Free speech is just so neoliberal

If being profoundly misguided were reason enough to close down an information stream, then should that also apply to terraced houses in Ely?

Besides which, if budget deficits are fine anyway, a higher interest rate won’t matter, will it?

“developed country debtors will profit from the crisis at cost to a developing country.”

Does he mean developed country creditors?

“Developing country” has got to be the most obnoxious euphemism since we started calling window licking stupidity “learning difficulties”, and dark-eyed, quick-tempered Dwarven people “the Welsh”.

They’re developing, you see. Gonna be developed, any day now… pay no attention to the guys being beheaded by a cartel enforcer with a chainsaw. Developing.

Judging by the registration date and host (1&1), I guess this will be where Ritchie’s new project will appear: http://tacs.org.uk

Probably soon to be filed under the stunning successes of his other web “ideas”:
http://www.progressivepulse.org
http://financeforthefuture.com
http://t*xresearch.org.uk/Wiki/
https://enougheconomics.wordpress.com
http://fairtaxpledge.uk/
http://www.corporateaccountabilitynet.work/
“What did tax do for you today” – https://www.t*xresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/08/22/what-did-tax-do-for-you-today-1-providing-nature-reserves/ (he got to #4 then gave up)

+ the FTM which isn’t quite dead, mainly because Ritchie doesn’t run it any more

I’ve probably forgotten some as well.

(sorry Tim, too many links in my post, probably in your spam trap)

I suggest that the rating agencies be subject to enforced silence on government debt right now.

So evidently in Spud’s Brave New World markets function better with less information and more uncertainty. Who knew?

Because markets always work much better when adverse information is artificially suppressed. NOT.

No doubt Spud will say he previously forecast the economic damage caused by Covid despite the fact he didn’t forecast Covid

Diogenes,

I find myself at odds with you on that piece.

It is far from barely coherent.

It is incoherent. And, as usual, states opinion as real world fact.

One suspects that the author has never done an honest days work in his/her life.

Is there a Murphy’s Law?
You know, the one that says any pronouncements are going to be wrong, or arse-about-face.
How can this ignoramus be employed at Goldsmiths (unless as a janitor perhaps)?

John77

I fear we’re in violent agreement..

Delingpod 69, 15 April:

Hector Drummond vs Covid-19 Hysteria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga5IhhVmyR8

https://hectordrummond.com/

At last, the worm turns and Peter Hitchens and I are not alone:

Pcar:
Yesterday: “Hancock needs to be emotional and weep to see he’s wrong? Twat

I said last week the rule was wrong and evil – no emotion or weeping involved, only some empathy & kindness”

13 Apr: I named him “Kindergarten Gruppenführer Hancock”

Today:
Deedes

Hancock’s political antenna, finely honed under the tutelage of that other wily operator George Osborne, picks up more signals than the Hubble space telescope. If there is a criticism it is that he sometimes lacks empathy
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He can speak compassionate words but they rarely sound particularly cuddly. When you hear Hancock talk of taking the fight to this disease, you find yourself wondering what he’s working to hardest to save: people’s lives or his own career?

and J SP

Matt Hancock’s meltdowns have revealed a mediocre minister who’s out of his depth running anything more complicated than a kindergarten
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This morning the government’s carefully constructed strategy for dealing with coronavirus fell apart when Health Secretary Matt Hancock lost his temper in two media confrontations. First, a feisty exchange with the Today programme’s Nick Robinson, and then on ITV’s Good Morning Britain he exploded in a combative exchange with Piers Morgan.
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Two meltdowns in less than an hour make a PR disaster for the caring Conservatives, the people who say we are safe in their hands, and on the day when more bad news – an extension to lockdown – will be announced.
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Mr Hancock is incandescent because people are daring to ask (if we are to be confined to home for another 21 days) – what’s next? Does the government have a Master Plan, an Exit Strategy? When can schools reopen, businesses go back to work…or like Brexit, will this exit go on forever? According to one Minister, Nadine Dorries, it could last until there’s a vaccine next year. By then the UK will be bankrupt.
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A few weeks ago, Matt Hancock said the government would be inclusive and clear in it’s approach, but today he seemed to have forgotten those words, complaining ‘everyone wants to know what the future looks like…but talking about it would send the wrong messages’
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This morning we could have been listening to official broadcasting in China or North Korea – a government minister telling the public that too much information is a bad thing, that only politicians will decide when to reveal the next step in this battle with a fatal disease. A battle that not only affects human life but is also decimating our economy and could bankrupt the country.
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For three weeks now the government have been treating the public like children, dishing out the same simple messages over and over again
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Stay at home, don’t go out, wash your hands, observe social distancing – do all this to protect Our NHS and save lives

Meltdown:
“Health Secretary Matt Hancock appears on GMB to talk about the ramping up of coronavirus testing in the UK. Piers and Susanna question the minister on how and when the lockdown will end and whether NHS workers have the PPE they need to keep safe. Mr Hancock also reacts to Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, taking a 20% pay cut to show solidarity with those on furlough and having financial difficulties”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxCI4odOYuY

I chat with a few top TV news journalists and we all agreed this morning that we could never recall a time when both the government and opposition ranks seemed to be so lacking in calibre, with the honourable exception of Chancellor Rishi Sunak who has been commendably authoritative during his press briefing stints.
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Nobody pretends this is an easy time to be running the country, or any country.
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But it feels increasingly, disconcertingly evident that many of the people charged with doing so in Britain don’t have a clue what they’re doing
…
The [2016 Pandemic] exercise also exposed a chronic lack of basic equipment to fight such a pandemic – including PPE for health workers, ventilators and critical care beds.
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Yet despite all this, when the exact kind of deadly new flu pandemic they were talking about actually happened, Britain remained chronically short of PPE, critical care beds and ventilators.
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So much so that Matt Hancock was forced to beg British manufacturers on March 14 to make the latter for him.
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‘If you produce a ventilator,’ he told them, ‘we will buy it. No number you produce is too high.’
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And what’s been the result of this plea?
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A complete and utter fiasco that perfectly exemplifies the government’s incompetence.
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Today’s Financial Times revealed that the minimum specifications set out by the government to the manufacturers to make these ventilators rendered them useless.
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Alison Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, the professional body for intensive care practitioners, said the government requested ventilators that would stabilise patients only for ‘a few hours’ when in fact they are required for much longer periods of time.
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‘If we had been told that was the case,’ she said, ‘that the ventilators were only to treat a patient for a few hours, we’d have said: ‘Don’t bother, you’re wasting your time, that’s of no use whatsoever.’
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As a result of that shameful failure in basic planning, many of the ventilators made cannot now be used.
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This is just the latest in a series of appalling mistakes.
….
Meanwhile, we are told every day to stay home, protect the NHS, save lives and little else.
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Not a word about how they are going to get us out of lockdown, allegedly because we, the dumb public, can’t be trusted to stick to the lock-down rules AND contemplate an end to it

facing a rating agency saying that the cost of its debt servicing must basically increase through no fault at all of its own.

?

Who set up the conditions whereby the ratings agency lost faith in Mexico’s ability to repay its loans?

Mexico, right?

The ratings agency is just reporting on its findings. The rating’s agency giving Mexico a shitty rating does not make the Mexican government a riskier investment. The Mexican government being a risky investment got the rating.

Shit like this is why no one in government – even the crazies in Labour – will listen to the dude. How in the hell does anyone credible still employ this man to teach?

He’s an open fascist and he gets basic cause-and-effect backwards.

i thought governments could just magic up the money without any ill effects according to mmt. Mexico can just magic up millions of pesetas or set the printing presses to turbo max to pay off any creditors. Easy peasy.

NHS/PHE Mgt: Private Sector bad

FT Front Page Article
UK’s new ventilators still awaiting regulatory green light

Delays linked to changing clinical understanding of how to best treat Covid-19
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None of the new mechanical ventilators developed for treating coronavirus patients have obtained UK regulatory approval, a month after the government issued a rallying cry for British industry to help plug a shortage of the devices.
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Officials have given conditional commitments to purchase tens of thousands of the life-saving machines which assist patients with respiratory difficulties, subject to safety tests.
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In addition to imports and established medical device makers increasing domestic production, big-name UK engineering companies are finalising ventilators designed from scratch and modifying existing products.
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However, the new models — which include one by Dyson — have yet to receive the green light from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), according to a government official.
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Among equipment awaiting clearance is a tweaked version of a machine already manufactured domestically by Penlon in Oxfordshire, which is in the final clinical stages, according to people aware of the matter.
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The Cabinet Office confirmed at the weekend that it had withdrawn support for a ventilator under development by a collaboration of Formula 1 teams, called BlueSky, “following a reassessment of the product’s viability in light of the ever developing picture around what is needed to most effectively treat Covid-19”. In a letter of intent, the government had provisionally ordered thousands of machines from BlueSky.
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“We are continuing to work at unprecedented speed with a number of other manufacturers to scale up UK production of ventilators,” it added.
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The delays appear to be linked in part to the changing clinical understanding of how to best treat the disease amid disagreements within the medical profession about when to deploy invasive ventilation for coronavirus patients.
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In a sign of the fluidity of the discussion surrounding the ventilator production, the Department of Health on Monday posted an announcement notifying potential manufacturers that it was “currently updating” the specification for the Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System scheme.
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“Until the new specification is available you should continue to follow the guidance in this document but be aware of changes to follow,” the notice added.
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Government sources said officials would further narrow down the shortlist of potential manufacturers on Tuesday in light of the new guidance.
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A government spokesperson said: “Designing and manufacturing a ventilator from scratch usually takes years, but in the four weeks since Ventilator Challenge was launched, we have made rapid progress, with new designs currently being tested by clinicians to ensure they meet the necessary standards for patient safety and effectiveness of treatment.”
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Yet the delay also casts doubt on the preparedness of the National Health Service to cope with the peak of cases and follows criticism over a lack of personal protective equipment, such as gloves and masks, for frontline staff.
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Health secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show earlier this month that 18,000 ventilators would be needed in the coming weeks, down from an original target of 30,000.
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The NHS now has access to 10,120, including 200 it acquired last week and up from 8,175 in mid-March. Germany is donating 60 ventilators and US president Donald Trump has said the British government asked Washington for 200.
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One Whitehall official insisted there was adequate intensive care capacity. “There is early evidence of ICU admissions levelling off. We have plenty of ventilator beds across the country so there is confidence that we can meet demand,” they added.
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Alison Pittard, the dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, which represents intensive care professionals, confirmed that the medical profession had initially requested that UK industry focus on making simpler ventilators for the early-stage treatment of Covid-19 patients.
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The decision was taken after patients in Italy were not found to need highly specialised ventilators in the early stages of their condition, and in recognition of the fact that non-specialist manufacturers would not be able to make high-specification machines at speed.
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“It was decided that patients in early stages would go on to simple ventilators, and if they needed to go on for a prolonged period, they would be switched up to another [more sophisticated] device,” she said.
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One senior intensive care doctor warned that a fixation on ventilator numbers was not helpful, however. “In terms of providing intensive care beds, it’s not just ventilators,” they said. “You need more equipment, hemofiltration machines, [and] staff as well.”
© THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2020

Exactly what I forecast: Dyson, GTech etc wasted their time and money. UK Formula 1 Project Pitlane realised hoop jumping imperative and had sample Pressurised Breathing Aid fast-track approved by MHRA before production