But it is still taxed, and likely with a claw back of the government cash if you earn more than your average this year.
One of the few good things to come from all this =P
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Profit is your wages. Turnover is only relevant if you're lying about your expenses / using tax avoidance. Some of us aren't cunts, and now we're being punished for it. So from this point on, I'll be a cunt too.
The only way the average person in that "bracket" would be earning £200k (after tax) is if their profit was upwards of £400k. As I said, it's massively misleading. The only way you get numbers that high is by lumping in multimillionaries with poor saps in London barely able to pay for their housing.
...and no, there's no cut off for PAYE employees. Just a cap on what you can get per month from the scheme.
That's irrelevant. PAYE is taxed. It's very easy to hide earnings as well.
UPDATE on coronavirus (#COVID19) testing in the UK: As of 9am 26 March, a total of 104,866 have been tested: 93,208 negative. 11,658 positive. As of 5pm on 25 March, of those hospitalised in the UK, 578 have sadly died.
Yesterday's figures did not cover a full 24 hour period while we adjust to the new system. These figures comprised the period from 9am 24 March to 5pm on 24 March. Figures issued today are recorded as of 5pm 24 March to 5pm 25 March.
so I'm not sure on how much they've changed, but according to yesterdays numbers listed here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ae5dda8f86814ae99dde905d2a9070ae
It's +115 deaths
+2129 new cases
But yesterdays numbers weren't accurate, so who knows what today's were
Top 5% of the UK would put you on £80k a year rather than the £50k they've decided on here.
Maybe all the employed people who get 28 odd days paid holiday a year for 50 odd years will not mind the self employed getting a few months worth..........
People in the top 5% get paid on PAYE as well and it's over 85k pa.
My company pays for my holidays not the government. I mind and so does everyone else I've spoke to.
Earn money doing what? Many of them can't trade or work right now
Peng Wu on Twitter
“【26 March】 7847 had coronavirus tests, 2129 were confirmed as positive, confirmed rate is 27.13%. Check more details in the data dashboard https://t.co/SQw1mE8N05”
twitter.com
Peng Wu on Twitter
“【26 March】I will voluntarily summarize the update data and make a line chart in real time to better understand the growth trend of the number of infected people. Check more details in the data dashboard https://t.co/SQw1mE8N05 11658 were confirmed as positive as of 9am today”
twitter.com
The alternative would simply be to say "fuck you" to all self-employed people, who as a category are more vulnerable than salaried worries in the first place, because a *few* people *might* do better off with the benefit.
It's that same line of thinking that fucks our chance of having a fair benefits system in this country.
That's who should get the money. No issue with that, no one would.
The FT keeps a table here: ft.com/coronavirus-latest
It's not updated with today's figures.
As for those numbers specifically, they should put to rest the theory that the government is massaging them. They're still not terrible though - about a 25% rate of increase, I think.
Yeh and huge swathes of the companies employing people also vacuum up government money (bailouts / subsidies etc) or avoid paying anything like what they should in both VAT and corperation tax through ludicrous accounting rackets hence they can afford to pay for your time off.
Nothings black and white
I don't mind. If employed people are getting benefits then so should self employed. It's a global epidemic and self employed people need financial help just as much as employed people.
I mean should i get annoyed at furloughed employees because they are getting paid and not having to go to work, whereas I am working as normal in order to get paid? I think not.
I really don't understand how people can mind that the government is trying to help as many people as possible in as fair a way as they can devise.
Simple then, tell them they can't earn any money whilst claiming this.
Same shit as always, tar everyone with the same brush. Everyone is a tax cheat, and now everyone will be claiming this even though they're earning.
In the mean time, I did my taxes honestly, I have no work, no savings and right now I'm just praying my clients at least keep me on for basic support tasks (unlikely as most of them are shut down).
No worries! I think we'll be behind Italy today, if not tomorrow.
you'll probably be close to a park - amazingly I live in Norwich too! Or are you right in the city centre?
Smaller gang of bikers doing wheelies in Sale South Manchester this morning. Spring fever.
As in, we expect our current trajectory to be lower than theirs?
So that is all you are concerned about. Jeez. Most self employed can't work now as all trade has ceased.
Stop being so bitter. Embarrasing!
Yeah, I'll be contacting my mortgage company next week to arrange a payment holiday. Going to have to just pay the absolute minimum of everything else and cross my fingers (not that I'll get anything in June).
Rememeber this isn't being paid till June at the earliest. Can't begrudge someone earning now if they can.
Hiya!! /Wave
I live nearish to Notre dame school / Sainsbury if you know that area! Nothing much close really which is why I always go to earlham / whitlingham, always have since we moved here.
Yeh, this comes across as very bitter and mean spirited, honestly.
And this isn't coming until JUNE.
Chorlton yeah I really miss having breakfast at The Lead Station.
I have no issue with people who can't work getting this. I've said that several times. I have a problem with those who are not affected getting money for nothing when for example the unemployed, carers etc are getting fucking £94 a week if they are lucky.
A better plan would have been to increase unemployment massively and then those self employed affected could have claimed that.
It doesn't matter what solution they came up with, someone would game the system, it's inevitable.
Don't point the finger in that direction though. The fault lays at the feet of the government that more isn't being done for the most vulnerable.
Don't point the finger in that direction though. The fault lays at the feet of the government that more isn't being done for the most vulnerable.
And enforce that how? If you and your colleagues are bitter because you think the government is doing TOO much to help people through this (a group that has been marginalised heavily over the past decade - no maternity leave in particular), then I'm going to see that as a good sign overall ;)
With how difficult it can be being self-employed at the best of times, working with little to no security and benefits, and how much harder all of that is during this crisis... being bitter about them getting a little extra help is really mean spirited.
The issues with unemployment definitely need to be addressed, but they are separate, nothing to do with this.
And how do you determine which self employed people are not affected? Most self employed people are affected
Increase unemployment is your solution? What?
Yeah that's going to be brutal. Our area gets you about 800ish if you're getting just UC. Have the government actually said anything about rent yet? It's kind of messed up landlords dont have to pay for the period but we do
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The sensible alternative would be universal basic income.
Wanted to respond to some posts that stated that the economy is fucked. Not yet. Has it been damaged? Yes, in a crazy way. Is it recoverable? Yes, but will take quite a while as we will need to shift focus. Okay so what are we currently looking and what should we look at? Also, what are state of some industries I'm aware of and the state of information in general. I've written this down over the course of the day between work and hopefully it helps someone. But I do apologise for the essay.
The purchasing managers Index and unemployment are two indicators for the state of the economy and they're both going to get hit pretty hard. This is the reason why the government has been trying to keep people in employment, keep companies to pay employees, and things like that. The economic measures are to reduce unemployment because manufacturing and production will be down, and our food supply needs to be rejigged. Let's start with PMI. Manufacturing is down because people aren't working enough to keep manufacturing. China is a good indicator of where this lies, it has gone below 2008 levels in China.
They now need to ramp up manufacturing again and make sure they can produce and keep up with demand as well as keep their own and the global economy going. This is currently in progress and signs indicate that if they do not hit Wave 2, they'll be back on track by the end of March. This would indicate that most of Europe including the UK will be back on track by end of May- mid-June. The virus has moved from East to West in terms of effects so we should also look at recovery from east to west. And this is being optimistic. We will be looking at June in the UK optimally.
What if wave 2 happens in China? Well if Wave 2 happens then this will mean that we will have to enact extreme distancing measures again (regular distancing is always going to be the case for a bit) and the economy will need to be stop-started multiple times until we have a feasible cure or a vaccine. So how is this going to be managed? We are all aware that a vaccine will take 12-18 months, but we can have clinical trials of cures a lot before that. We can expect to have working drugs from our current cocktails after tests as soon as late April/Early May or as late as September, but it will be there within the next 6 months. And we are preparing for future outbreaks. And various treatments and vaccines are currently in different stages of testing and you can even follow it here. Based on this, succeeding waves can be better managed. We will still need to maintain social distancing and workplaces will have to have phased work from home, work on site. If we have succeeding waves, the world will come back to life but at a much slower pace so the pace of growth will be quite small for the next 12 months. If there are no major outbreaks, then you will find that the world will come back to regular production levels after a deep V recession that lasts for 1-2 quarters. At the moment it seems like the eastern second wave is in travel hubs and coming from west to east. If the west breaks this trend, then we will be in a better place. Either way like I mentioned in my previous post, travel hubs are the ones that are most at risk and we will not be seeing much travel if trends show much travel impacts the virus and this would mean that global travel and the travel industry will take a long pause at minimal operations until effective cures or a vaccine is in place.
Why do we need to keep companies afloat and make sure people have jobs? Because we do not want to jump right into large scale quantitative easing (this doesn't really help here and there's some research to prove so) and we do not want to fuck the economy but more importantly most nations do not have the economy to manage several million people who are absolute unemployed (meaning they have no other source of income even if it is below the tax threshold). It is better to have companies stay afloat this way and pay salaries rather than buying debt expecting companies to do the right thing. Our foodbanks are not in a healthy state and cannot support millions without jobs or sliding into poverty and this is an area that the governments should look into for the future and they might as the poor foodbank infrastructure is now costing them more (same with the NHS).
So, what do we do? We have done the right measures - first we keep the employed safe in their jobs for as long as possible. In order to do this we have to make sure their salaries are being paid and the companies are kept afloat for as long as possible (this is why they do not have to pay corporate tax for a few months and you might find further exemptions. Smaller companies were the first focus as it's easier. But larger companies that are tanking will also be of focus). Consider this as a pause. So that once this pause is done, we can resume things to work as fast as possible. This country being a rich one, it can handle up to 12 months of this situation without the greatest devastation but ideally, they would want to lift this by July and that's what they are planning to do. The companies that fired employees quickly will contribute to a decline of the economy and the companies whose owners aren't thinking of the situation will find some challenging times ahead once the economy is back into normal. I cannot predict this because that's a government decision. Some countries would nationalise such companies to protect the workers, but we aren't exactly a socialist nation so it's likely that they will be allowed to operate thinking of the workers but will be subject to more stringent regulations. This is possibly why they are making a list of companies that flaunt their orders. This is a space to watch.
Now what of the self-employed, the arts sector, the gig economy and things. They will feel a real pinch, because the government will only consider measures to prevent people from slipping into poverty or those, they would have to support on higher UBI when operations resume. As part of those measures they will attempt to save the ones on the lower rung of that to make sure they don't slip into poverty; the ones middle and above can see a decline of earnings/living standards and it will be seen as acceptable risk/cost so long as the government feels that they will not have to prop them up after things resume. The ones on the lower rung need to be protected for now without getting the ones above slipping up. We cannot have scenes of people queueing up to get food and shelter because in the long run this will be more costly to the country as they will need to support them. The key thing here is timing in terms of payment. Because the UBI itself was messy with payments and timings. I suspect that they will require to pay more tax or NI after this period. Regardless this can punish some people for their honesty too. [NOTE: I wrote this paragraph at 10am prior to the chancellor's speech]
The UBI improvements they have implemented will not by a wave of a hand or others be going back to the box. UBI has for long been one massive fuck-up. More people will now need to live off of that and it was a Tory measure in how UBI is enacted here (combine all benefits to one so that it costs the government less and they can put it into privatisation and other aspects) and it was in a bad way long before. Trusts and organisations working with foodbanks have long been aware of how bad UBI has been handled (and of course the people). Now it will become better but that means they cannot keep several million under UBI. So, for as long as possible they will try to keep companies and individuals afloat. This is going to be tricky because it really relies on how long we will face slowed production thanks to the outbreaks. There is a solution to the financial stuff of course post-COVID-19 and that is to create new taxation band(s), but we would probably not do it given we are the nation we are.
Supermarkets and the food supply: A lot of our fresh produce comes from Italy and Spain and this supply chain will be affected for starters; however this is probably one of the few areas that because of Brexit, as shitty as it is, we might actually be more prepared than not and that oddly enough with the call for fruit pickers and other things (we should hear the call for more of that soon) seems to be tracking better. This remains a TBC, but I am more confident here. As for Pasta, I'm not; see image/link for details. For supermarkets we must vastly rejig the supply chain, and this is why there's a problem in cities. it will get better, but the way supermarkets are currently designed is for dense population centres to have stores where people can purchase short term food requisites. The supermarkets are designed that people can only buy enough shopping they can carry by their hands so they make multiple trips to supermarkets to purchase more items and in doing so also purchase other items and thereby increase their overall spend as opposed to a 1-2 large monthly spends. As a result, the smaller stores have much lesser stock and it needs to be replenished more often. Urban sprawls have a large presence of these smaller stock stores rather than the larger supermarkets. The supply chain needs to be redistributed so that the warehouses are stocked more to deliver directly to customers as opposed to the model of stock to supermarkets to customers (online or in person). This is the best way we can manage a steady supply of food and essentials. Do we have enough food supplies? Yes. Do we have a supply chain that is tailored to deliver to everyone at home? Not yet. It needs to pivot and soon.
The above looks at the Pasta Supply Chain here. Click on the image to go to the FT site. There is a paywall but use a fresh browser with cleared cookies in case the link doesn't work.
Amazon is probably one of the few companies where it can be handled easier. Ocado could have managed but they have seen an unprecedented rise of customers that they can't handle the demand. But in a month or two they will be able to manage it better. it does come at a weird time for them as they move from Waitrose to M&S sometime this year for their supply. Something that needs to be understood here is that consumer behaviours will change because of COVID-19. People will move towards buying larger quantities and larger food shops of 1-2 per month for at the very least a year. This can have noticeable effects on the smaller stores and employment but that's something we shouldn't concern ourselves with right now, but it is something to look at in 6-9 months.
Automation, Agile and pivot: Automation will increasingly play a bigger role quickly in warehouses. It has been happening, but it will accelerate as you can bet that this will be the focus for many freight and logistics operations and large-scale manufacturers to return to profitability and growth. Auto, aerospace, and equipment manufacturers are currently trying to win the favour of many governments by building ventilators. Their regular manufacturing has stopped/slowed down and due to the increased number of ventilators required these contracts can help some of them continue to operate when their regular income goes down the drain. But we need more agile companies and we need companies to pivot to building essential services to meet government or public demand (the COVID Ventilator alliance exists including Rolls Royce, Airbus, to name a few and of course Dyson (despite their general shittiness) and you've companies like INEOS making hand sanitisers for the NHS). This is not the time for corporates to sit there and think solely of their own needs but wider needs which will bear fruit. They would also need to continue to keep their own staff employed which this helps. Side note: The BBC currently reversed their decision to fire staff as they need more people. Oh, and there will be no major conferences until July at the earliest and it's likely that most will cancel everything until August. FY20 if you follow the US fiscal years is done in those terms for the most part.
The health services: It's a good thing that they've been provided a blank cheque. The NHS infrastructure has been crumbling a fair bit, but they will see more spend here and increasingly we will find life sciences companies working hand in hand with the health and public sector services to combat this. If there is more funding pumped into the NHS and health departments, they can fund research in these companies and pay for the vaccines and the citizen wins and those industries win as well. This will be an interesting space to watch in terms of global cooperation. We have currently stopped export of various drugs we need to fight COVID-19 including paracetamol. Once we have a cure, we will be selling this is what I assume. Most of the new testing kits are now coming from Roche (Switzerland), I believe the UK is partaking in this group as well. New tech is also being developed. For instance you have new blood filters being tested to stop cytokine storms. Granted that cytokine storms aren't in everyone, but this is important to prevent additional loss of life and this is currently being tested for effectiveness.
Transportation: Aviation will have some companies become nationalised while some others will go bust. We must see which ones fit where and it depends on how long all these situations last. If we have, as I currently assume from the data and research that's been provided, to reduce mobility then aviation and transportation companies are going to face increasing issues. Nationalising them even temporarily will be one means to keep them afloat and this will happen pending more research as we need aviation companies, but we also need to reduce flights and control the flight operations centrally. I suspect this will be a discussion that happens at the G7 or G20 levels to coordinate how best they handle this globally. e.g. Alitalia is now nationalised. But it had other issues as the link suggests (hence fast-tracked). Some countries will go for the bailout option fitting with QE.
The government nationalising the railway lines and controlling TFL makes it good for them to control the infrastructure for a year. They will need to do so as transportation needs to be regulated. Yes, we need more ways to travel into London but we also once we have a grip on this need to control the overall transportation across the country to be better prepared and better manage the situation. We must not cut services down that it's packed, but we must also not make it so that people move so freely that we risk a new wave of infections.
There is a massive effort in play here and it is unprecedented. There are so many players in the background and so many decisions that need to be taken. While the UK slumbered in its initial response and results and are terrible at communications there are things they are doing right as well. Not to be ignored is data modelling and predictive sciences shaping government response and policy. Here's an article that you might find useful to read on that. Note - I am not condoning their response and their terrible communication is a factor that makes things difficult for us.
Death reporting is skewed in many countries, but this is an attempt by a lot of countries to control the narrative. Reporting on infection and deaths the way individuals and countries have done if I am honest doesn't tell you much. First, everyone needs to be tested and they need to ramp up test kits and soon. We can see the effect of this soon, if what many governments stating buying new equipment rings true. So, in terms of death reports, we need to know what the average hospitalisation and recovery rate times are - otherwise the information isn't as helpful, and this varies in many countries. I've come across reports saying it's 11 days on average and reports saying it's 18 days in the UK. It's too conflicting to state when the numbers are good or bad unless it's a steady rate. China's numbers are currently brought into doubt by multiple sources in terms of how early they counted and if they are still counting - but their geographic spread rate is accurate. There are reports across EU nations on not counting those who died from COVID-19 if they were not diagnosed of it and other factors. We will not get an accurate picture of the deaths until after the event. So, our discussion of these metrics is mostly a reflection and criticism of governments on their response. They will show deaths and they will show infections but rather than numbers look at the graph plotline if we want something to look at (it still indicates trend) but don't count the numbers. I've read and created reports as part of a previous role on deaths in animal and vet hospitals and this has always been a number that is skewed especially in private owned places for obvious reasons. 'Never Events' is a term that some might have heard. Even in public hospitals it has inaccuracies. Here's a report in Missouri (click on image) if you have time to read and it's not a trend limited to the US, but the scale differs from country to country.
Also, in terms of demographic, the only demographic that repeated results from Life Sciences companies show is mostly immune is under 10-year olds who have regular contact with those their age. Teenagers are not immune; they have the same fatality rate estimated to be 0.2% (Data from China). There should be a paper on this published soon but until then their fatality risk should be twice that you have from a flu outbreak (0.1%). There is disparity in data between various bodies and here's an article for you that's public.
What do we need in times like these?
We need good communicators - which we are lacking. We need good and effective speechwriters that can communicate these messages clearly as well as good orators and concise, clear, communication from leaders. We need key decision makers and planners to communicate effectively and quell misinformation but also be direct and decisive in their words. People need to keep a clear head to move on in unsteady times. Keep Calm and Carry On needs to be readapted in a digital information society (as the old motto is stuck in our heads), we need to keep calm and carry on our digital lives not our tangible lives.
We need to quell the spread of misinformation. Everyone needs to be responsible for what they state, what they spread, etc. Your information is also like a virus when you spread unsourced, unsolicited, unknown information with nothing to cite (Unfortunately some of my paragraphs above are not cited because I cannot reveal the research and sources). Remember that people are talking about information digitally and a lot of it is to control their own narrative out of fear. Also remember as the article sourced earlier states about bad actors and communicators and people who are looking for their 15 minutes of popularity.
Of course, it goes without saying we need key health workers and key workers to keep things going as much as they can.
This country (and most others) is in the grip of a fever that can be crippling if we are to look at the nation as an organism. The world itself. We need for the countries of the world to cooperate if we are to manage and distribute risk effectively. If not, some countries will come out better and the others will come out a lot worse but as a global economy we will be more unequal and in a much worse shape. We are going to look at a drastically changed world 6-12 months from now. No, the economy will not be fucked so long as these measures are happening. But people still need to take their governments and mass media to task when misrepresenting information and keep themselves informed through trustworthy sources. Be responsible, especially adults, for the information you spread, for the sources of information you read - this is a moment of personal and social responsibility and it extends to beyond just following procedures the government asks you to follow.
I'll leave you with this article on digital contact tracing which can (unless you've been at a large gathering or a flight) help trace people and the spread of COVID-19. Of course, there are privacy concerns. Also on the Chinese narrative. And once again take care of your own mental health and practice good hygiene (which should not need SARS-COV-2 to be made clear to people but here we are).
The purchasing managers Index and unemployment are two indicators for the state of the economy and they're both going to get hit pretty hard. This is the reason why the government has been trying to keep people in employment, keep companies to pay employees, and things like that. The economic measures are to reduce unemployment because manufacturing and production will be down, and our food supply needs to be rejigged. Let's start with PMI. Manufacturing is down because people aren't working enough to keep manufacturing. China is a good indicator of where this lies, it has gone below 2008 levels in China.
They now need to ramp up manufacturing again and make sure they can produce and keep up with demand as well as keep their own and the global economy going. This is currently in progress and signs indicate that if they do not hit Wave 2, they'll be back on track by the end of March. This would indicate that most of Europe including the UK will be back on track by end of May- mid-June. The virus has moved from East to West in terms of effects so we should also look at recovery from east to west. And this is being optimistic. We will be looking at June in the UK optimally.
What if wave 2 happens in China? Well if Wave 2 happens then this will mean that we will have to enact extreme distancing measures again (regular distancing is always going to be the case for a bit) and the economy will need to be stop-started multiple times until we have a feasible cure or a vaccine. So how is this going to be managed? We are all aware that a vaccine will take 12-18 months, but we can have clinical trials of cures a lot before that. We can expect to have working drugs from our current cocktails after tests as soon as late April/Early May or as late as September, but it will be there within the next 6 months. And we are preparing for future outbreaks. And various treatments and vaccines are currently in different stages of testing and you can even follow it here. Based on this, succeeding waves can be better managed. We will still need to maintain social distancing and workplaces will have to have phased work from home, work on site. If we have succeeding waves, the world will come back to life but at a much slower pace so the pace of growth will be quite small for the next 12 months. If there are no major outbreaks, then you will find that the world will come back to regular production levels after a deep V recession that lasts for 1-2 quarters. At the moment it seems like the eastern second wave is in travel hubs and coming from west to east. If the west breaks this trend, then we will be in a better place. Either way like I mentioned in my previous post, travel hubs are the ones that are most at risk and we will not be seeing much travel if trends show much travel impacts the virus and this would mean that global travel and the travel industry will take a long pause at minimal operations until effective cures or a vaccine is in place.
Why do we need to keep companies afloat and make sure people have jobs? Because we do not want to jump right into large scale quantitative easing (this doesn't really help here and there's some research to prove so) and we do not want to fuck the economy but more importantly most nations do not have the economy to manage several million people who are absolute unemployed (meaning they have no other source of income even if it is below the tax threshold). It is better to have companies stay afloat this way and pay salaries rather than buying debt expecting companies to do the right thing. Our foodbanks are not in a healthy state and cannot support millions without jobs or sliding into poverty and this is an area that the governments should look into for the future and they might as the poor foodbank infrastructure is now costing them more (same with the NHS).
So, what do we do? We have done the right measures - first we keep the employed safe in their jobs for as long as possible. In order to do this we have to make sure their salaries are being paid and the companies are kept afloat for as long as possible (this is why they do not have to pay corporate tax for a few months and you might find further exemptions. Smaller companies were the first focus as it's easier. But larger companies that are tanking will also be of focus). Consider this as a pause. So that once this pause is done, we can resume things to work as fast as possible. This country being a rich one, it can handle up to 12 months of this situation without the greatest devastation but ideally, they would want to lift this by July and that's what they are planning to do. The companies that fired employees quickly will contribute to a decline of the economy and the companies whose owners aren't thinking of the situation will find some challenging times ahead once the economy is back into normal. I cannot predict this because that's a government decision. Some countries would nationalise such companies to protect the workers, but we aren't exactly a socialist nation so it's likely that they will be allowed to operate thinking of the workers but will be subject to more stringent regulations. This is possibly why they are making a list of companies that flaunt their orders. This is a space to watch.
Now what of the self-employed, the arts sector, the gig economy and things. They will feel a real pinch, because the government will only consider measures to prevent people from slipping into poverty or those, they would have to support on higher UBI when operations resume. As part of those measures they will attempt to save the ones on the lower rung of that to make sure they don't slip into poverty; the ones middle and above can see a decline of earnings/living standards and it will be seen as acceptable risk/cost so long as the government feels that they will not have to prop them up after things resume. The ones on the lower rung need to be protected for now without getting the ones above slipping up. We cannot have scenes of people queueing up to get food and shelter because in the long run this will be more costly to the country as they will need to support them. The key thing here is timing in terms of payment. Because the UBI itself was messy with payments and timings. I suspect that they will require to pay more tax or NI after this period. Regardless this can punish some people for their honesty too. [NOTE: I wrote this paragraph at 10am prior to the chancellor's speech]
The UBI improvements they have implemented will not by a wave of a hand or others be going back to the box. UBI has for long been one massive fuck-up. More people will now need to live off of that and it was a Tory measure in how UBI is enacted here (combine all benefits to one so that it costs the government less and they can put it into privatisation and other aspects) and it was in a bad way long before. Trusts and organisations working with foodbanks have long been aware of how bad UBI has been handled (and of course the people). Now it will become better but that means they cannot keep several million under UBI. So, for as long as possible they will try to keep companies and individuals afloat. This is going to be tricky because it really relies on how long we will face slowed production thanks to the outbreaks. There is a solution to the financial stuff of course post-COVID-19 and that is to create new taxation band(s), but we would probably not do it given we are the nation we are.
Supermarkets and the food supply: A lot of our fresh produce comes from Italy and Spain and this supply chain will be affected for starters; however this is probably one of the few areas that because of Brexit, as shitty as it is, we might actually be more prepared than not and that oddly enough with the call for fruit pickers and other things (we should hear the call for more of that soon) seems to be tracking better. This remains a TBC, but I am more confident here. As for Pasta, I'm not; see image/link for details. For supermarkets we must vastly rejig the supply chain, and this is why there's a problem in cities. it will get better, but the way supermarkets are currently designed is for dense population centres to have stores where people can purchase short term food requisites. The supermarkets are designed that people can only buy enough shopping they can carry by their hands so they make multiple trips to supermarkets to purchase more items and in doing so also purchase other items and thereby increase their overall spend as opposed to a 1-2 large monthly spends. As a result, the smaller stores have much lesser stock and it needs to be replenished more often. Urban sprawls have a large presence of these smaller stock stores rather than the larger supermarkets. The supply chain needs to be redistributed so that the warehouses are stocked more to deliver directly to customers as opposed to the model of stock to supermarkets to customers (online or in person). This is the best way we can manage a steady supply of food and essentials. Do we have enough food supplies? Yes. Do we have a supply chain that is tailored to deliver to everyone at home? Not yet. It needs to pivot and soon.
The above looks at the Pasta Supply Chain here. Click on the image to go to the FT site. There is a paywall but use a fresh browser with cleared cookies in case the link doesn't work.
Amazon is probably one of the few companies where it can be handled easier. Ocado could have managed but they have seen an unprecedented rise of customers that they can't handle the demand. But in a month or two they will be able to manage it better. it does come at a weird time for them as they move from Waitrose to M&S sometime this year for their supply. Something that needs to be understood here is that consumer behaviours will change because of COVID-19. People will move towards buying larger quantities and larger food shops of 1-2 per month for at the very least a year. This can have noticeable effects on the smaller stores and employment but that's something we shouldn't concern ourselves with right now, but it is something to look at in 6-9 months.
Automation, Agile and pivot: Automation will increasingly play a bigger role quickly in warehouses. It has been happening, but it will accelerate as you can bet that this will be the focus for many freight and logistics operations and large-scale manufacturers to return to profitability and growth. Auto, aerospace, and equipment manufacturers are currently trying to win the favour of many governments by building ventilators. Their regular manufacturing has stopped/slowed down and due to the increased number of ventilators required these contracts can help some of them continue to operate when their regular income goes down the drain. But we need more agile companies and we need companies to pivot to building essential services to meet government or public demand (the COVID Ventilator alliance exists including Rolls Royce, Airbus, to name a few and of course Dyson (despite their general shittiness) and you've companies like INEOS making hand sanitisers for the NHS). This is not the time for corporates to sit there and think solely of their own needs but wider needs which will bear fruit. They would also need to continue to keep their own staff employed which this helps. Side note: The BBC currently reversed their decision to fire staff as they need more people. Oh, and there will be no major conferences until July at the earliest and it's likely that most will cancel everything until August. FY20 if you follow the US fiscal years is done in those terms for the most part.
The health services: It's a good thing that they've been provided a blank cheque. The NHS infrastructure has been crumbling a fair bit, but they will see more spend here and increasingly we will find life sciences companies working hand in hand with the health and public sector services to combat this. If there is more funding pumped into the NHS and health departments, they can fund research in these companies and pay for the vaccines and the citizen wins and those industries win as well. This will be an interesting space to watch in terms of global cooperation. We have currently stopped export of various drugs we need to fight COVID-19 including paracetamol. Once we have a cure, we will be selling this is what I assume. Most of the new testing kits are now coming from Roche (Switzerland), I believe the UK is partaking in this group as well. New tech is also being developed. For instance you have new blood filters being tested to stop cytokine storms. Granted that cytokine storms aren't in everyone, but this is important to prevent additional loss of life and this is currently being tested for effectiveness.
Transportation: Aviation will have some companies become nationalised while some others will go bust. We must see which ones fit where and it depends on how long all these situations last. If we have, as I currently assume from the data and research that's been provided, to reduce mobility then aviation and transportation companies are going to face increasing issues. Nationalising them even temporarily will be one means to keep them afloat and this will happen pending more research as we need aviation companies, but we also need to reduce flights and control the flight operations centrally. I suspect this will be a discussion that happens at the G7 or G20 levels to coordinate how best they handle this globally. e.g. Alitalia is now nationalised. But it had other issues as the link suggests (hence fast-tracked). Some countries will go for the bailout option fitting with QE.
The government nationalising the railway lines and controlling TFL makes it good for them to control the infrastructure for a year. They will need to do so as transportation needs to be regulated. Yes, we need more ways to travel into London but we also once we have a grip on this need to control the overall transportation across the country to be better prepared and better manage the situation. We must not cut services down that it's packed, but we must also not make it so that people move so freely that we risk a new wave of infections.
There is a massive effort in play here and it is unprecedented. There are so many players in the background and so many decisions that need to be taken. While the UK slumbered in its initial response and results and are terrible at communications there are things they are doing right as well. Not to be ignored is data modelling and predictive sciences shaping government response and policy. Here's an article that you might find useful to read on that. Note - I am not condoning their response and their terrible communication is a factor that makes things difficult for us.
Death reporting is skewed in many countries, but this is an attempt by a lot of countries to control the narrative. Reporting on infection and deaths the way individuals and countries have done if I am honest doesn't tell you much. First, everyone needs to be tested and they need to ramp up test kits and soon. We can see the effect of this soon, if what many governments stating buying new equipment rings true. So, in terms of death reports, we need to know what the average hospitalisation and recovery rate times are - otherwise the information isn't as helpful, and this varies in many countries. I've come across reports saying it's 11 days on average and reports saying it's 18 days in the UK. It's too conflicting to state when the numbers are good or bad unless it's a steady rate. China's numbers are currently brought into doubt by multiple sources in terms of how early they counted and if they are still counting - but their geographic spread rate is accurate. There are reports across EU nations on not counting those who died from COVID-19 if they were not diagnosed of it and other factors. We will not get an accurate picture of the deaths until after the event. So, our discussion of these metrics is mostly a reflection and criticism of governments on their response. They will show deaths and they will show infections but rather than numbers look at the graph plotline if we want something to look at (it still indicates trend) but don't count the numbers. I've read and created reports as part of a previous role on deaths in animal and vet hospitals and this has always been a number that is skewed especially in private owned places for obvious reasons. 'Never Events' is a term that some might have heard. Even in public hospitals it has inaccuracies. Here's a report in Missouri (click on image) if you have time to read and it's not a trend limited to the US, but the scale differs from country to country.
Also, in terms of demographic, the only demographic that repeated results from Life Sciences companies show is mostly immune is under 10-year olds who have regular contact with those their age. Teenagers are not immune; they have the same fatality rate estimated to be 0.2% (Data from China). There should be a paper on this published soon but until then their fatality risk should be twice that you have from a flu outbreak (0.1%). There is disparity in data between various bodies and here's an article for you that's public.
What do we need in times like these?
We need good communicators - which we are lacking. We need good and effective speechwriters that can communicate these messages clearly as well as good orators and concise, clear, communication from leaders. We need key decision makers and planners to communicate effectively and quell misinformation but also be direct and decisive in their words. People need to keep a clear head to move on in unsteady times. Keep Calm and Carry On needs to be readapted in a digital information society (as the old motto is stuck in our heads), we need to keep calm and carry on our digital lives not our tangible lives.
We need to quell the spread of misinformation. Everyone needs to be responsible for what they state, what they spread, etc. Your information is also like a virus when you spread unsourced, unsolicited, unknown information with nothing to cite (Unfortunately some of my paragraphs above are not cited because I cannot reveal the research and sources). Remember that people are talking about information digitally and a lot of it is to control their own narrative out of fear. Also remember as the article sourced earlier states about bad actors and communicators and people who are looking for their 15 minutes of popularity.
Of course, it goes without saying we need key health workers and key workers to keep things going as much as they can.
This country (and most others) is in the grip of a fever that can be crippling if we are to look at the nation as an organism. The world itself. We need for the countries of the world to cooperate if we are to manage and distribute risk effectively. If not, some countries will come out better and the others will come out a lot worse but as a global economy we will be more unequal and in a much worse shape. We are going to look at a drastically changed world 6-12 months from now. No, the economy will not be fucked so long as these measures are happening. But people still need to take their governments and mass media to task when misrepresenting information and keep themselves informed through trustworthy sources. Be responsible, especially adults, for the information you spread, for the sources of information you read - this is a moment of personal and social responsibility and it extends to beyond just following procedures the government asks you to follow.
I'll leave you with this article on digital contact tracing which can (unless you've been at a large gathering or a flight) help trace people and the spread of COVID-19. Of course, there are privacy concerns. Also on the Chinese narrative. And once again take care of your own mental health and practice good hygiene (which should not need SARS-COV-2 to be made clear to people but here we are).
Luckily people I know are getting some kind of help with rent... my gf is being allowed to pay half rent for the next three months, and will pay it back later (which will be covered by this scheme), but mortgage payments and rent should be frozen across the board while people wait for this.
Regardless of how much they offer, if they don't do this for everyone there will inevitably be some people caught between waiting for benefit and shitty landlords not offering any help.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
If they can't earn a living they are no longer self employed. They are unemployed, give them £500 a week for 4 months or longer if it takes longer. Ireland has increased there's to 350 euros a week as far as I know.
As in, I believe we will have recorded fewer deaths than Italy had at a comparative time in their exposure to the pandemic (i.e. days after the 10th death, as charted by the FT).
Agreed, but we'll see the queen in a mech suit before we see this country's public support universal public income.
I'd argue for UBI, but wouldn't trust this government to implement it. They would probably cut benefits even further under the guise 'you got your cheque, why do you need more'
Shame that the official figures are starting to become increasingly unreliable. Shorter reporting period, and extra conditions on report a covid-19 death (permission from relatives to +1 the figures).
Even after all the measures that have been introudce over the past week, the UK gov still feels the needi to manipulate the data.
Even after all the measures that have been introudce over the past week, the UK gov still feels the needi to manipulate the data.
Yeah, that'd be my worry.
https://twitter.com/EdwardLeighMP/status/1242443688762097664
Funnily enough, I saw that a Tory backbencher was pushing for it the other day.
Indeed, It's also the case that trying to create a system that makes everyone happy, impossible. It's a difficult time and no system they create is going to work for every single case.