zilly

But they're clearly not the same price, relative to earnings, as they were, say, 40 years ago when a single 3x salary mortgage could buy you a perfectly nice family home (we called them homes or houses back then rather than 'properties') in large swathes of the country. So how does this hypothesis have any merit?

And if you were as you say literally glued to the sofa I suggest you stop doing that, too - ruins your trousers. And the sofa.

Given the employment of people to chase this would produce a very quick ROI, I've wondered why HMRC hasn't massively ramped up to pick this obvious 'low hanging fruit' (listen to me - I should work for McKinsey!) ...but then I remember how much of our economy is now utterly dependent on rentier/speculator activity and of course the answer is clear. Truth is IMO - they just don't want to for fear of triggering a mass exit by BTLers and the consequent politically inexpedient knock-on effects to the economy. I expect senior HMRC officials have had a a 'quiet chat' with mandarins to tell them to 'go easy on it, old boy'.

No with 800 people dying per day, I would posit that no-one of any intelligence will be "wondering what all the fuss was about"...

Class I low-risk medical devices you can self certify. Class IIa or above required Notified Body approval. Ventilators are Class IIb. However for new manufacturers like Dyson the requirement has been waived (for use in the current crisis only) and the device only has to show conformance to spec RMVS001 for a Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System, which anyone can view on the MHRA website if interested.

The Smiths Pneupac ventilator and Penlon anaesthesia workstations are both CE marked (approved devices), the latter using an additional ventilator module in this application. So your suggestion that 'only 3 is credible' is simply incorrect. Also they are British manufactured which is probably the reason the Draeger hasn't been selected.

Component production has been outsourced to engineering companies such as Renishaw and Babcock to increase production of existing devices from Smiths Pneupac and Penlon.

Interesting that you overuse the term 'chinese flu' as if you're trying to bang home a message through repetition. Particularly in light of the fact that you clearly aren't a fan of the democrats... Is that you, Donald?

You see Locke that really, really ISN'T the sole purpose of government - that's just the fundamentalist position you've been brainwashed into taking. And because you accept false premises such as the one above as absolute truths - truths you get very, very angry about if challenged upon (a common trait amongst all religious fundamentalists) - every argument you make based upon these false premises is basically a bunch of nonsense I'm afraid. After all - if you want to live in a society where there's little to no governance, no welfare, easy tax evasion etc. you can do it in an instant - there are stacks of them to choose from all over the globe. Go and give it a try!

...and yet strangely the narrator says he hopes to be a landlord himself one day. So he's obviously not averse to money for 'doing nothing' as he puts it - as long as he's getting said money. And his tone betrays the fact that he's plainly jealous of those who do have investment property. I wonder when it comes to the acid test, and one of his future tenants falls on hard times, whether he will put into practice what he preaches. Sadly, we shall never know.

Really? Wow. Bummer for me as a medical device quality assurance and regulatory affairs consultant LOL! I'd not been informed it's soon to be a free-for-all. Best get me coat.

Nope you can't do that. No QMS standard applied = no valid CE mark = USAGE ILLEGAL (same true after Brexit BTW before moaning about EU red tape starts...). As I say, the real world different to yours I'm afraid. And all the things you say you can do...you can't.

All sounds jolly easy in your world but in reality the it's very, very different manufacturing Class IIb (high risk) medical devices to meet the requirements of ISO13485. All manufacturing processes, all manufacturing hardware and process software has to be validated to the requirements of the standard for a start so your idea of just chucking it to any old engineering company - or anyone with a 3D printer in their bedroom - is a total non-starter. Honestly the fact you think it's all pretty straightforward ("just get the army in, innit!") and can be done quite quickly kind of says to me you've never worked in the field of medical device manufacture!

They could indeed be 'weak'...or they could be smart, like the early sellers of tulip bulbs or lumps of coral after those manias peaked. Time will tell. Personally I'm yet to see a single practical everyday use for cryptos or indeed blockchain technology, outside of the world of people trading those cryptos between each other, and establishing companies to facilitate that, which makes me think it may be all a load of old ba11s, only of interest or utility to speculators. As with the aforementioned manias - great for those who got in and out early, not so great for those later to the party - 'weak', or 'strong' (like you, apparently).

I have a spread betting account and there is the chance at the moment to short the heck out of everything. However, it only takes a few words from a central bankmeister or politician to swing the market wildly in the other direction and little guys like us lose their shirt in a matter of minutes... As for going long - who knows how and when this will end? Pumping money in may suit the speculators well and temporarily fix stock prices, but it doesn't fix supply chains...

Crikey you must be a total sadsack if you had a bad time as a Brit in EE in the '90s. I worked in Russia back then and had an absolute blast. You couldn't fail to score with a bevvy of slim, stunning gals. Sweet memories. Remarkable. But then I guess 21,500 posts...tells a story.

Well they genuinely believe it's doing well because theirs is the world of stock and property portfolios. That is their 'economy' - the world of money (mostly in the form of debt), not tangible product. And it's been doing just dandy. A low-wage, low-skill, expendable cabal of 'gig workers' suits them just fine, as it does their future employers in The City. However underneath the soaring stockmarkets and bubbles in all assets predicated on artificially manipulated interest rates, the reality of the hollowing out of the productive manufacturing sector is revealing itself now. It's the same in the USA, but at least Trump for all his faults seems to acknowledge they need their factories back. Complete silence over here from our political overlords - too much of an uncomfortable truth, and as long as "I'm alright Jack " (the Tory manifesto summed up in a single phrase) HEY why rock the boat? So it depends on which economy you're talking about - the one in which wealthy speculators operate, or the one which most of us schlubs are part of I guess.

What's a 'liquidity panic' when it's at home?

"Disagree with my rigid, cemented, absolutist world view, and you should be killed. Literally"! Does it ever dawn on you that the language you use is the same as any other brainwashed, fundamentalist religious fanatic..? No, I don't suppose it does. The Taxpayers' Alliance strikes again.

Bizarre times and strange 'there is no alternative' groupthink when it comes to economics leads to weird, irrational results such as this. What we need is the factories back and a return to mass production of our own consumer goods. But - as with the USA - that ain't gonna happen, tariffs or no tariffs.

Passive investing based on nothing other than "the powers that be will make sure nothing happens to my money..."? Sounds dangerous to me - taking the attitude of 'you just can't lose' has ended up with ruined people chucking themselves off high buildings on more than a few occasions. Just make sure that when the panic starts, you panic first!

Warnings like these are unfortunately futile - the allure of 'get rich quick' is too strong and when we're all making out like bandits, pumping those assets using a tidal wave of cheap credit, no-one wants to know or listen to 'naysayers'. And those at the top of the pile will get even richer by short-selling when it all inevitably implodes.

Still it's better than living in a Venezuelan economy, which apparently we would have been by now...so rejoice! 50 year mortgages...here we come!

Well therein lies the rub - you've summed up the Randian winner/loser society that has been delivered to us by copying the USA since the 70s - we;ve all got to be risk-taking speculators now in order to get on. And that will have a few big winners and lots of losers This is evidenced in practice by the return to wealth and income disparity last seen a century ago. All part of the plan, as the 'trickle down' from the winners to the losers was meant to take care of some of the disparity issue. Which - naturally - it hasn't. Gotta go I think that's my Deliveroo guy at the door...

You've forgotten the roads, rail and all utilities built by the state - there;s no private 'wealth creation' without any of those. Also not just research funding but massive amounts of money made available in the form of grants and loans to the private sector in order to support especially startup businesses (banks being mostly interested these days of course in speculation). Other forms of business advice and support too. Also they may not take the risk but they have implemented laws that allow limited liability i.e. you can fail at a business and walk away from your creditors without paying a penny. Under a true 'free market' no such facility would exist, obviously - you would pay what you owe, not walk away if 'natural' human law applied to a failed business - I wonder how good that would be for entrepreneurial activity..?