15% decline in GDP expected Q1 20/21

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

16 minutes ago, Fromage Frais said:

Yep as growth has been turgid but the interest rates on money have been so low they have been taking on debt to buy back their shares and juicing their stock prices.

This kind of activity enriches stock holding executives without having to do anything difficult like improving products/processes or costs. 

Only problem is now that has disappeared but the debt is still there.

I am not sure if it has happened yet or via ETFs etc but soon if not already you are going to see central banks buy company shares using government debt (a la Japan).

Really strange times call it help call it interference but is not capitalism.  At lease with that scenario if you kept you nose clean you can grab a bargain.  Now the government borrows in your name to make sure you dont get one shares, property etc

I thought the ECB and BOE have already bought european company debt via the corporate bond purchase scheme. In fact I remember reading a list somewhere of what debt was eligible.

[lie to bet]

53 minutes ago, Peter Hun said:

Anti-Virals and vaccines. 

Lets hope so but it looks like it will take time.

Fastest vaccine developed (mumps) took 4 years.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/why-coronavirus-vaccine-could-take-way-longer-than-a-year/

[Peter Hun]

44 minutes ago, lie to bet said:

Lets hope so but it looks like it will take time.

Fastest vaccine developed (mumps) took 4 years.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/why-coronavirus-vaccine-could-take-way-longer-than-a-year/

There are 40 odd anti-virials in trials now. Double that number of potential vaccines.

[Fromage Frais]

3 hours ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

I thought the ECB and BOE have already bought European company debt via the corporate bond purchase scheme. In fact I remember reading a list somewhere of what debt was eligible.

Debt yes but shares and therefore manipulating the value?

I think that the FED was specifically prevented from doing that previously.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Fromage Frais

[lie to bet]

3 hours ago, Peter Hun said:

There are 40 odd anti-virials in trials now. Double that number of potential vaccines.

Did you read the link?

[Peter Hun]

2 hours ago, lie to bet said:

Did you read the link?

Yes, the route to suppressing COVID is anti-virals not vaccine.

[lie to bet]

Lets hope you are correct.

Otherwise  15% off GDP is going to look good.

 

[Take Me Back To London!]

On 31/03/2020 at 13:47, Pebbles said:

Indeed china should have been shutdown immediately Trump was right instead the guardian was focussing on the 'raycist innit' because a few people had bad experiences after they returned from visiting family in china post Chinese new year. Absolutely missing the important point from the trump bashers yet again.

Yes, they were bashing Trump for being a greasy racist now they bash him for not acting soon enough.  Trump has now stopped funding to the corrupt globalist WHO, which is the best thing he has done and Bill Gates the second biggest payer will have to pay more.

https://www.newsweek.com/who-funds-world-health-organization-donald-trump-freeze-huge-hole-budget-1497968

Quote

The second largest contributor to the WHO budget is not even a nation state, but rather is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The organization accounts for roughly 10 percent of the WHO's funding at around $531 million. Third is the GAVI vaccine alliance, also supported by the Gates, which contributes more than $370 million

 

[crumblingcon]

13 hours ago, Peter Hun said:

Yes, the route to suppressing COVID is anti-virals not vaccine.

I am starting to get the impression that a vaccine might never be found, just like there isn't one for the common cold. yet they put it out there that it is 100% going to be found within 2 years. I am  also getting the impression we might not be dealing with the aftermath of covid 19 but living with it's forever presence 

[Take Me Back To London!]

54 minutes ago, crumblingcon said:

I am starting to get the impression that a vaccine might never be found, just like there isn't one for the common cold. yet they put it out there that it is 100% going to be found within 2 years. I am  also getting the impression we might not be dealing with the aftermath of covid 19 but living with it's forever presence 

Just like the state of emergency because of unending terrorism/War on Terror there will be changes in society which never roll back. 

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Take Me Back To London!

[scottbeard]

1 hour ago, Take Me Back To London! said:

Just like the state of emergency because of unending terrorism/War on Terror there will be changes in society which never roll back. 

...and that's not necessarily a bad thing, it all depends what they are.

For example, the anti-terrorist barriers now installed on London Bridge make me feel safer walking across it, just because now a bad driver can't career off the road into pedestrians.  If coronavirus results in increased NHS spending, and a permanently lower reliance on imported essentials I'm all for it.  Obviously we wouldn't the Italian-syle "permits to leave your house" forever!

[lie to bet]

9 hours ago, crumblingcon said:

I am starting to get the impression that a vaccine might never be found, just like there isn't one for the common cold.

The government has just placed an order for 15,000 ventilators.

Apparently we are presently at or near the peak (with apprrox 10,000 ventilators).

Does the government think the next peak will be worse?

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

9 hours ago, crumblingcon said:

I am starting to get the impression that a vaccine might never be found, just like there isn't one for the common cold. yet they put it out there that it is 100% going to be found within 2 years. I am  also getting the impression we might not be dealing with the aftermath of covid 19 but living with it's forever presence 

Err why ?

It's not as if they have been going at it for a long time.

There are large numbers of candidates from many different places. You only have to google. probably 30 candidates or more. And they always said it would be 1-2 years or so before it would become available, and that was back at the beginning of this year.

Suggesting it might never be found is pretty similar to suggesting it definitely will be AFAICT.

And even if there is no vaccine there is always the chance for antivirals.

[interestrateripoff]

9 hours ago, crumblingcon said:

I am starting to get the impression that a vaccine might never be found, just like there isn't one for the common cold. yet they put it out there that it is 100% going to be found within 2 years. I am  also getting the impression we might not be dealing with the aftermath of covid 19 but living with it's forever presence 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.034942v1.full.pdf

Not a peer reviewed paper but:

Monitoring the mutation dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for the development of effective approaches to contain the 21 pathogen. By analyzing 106 SARS-CoV-2 and 39 SARS genome sequences, we provided direct genetic evidence that 22 SARS-CoV-2 has a much lower mutation rate than SARS. Minimum Evolution phylogeny analysis revealed the putative original status of SARS-CoV-2 and the early-stage spread history. The discrepant phylogenies for the spike protein and it receptor binding domain proved a previously reported structural rearrangement prior to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Despite that, we found the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is particularly more conserved, we identified a mutation that leads to weaker receptor binding capability, which concerns a SARS-CoV-2 sample collected on 27th January 2020 from India. This represents the first report of a significant SARS-CoV-2 mutant, and raises the alarm that the ongoing vaccine Development may become futile in future epidemic if more mutations were identified.

[interestrateripoff]

23 minutes ago, lie to bet said:

The government has just placed an order for 15,000 ventilators.

Apparently we are presently at or near the peak (with apprrox 10,000 ventilators).

Does the government think the next peak will be worse?

Perhaps the plan is to go with the original plan of just let it rip through the population and hope there is herd immunity for it.  The only issue is that there doesn't appear to be any data if you get it once and are immune, if you aren't is the 2nd time you get infected going to be worse than the 1st?

Although having read about ventilators they don't appear too good for you.

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

12 minutes ago, interestrateripoff said:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.034942v1.full.pdf

Not a peer reviewed paper but:

Monitoring the mutation dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for the development of effective approaches to contain the 21 pathogen. By analyzing 106 SARS-CoV-2 and 39 SARS genome sequences, we provided direct genetic evidence that 22 SARS-CoV-2 has a much lower mutation rate than SARS. Minimum Evolution phylogeny analysis revealed the putative original status of SARS-CoV-2 and the early-stage spread history. The discrepant phylogenies for the spike protein and it receptor binding domain proved a previously reported structural rearrangement prior to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Despite that, we found the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is particularly more conserved, we identified a mutation that leads to weaker receptor binding capability, which concerns a SARS-CoV-2 sample collected on 27th January 2020 from India. This represents the first report of a significant SARS-CoV-2 mutant, and raises the alarm that the ongoing vaccine Development may become futile in future epidemic if more mutations were identified.

It only becomes futile if the thing mutates much faster than they can create vaccines for it. They manage to create vaccines for seasonal flu, so there is no reason they can't for this, if it mutates slowly enough.

It's far too early to say one way or another whether the vaccine approach will be successful. My guess is that anyone stating a definite outcome on vaccines at the moment is stating it based on what they want the outcome to be.

 

[crumblingcon]

39 minutes ago, interestrateripoff said:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.034942v1.full.pdf

Not a peer reviewed paper but:

Monitoring the mutation dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for the development of effective approaches to contain the 21 pathogen. By analyzing 106 SARS-CoV-2 and 39 SARS genome sequences, we provided direct genetic evidence that 22 SARS-CoV-2 has a much lower mutation rate than SARS. Minimum Evolution phylogeny analysis revealed the putative original status of SARS-CoV-2 and the early-stage spread history. The discrepant phylogenies for the spike protein and it receptor binding domain proved a previously reported structural rearrangement prior to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Despite that, we found the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is particularly more conserved, we identified a mutation that leads to weaker receptor binding capability, which concerns a SARS-CoV-2 sample collected on 27th January 2020 from India. This represents the first report of a significant SARS-CoV-2 mutant, and raises the alarm that the ongoing vaccine Development may become futile in future epidemic if more mutations were identified.

Frightening, but will go a long way to giving Greta the planet she so longs for ?

[winkie]

On 15/04/2020 at 08:55, A.steve said:

  

I definitely agree with this sentiment. I first started reading about GDP around 2008-2009, and my personal take was that GDP had become fetishised and was a wildly misapplied concept.  To me, while the work of Kuznets – in the 1930s made some sense, I did not feel that the principles that were used to define the statistic still made sense after. From the mid 1940s onwards, GDP had become central to national fiscal policy and international diplomatic agreements.  I was reminded of an analogy with monetary policy – where, for example, Thatcher adopted M3 money supply as a target to control interest rates in the 1980s, and quickly found it failed – necessitating development of a completely new metric (for the UK only) – M4.  Perhaps it is inevitable that GDP failed as a metic simply because national and international policies are set relative to it? 

I'm curious, however, about this second part.  I think it highlights two fundamental problems:

• in order to manage/govern an economy, it is necessary to have meaningful statistics and measurements.  If one is to shun GDP as unsuitable (which I believe to be self-evident) then one needs to propose something better.  Do you envision a GDP-like metric that makes some improvements to avoid the most absurd implications of GDP targets over the past 70 years... or do you envision a completely different sort of metric?
• In order to make sense of any economic metric, one needs consistent units of measurement... however, with fiat currency, especially when central banks are proposing monetizing fresh government debt equivalent to a substantial proportion of the (flawed, but substantial) annual GDP measure... it isn't obvious to me that measurements will remain comparable over time.  If measurements can not be compared over time, then are we in a situation where everyone in a position of responsibility is deluding themselves that they have any idea what's really going on... where all policites are the mere whim of a tiny number of unaccountable influential people?

About a decade ago, I conducted a survey - I asked (a lot of people):  "What is univerally valuable?"  - then provided this clarification: "Please don't confuse valuable with invaluable.  For example, don't say that your children are valuable - unless you mean that you're prepared to sacrifice them (to other people who you think want them sacrificed) next time you need to negotiate something."

I have an answer of my own (all be it one that does not lend itself to easy measurement) but... when I asked this question... I was surprised at how few people could provide any sort of coherent response.  (I considered "I don't know." to be a coherent response, BTW.)

 

I just can't see how growth can be the only index/metric we have or need to follow to prosper.....I can see more people in years to come will cut down on spending excess, such as lavish weddings to impress, buying tat and useless gadgets extravagant costly clothes, creams and handbags, rubbish food at high cost....they may well still buy quality but what will last and will be used regularly, they will buy used but good as new, recycle and upcycle.....bankers do not like cash money m4 it is out of their hands, costs to hold and handle....they love M3 they can control, buy and sell it and earn from it.......what is valuable? what some have access to when many others do not, knowing they will have to work and pay a rent to acquire for only a period of time ongoing.....or a valuable job that has a security, knowing the money and the position will always be there.....or an education many can only dream of having that leads them to valuable employment.

It is the invaluable that is truly the most valuable and that is not GDP.

Edited April 20, 2020 by winkie

[A.steve]

On 20/04/2020 at 15:08, winkie said:

I just can't see how growth can be the only index/metric we have or need to follow to prosper.....I can see more people in years to come will cut down on spending excess, such as lavish weddings to impress, buying tat and useless gadgets extravagant costly clothes, creams and handbags, rubbish food at high cost....they may well still buy quality but what will last and will be used regularly, they will buy used but good as new, recycle and upcycle.....bankers do not like cash money m4 it is out of their hands, costs to hold and handle....they love M3 they can control, buy and sell it and earn from it.......what is valuable? what some have access to when many others do not, knowing they will have to work and pay a rent to acquire for only a period of time ongoing.....or a valuable job that has a security, knowing the money and the position will always be there.....or an education many can only dream of having that leads them to valuable employment.

It is the invaluable that is truly the most valuable and that is not GDP.

Coo.  Whether or not "Growth" is positive depends precisely upon what you are measuring - i.e. the nature of the index.  The thing that is incredible is that we act as if there is a consensus that one index is similarly relevant to everyone.

I think you really miss the point about valuable/invaluable.  I've plenty of things that only I have access to - they're not valuable because no-one cares that I have them.  "Things" are sometimes a proxy for value - but (almost always) it is not the things, themselves, that have the value but how those things (or their use) are interpeted by other people.  Employment isn't valuable in and of itself, either... it is just one way in which a person can acquire that which has value (if, indeed, employment is desirable at all.)