C19 | The silver spooner's silver linings...

[The39thStep]

On a more positive note there is quite a lot of community self help groups being set up around looking after older people with deliveries of food , keeping an eye out etc.

 

[brogdale]

On a more positive note there is quite a lot of community self help groups being set up around looking after older people with deliveries of food , keeping an eye out etc.

Pigfucker's Big Society finally arrives.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

3. Popping the housing bubble and releasing property onto the market for "Generation Rent" ensuring their "buy in" to the system for the coming decades.

but will that happen?

anyone on insecure / zero hours / dubious self employed work isn't going to get a mortgage, nor are people whose jobs disappear in the next few months.

in a falling market, mortgage lenders want bigger deposits to protect themselves from negative equity.

there will be a few people in secure jobs with a relatively modest income and a capital sum that just isn't quite big enough to buy a place now that would benefit from prices going down, but not sure there's more of them than people who get repossessed because their jobs end?

and can't help thinking the biggest winners will be landlords who are already sitting on a pile of cash who will buy cheap from people who are repossessed / desperate to sell

blargh

 

[bellaozzydog]

Benefits for the capital and the ruling class in the wake of all of this...

you are Dominic Cummings trawling for new ideas to fuck the country

 

[bellaozzydog]

4. Culling* the unproductive population

*as it was literally put in The Telegraph

surplus people, not what the Order wants

 

[DaveCinzano]

Ooooooooooooooooo-oooo-oooo-oooo-oo-ooooh

 

[smokedout]

The number of deaths of pensioners, while high, is nowhere near enough to save the government money when you consider the effect this is going to have on the economy.

I hate selfish Tories as much as the next person, but it's venturing into a caricature to think they're loving this situation.

If you look at the figures, it's only around 6% of pensioners who die from this. The rest survive, carrying on their 'burden', and they will be joined by the additional burden of everyone else who was caught up in this and if SARS is any indication, may now have additional health problems.

So we have saved money on 6% of pensioners care, but in the meantime, we've absolutely wrecked the economy for what looks like it might be 6 months - maybe longer? - and added loads of sick, younger people to the NHS's books.

I am not able to do the sums, but I imagine this is far, far costlier than looking after some old poor people.

Even if you UK lost 4/5% of GDP in a year, about as bad as the last recession, it will pick up as growth returns. In contrast saving £7/8 billion on pensions*, plus probably a similar amount on benefits, well that's a couple of pence a year off income tax right there, and this saving will sustain itsself for up to a decade or so. And don't forget, it's the most expensive people who are sadly likely to die, those over 80 or with long term chronic health conditions. People who have carers, spend lots of time in hospitals etc. The UK spends £21 billion on social care alone, much of that is spent on over 80's and older sick people.

The economic damage is inevitable anyway. But will also probably be short lived. The savings will continue for a long time. As I said I'm not in any way suggesting this is driving government policy, but there will be those within the Tory Party who are looking long term and realising that even a 1/2% abrupt and sustained drop in spending (and it could well be more) is about as good a news as it gets for a government. Certainly it's a tidy war chest for any upcoming election plus a boost from any negative economic consequences of Brexit.

*To put that figure in context that's about three times as much as is spent on unemployment benefits annually. And that's just the savings from pensions.

 

[smokedout]

but will that happen?

anyone on insecure / zero hours / dubious self employed work isn't going to get a mortgage, nor are people whose jobs disappear in the next few months.

I think the point was that lots of people might inherit their parent's house should 6% of older people die. It would also free up a lot of social housing potentially reducing competition within the housing market and private rental sector.

 

[Fez909]

Even if you UK lost 4/5% of GDP in a year, about as bad as the last recession, it will pick up as growth returns. In contrast saving £7/8 billion on pensions*, plus probably a similar amount on benefits, well that's a couple of pence a year off income tax right there, and this saving will sustain itsself for up to a decade or so. And don't forget, it's the most expensive people who are sadly likely to die, those over 80 or with long term chronic health conditions. People who have carers, spend lots of time in hospitals etc. The UK spends £21 billion on social care alone, much of that is spent on over 80's and older sick people.

The economic damage is inevitable anyway. But will also probably be short lived. The savings will continue for a long time. As I said I'm not in any way suggesting this is driving government policy, but there will be those within the Tory Party who are looking long term and realising that even a 1/2% abrupt and sustained drop in spending (and it could well be more) is about as good a news as it gets for a government. Certainly it's a tidy war chest for any upcoming election plus a boost from any negative economic consequences of Brexit.

*To put that figure in context that's about three times as much as is spent on unemployment benefits annually. And that's just the savings from pensions.

I understand the numbers, but they're still nothing compared to the loss to the economy. The 2008 crash cost the economy £7.4trn - we're talking orders of magnitude difference here - there's no way anyone's thinking "this will be good for the economy".

I think this will be far worse than 2008 for the economy, too.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I think this will be far worse than 2008 for the economy, too.

I for one look forward to being able to make my contribution to rebuilding the nation in the aftermath

Spoiler

 

[smokedout]

I understand the numbers, but they're still nothing compared to the loss to the economy. The 2008 crash cost the economy £7.4trn - we're talking orders of magnitude difference here - there's no way anyone's thinking "this will be good for the economy".

I think this will be far worse than 2008 for the economy, too.

I didn't say it would be good for the economy short term, it won't. But you can't compare total potential output (which your link says is between 1.8 and 7.4 trn, in other words they're guessing) with annual government spending which is where political concerns will lie. Annual government spending is around £800 billion.

Anyway it feels a bit ghoulish to be squabbling about this. Time will sadly tell.