for a takeaway.

As it is I still don't know a single person who's died of of CV-19.

So I guess it is a casedemic then and I'm a moron.

Anonymous said...

"lockdown ends with threat of recession "

Standby for lockdown in the event of the economic statistics getting out into the wild.

Elby the Beserk said...

CityUnslicker said...
EK / Elby - the pandemic is not a casedmic. Everytime I see this I despair, the deaths are real, people dying of or with covid. there is a very strong correlation (until vaccines) of cases rising and deaths following a couple of weeks later - everywhere in every country. False positives all come out in the wash 95% are right. Please, anyone pushing this line is a moron, ignore it.

Vaccines have broken the link and at very low levels of infection (e.g. below 500 a day) then false positives start to matter a tiny bit. But we are not there and even then it is not significant mathematically speaking.
==============================================================

Indeed. People are dying. But nobody is dying of 'flu. It is as if there was NO flu. And if you count only those KILLED by Covid, not "with" from a false PCR test. Hell, it's another 'flu epidemic. The numbers tell you. Zero 'flu deaths (this year's will be hell, as a result). When did that ever happen before?

Don Cox said...

"My idea of a pandemic is bodies piled up in streets, mass graves and memorials in towns, crosses on doors and a populace so scared that they don't need to be fined to stay indoors...."

If you read Pepys' diary of the 1665 plague, you will see that it was that bad and the population didn't obey the lockdown regulations then any more than they have this time.

Why no colds and flu ? It seems the lockdown worked even better for them than for Covid. Perhaps Covid is much more infectious.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

@CU
haha , yes morons.
Harsh but fair

E-K said...

Anonymous

Prof Whitty just announced that we'll have to treat CV-19 like flu and that restrictions will be as stringent as people are prepared to tolerate.

Is that with or without furlough ? Is that with or without full pay in the public sector for skiving from home ?

Because without those things tolerance for lockdown will be very short indeed.

My issue with operating Covid policy on cases is that it results in harmful lockdowns - even when there is a very low death/hospitalisation rate because of the vaccine success.

They haven't bothered to count casualties and costs because of lockdown. They haven't bothered to revert to the NICE cost per life (£30k per year of extended life) that they used to apply quite reasonably (and without complaint) before this crisis - they appear to be going for zero Covid at all costs, including the at the cost of the lives of people missing cancer treatments etc.

CU still hasn't explained why measuring the crisis by cases this year (with a highly effective vaccine roll out) should result in similar restrictions as counting by cases last year without any vaccine at all.

Counting infections doesn't mean the same thing in terms of the impact on mortality rates anymore. We should be reacting only to deaths and hospitalisation rates. We should only ever have been reacting to deaths and hospitalisation rates.

One gets the distinct impression that some people don't want this crisis to end.

I may be a moron but Elby most certainly isn't. He managed to partner with the fragrant and equally clever Lilith.



lilith said...

*Waves from the Moron Corner"

Scrobs. said...

I guess that lockdown has made very little difference to Senora O'Blene and me...

The garden has never looked better, we don't get bothered with the pikeys banging on the door to explain why they've decided to become normal citizens and not steal anything or bash people up, and we've enjoyed more tinctures than we normally intake, sitting in the garden, with fewer idiots belting past in souped-up Vauxhall Corsas!

We're supposed to be 'vulnerable, but whatever crackpot idealist dreamed up that word as a term of endearment, then subsequently a legal nicety, needs some sort of regularising - preferably with a clenched fist, so we've saved hundreds of pounds not shopping for anchovies and pate, and just got on with a normal life walking JRT!

I potted on seventy four tomato seedlings this week, so with all that vitamin C, we won't get scurvy or pellagra in the coming months, and it's highly likely that the next wave of the political covids won't make any difference either!

Ashen-faced Scrobs is seventy-four this July...

jim said...

Just been eyeballing the world Covid death rate numbers. A couple of standouts are the UK (and Scotland) are showing the fastest decline over recent weeks. EU nations are drifting down or going up. Russia flatlining, the US only just getting below 1000/week. Even the latest UK data is flatlining, probably hard to get really low from now on.

Countries with lower death rates than the UK, a good number are showing up trends. At this rate we will have made brilliant strides to get vaccinated and control the virus. But the RoW will still be in the sh*t and holidays out of the UK looking distinctly doubtful. We will be all dressed up and nowhere to go.

More worrying is that natural herd immunity looks to my non medical eye to be a non starter. Not all that much to laugh about really.

lilith said...

Jim, don't worry about herd immunity...if the ONS are to believed only 5 or 6 million of us have "had Covid"...suggesting that the rest are pretty much immune.

E-K said...

I'd rather take my chances living than hide away worrying.

Elby the Beserk said...

Pretty sure I'm immune, given that a cold (CORONAVIRUS)for me is a sniffle or two every 4 or 5 years. Similarly, I don't have the 'flu jab, as I've never had 'flu - again, guess I'm self immunized as above.

Mortality rates amongst the healthy show no significant difference to any other year. And 'flu and indeed, rhinovirus can wreak havoc for the sick, especially in a care home.

Number of papers (I've been reading far and wide on this stuff, and a LOT of medics are very worried at what's happening, but have all been silenced by a compliant and useless media) note that t-cells from "covid" are present in c30% to 40% of us. Ergo already immunized by previous exposure. And why would anyone take an experimental vaccine to ward off something their immune system can handle.

Meanwhile, the J&J vaccine in the USA has been suspended

"FDA Suspends Experimental Johnson and Johnson COVID Shots Due to Severe Side Effects"

https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/fda-suspends-experimental-johnson-and-johnson-covid-shots-due-to-severe-side-effects/

and there are more precise analyses of the AZ blood clot problem, which link it to the vaccine.

I really hope this works out. mRNA immunotherapy (it's neither a "vaccine" or an "inoculation") could be a groundbreaker. But I'm damned if they are going to test it on me. We won't really know either way for many months.

Elby the Beserk said...

For @CU who, bless him, seems suddenly to trust the government and its actions.

https://greatreject.org/laboratories-cant-find-covid-19-in-positive-tests/

Medics from a number of US Unis are suing the CDC. Read on,

Laboratories in US can’t find Covid-19 in one of 1,500 positive tests
BY GREATREJECT · 11/04/2021

"CDC sued for massive fraud: Tests at 7 universities of ALL people examined showed that they did not have Covid, but just Influenza A or B – EU statistics: ‘Corona’ virtually disappeared, even under mortality.
A clinical scientist and immunologist-virologist at a southern California laboratory says he and colleagues from 7 universities are suing the CDC for massive fraud. The reason: not one of 1500 samples of people tested “positive” could find Covid-19. ALL people were simply found to have Influenza A, and to a lesser extent Influenza B. This is consistent with the previous findings of other scientists, which we have reported on several times.

Dr. Derek Knauss: “When my lab team and I subjected the 1500 supposedly positive Covid-19 samples to Koch’s postulates and put them under an SEM (electron microscope), we found NO Covid in all 1500 samples. We found that all 1500 samples were primarily Influenza A, and some Influenza B, but no cases of Covid. We did not use the bulls*** PCR test.’

At 7 universities not once COVID detected
‘When we sent the rest of the samples to Stanford, Cornell, and a couple of the labs at the University of California, they came up with the same result: NO COVID. They found Influenza A and B. Then we all asked the CDC for viable samples of Covid. The CDC said they can’t give them, because they don’t have those samples.’

‘So we came to the hard conclusion through all our research and lab work that Covid-19 was imaginary and fictitious. The flu was only called ‘Covid,’ and most of the 225,000 deaths were from co-morbidities such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, pulmonary emphysema, etc.. They got the flu which further weakened their immune systems, and they died.’

‘This virus is fictitious’
‘I still need to find one viable sample with Covid-19 to work with. We who conducted the lab test with these 1500 samples at the 7 universities are now suing the CDC for Covid-19 fraud. The CDC still has not sent us a viable, isolated and purified sample of Covid-19. If they can’t or won’t, then I say there is no Covid-19. It’s fictional.’

‘The four research papers describing the genome extracts of the Covid-19 virus never managed to isolate and purify the samples. All four papers describe only small pieces of RNA that are only 37 to 40 base pairs long. That is NOT a VIRUS. A viral genome normally has 30,000 to 40,000 base pairs.’

‘Now that Covid-19 is supposedly so bad everywhere, how come not one lab in the world has completely isolated and purified this virus? That’s because they never really found the virus. All they ever discovered were small pieces of RNA that were not identified as the virus anyway. So what we’re dealing with is just another flu strain, just like every year. Covid-19 does not exist and is fictitious.’"

Timbo614 said...

@ Elby:

Other items from the "great reject" web site:

There is a war on humanity, Big Tech wants to drive everyone indoors and dissolve the bonds between people

Many who take the vaccine will simply die from the engineered hyperinflammatory reactions that are likely to hit hard in the Fall, while those who refuse to take the vaccine will be hunted down, rounded up and thrown in covid concentration camps for efficient extermination.

The elite’s goal of making us transhumans via synthetic vaccines

Experts recommending to avoid sex for up to a year after China Virus vaccine

Get a grip!

CityUnslicker said...

Elby, EK.

I am not going to refute conspiracy stories. Just to plead again not to argue against reality. There is covid, there are deaths. Testing helps to show how widespread the pandemic is ahead of deaths and hospitalisations piling up.

This is not hard.

The only global conspiracy there is, is to ignore the Chinese role in starting all of this.

The rest is incomptence or not knowing the answers.

Sobers said...

"The only global conspiracy there is, is to ignore the Chinese role in starting all of this.

The rest is incompetence or not knowing the answers."

So the flip flopping on stuff like masks isn't a conspiracy then? Its hardly following 'the science' is it? After all if the scientific evidence was against masks in Feb/March 2020 why did it suddenly change a few months later?

One also has to question why there is a such an establishment war on any treatments for covid other than vaccines. Its almost as if the vaccines were the aim from the beginning and nothing that might stop that would be allowed to get in the way. After all if a cheap prophylactic drug were discovered then all this crisis might have melted away, and that wouldn't do either.......