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Sweden and coronavirus

frogwoman said:
It's not been terribly strict. Some builders have been back for a while, with a few working throughout or close to it, and there have been quite a few people working in call centres, warehouses for stuff like clothes etc working throughout.
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The way it has to be viewed is that 1 in 4 of all UK employees are currentlt furloughed and 70% of all businesses have people furloughed. That's a shitload of people. What will happen to them when the program is scaled back or ended and how many of those businesses will survive?
 
Sugar Kane said:
The reality is that businesses will have to adapt and become creative.
Adapt and evolve to survive.
Its always been the way.
Brother told me he got a taxi last week. The taxi driver had put perspex up between him and passengers and was saying all the taxis are doing this.
There are new and different ways of doing many jobs. It's possible that things wont get as bad as you think.
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Some will adapt, others will fold. Many of those that adapt will shed people.
 
Athos said:
Why? Even within the existing system the goverment decides the levels of benefits, taxation, borrowing and spending; it could do those things tomorrow, if it wanted. And it wouldn't take much longer to pass emergency legislation regarding printing money (and even controlling interest rates, if necessary). It's this government's lies about what's possible (and the inevitability of deep austerity) that'll cost lives. I think it's a shame you're peddling them (though I give you the benefit of the doubt that you're doing so unwittingly).
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Nonsense. Do you think it's going to happen?
 
Spymaster said:
Do you think it's going to happen?
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Not if people buy into the lie that it's not possible.

In any event, that makes little sense. I don't think we'll find a cure for cancer within a year, but i don't think we shouldn't keep trying.
 
Athos said:
Not if people buy into the lie that it's not possible.

In any event, that makes little sense. I don't think we'll find a cure for cancer within a year, but i don't think we shouldn't keep trying.
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"I've got a solution. We need to turn politics upside down, elect a new government that will print money and control inflation and not get into all sorts of other shit whilst doing so, all in time to sort out the global C19 pandemic".

I'll have some mermaids and unicorns whilst you're at it, thanks mate.

What a load of old shit.
 
Spymaster said:
"I've got a solution. We need to turn politics upside down, elect a new government that will print money and control inflation and not get into all sorts of other shit whilst doing so, all in time to sort out the global C19 pandemic".

I'll have some mermaids and unicorns whilst you're at it, thanks mate.

What a load of old shit.
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Whilst I would like to see things turned upside down, that's not what I'm proposing here. Everything I've suggested is entirely achievable in the short term.

The idea that we could see a government that would use the standard fiscal and monetary tools at its disposal - albeit in a slightly unusual way, during this global crisis - in a way that benefits the vast majority of us, is hardly the stuff of fantasy.

It's quite telling that you've bought into the ideology so uncritically that you're only able to parrot the idea that it can't be done, rather than provide any detailed reason why not.

How about you say which of those measures a government couldn't do if it wanted to, and exactly why?
 
Athos said:
Not if people buy into the lie that it's not possible.

In any event, that makes little sense. I don't think we'll find a cure for cancer within a year, but i don't think we shouldn't keep trying.
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I think that Germany and Hungary are clear indicators of what happens when you print money.

You appear to be working on the somewhat dubious assumption that all countries will deal with this in the same way, they won't.
 
Athos said:
Whilst I would like to see things turned upside down, that's not what I'm proposing here. Everything I've suggested is entirely achievable in the short term.

The idea that we could see a government that would use the standard fiscal and monetary tools at its disposal - albeit in a slightly unusual way, during this global crisis - in a way that benefits the vast majority of us, is hardly the stuff of fantasy.

It's quite telling that you've bought into the ideology so uncritically that you're only able to parrot the idea that it can't be done, rather than provide any detailed reason why not.

How about you say which of those measures a government couldn't do if it wanted to, and exactly why?
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Just dream on fella.
 
Spymaster said:
They're not fucking about in Kenya either. Caught out after curfew and you get the shit knocked out of you with cane batons.
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Yeah. I think Italy had some reports of similar, a few digs anyway. But the one I was told about was a guy killed, beaten to death by cops who stopped him as he was taking his heavily pregnant wife to hospital. Lockdown rules were no passengers on the popular motor bikes they have in Kampala. Passing car driver saw what happened, tried to intervene, took the woman to hospital to give birth. Police authority admitted their officers might have been a bit heavy handed. (Driver happened to be a lawyer.)
 
Sasaferrato said:
I think that Germany and Hungary are clear indicators of what happens when you print money.

You appear to be working on the somewhat dubious assumption that all countries will deal with this in the same way, they won't.
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The current situation is very different from that in Germany or Hungary, which resulted in hyperinflation.

I don't assume all countries will respond the same.
 
The printing money allways leads to rampant inflation is just wrong. Not lefty bubble dreamy stuff but actual economists have explained how it can work. The whole notion of owing your self money as the creator of it is just consensus reality, an agreed fiction.
 
Spymaster said:
"I've got a solution. We need to turn politics upside down, elect a new government that will print money and control inflation and not get into all sorts of other shit whilst doing so, all in time to sort out the global C19 pandemic".

I'll have some mermaids and unicorns whilst you're at it, thanks mate.

What a load of old shit.
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Many of the measures introduced in the last 6 weeks would have been literally unthinkable at any previous time in the past 40 years, maybe far longer. Major neo-liberal economies are several major steps down the path to a wartime command economy, the UK govt borrowed more last month than it intended to borrow in the entire year. US unemployment figures are completely off the scale of anything that's ever happened before - except perhaps 1929. All this has happened in just a few days and weeks. The word "unprecedented" is now a commonplace.

I wouldn't write off unicorns and mermaids just at the moment.
 
I'd buy into the Swedish approach from the beginning if there was (a) widespread tracking and testing and isolation for anyone found positive (b) isolation for the vulnerable and any carers (c) proper PPE for front line staff and people dealing with vulnerable people (d) quarantine for people coming into the country.

It would seem the most logical approach if you could catch it early before too many people were infected. Anyone know what was proposed after the modelling that was done a couple of years ago in the UK?
 
smokedout said:
What's the point of healthcare, especially for the old? It's just kicking the can down the road after all.
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Irrelevant. Healthcare isn't provided anywhere "at all costs". What's under discussion here are the consequential costs of different methods of dealing with the virus.
 
Spymaster said:
Irrelevant. Healthcare isn't provided anywhere "at all costs". What's under discussion here are the consequential costs of different methods of dealing with the virus.
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Except they aren't the costs of the methods per se; they're the costs of political choices. Austerity is not an inevitable consequence of lockdown.
 
Athos said:
Except they aren't the costs of the methods per se; they're the costs of political choices. Austerity is not an inevitable consequence of lockdown.
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Quite right. And many of the costs are not financial or monetised, they are emotional and psychological - but they are also huge, you only need to read the personal experiences thread on here and I have a couple of extremely draining situations going on in my own life, really tragic in one case. How do you measure the cost of knowing that someone you care about will die alone?
 
Athos said:
They're not. There's no reason why the government couldn't make different choices. You keep asserting that there are, but are unable to offer any reasons why.
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Not so. I haven't said they can't, I've said they won't make the choices that you seem to think are the answers to the issue. I really don't see why you're so insistent on pursuing this. It's bollocks.
 
Spymaster said:
Irrelevant. Healthcare isn't provided anywhere "at all costs". What's under discussion here are the consequential costs of different methods of dealing with the virus.
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I think the people who would be left to die now might consider that kicking it down the road for another few months or even longer is a pretty reasonable holding position. Especially given we are dealing with a new disease, which means new treatments might be developed in that time that means some of them mght not have to die at all.
 
Spymaster said:
Not so. I haven't said they can't, I've said they won't make the choices that you seem to think are the answers to the issue. I really don't see why you're so insistent on pursuing this. It's bollocks.
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Ok, so they can be done. So, do you think they should be done?
 
Athos said:
Ok, so they can be done. So, do you think they should be done?
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If the question is "if a different approach would prove more effective should it be implemented?" then my answer is yes.

Now, where's that got us? You seem to be chasing me looking for some kind of gotcha but we're not fundamentally disagreeing. You're saying that in the best of all possible worlds 'x' would happen. I'm saying this isn't the best of all possible worlds.
 
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