So, all these unemployed folk are going to be used building the wondrous new infrastructure required for the future.
Gudgeon rather punctures this:
That would be the same pool of labour we’ve deemed incapable of pulling potatoes or picking strawberries.
Back to the fucking New Deal 30s–building roads that eco-freak scum want to ensure have no cars on them?
Only Laissez-faire can fix the present load of shite.
It never ceases to amaze me how totally incompetent & useless people can be. There’s a lawyer of my acquaintance has totally failed to assemble a simple Ikea flat pack wardrobe despite several attempts. I’d reckon the ability to do that pretty well defines what it takes to be a human being. To comprehend an abstract & visualise. Apparently the legal profession requires less intellect than the average dog.
m’Lud, were it not for the lockdown I’d invite you over to meet my labrador.
I’ve built a fair bit of IKEA furniture and one of the things that I like about them is that the instructions are idiot proof. Or so I thought.
I’ll have you both know I’ve assembled more flat pack than you can shake a stick at. I’ve even built a kitchen. Honest.
More importantly, is the IFS an example of Robert Conquest’s second law of politics? I feel sure I recall it being vaguely free market, fiscally prudent…
Ah, M’Lud. But can you retrieve the stick?
Mr BiS
I had a dear (lady) friend who was apparently a competent lawyer. Worked for the State o’Tejas. Could always find precedent for whatever her boss needed as ‘advice’
One day she bought some flatpack furniture. She, too, was unable to assemble it.
Assembly required either knowledge of how all fasteners work, or an understanding that things with screw threads should be screwed into their mounting holes.
Not surprisingly, since this was her first flatpack, she knew nothing about the fasteners, specifically.
But she also couldn’t intuit that if it were threaded, it got fixed in with a screwdriver, not a hammer.
Luckily, she did have enough sense to realise that what she was doing wasn’t right, and so stopped after a couple (I fixed it all, of course)
I fear it’s not lack of basic intelligence; it’s long habitudes interpreting literally and never questioning assumptions.
No offense intended, M’Lud; there are exceptions to all generalities…
I’m afraid that people furloughed or made redundant from now failing companies aren’t the ones who couldn’t work in the fields. They are the permanently unemployable. Some of the people now on the market have very real skills.
‘The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the government should consider targeted intervention to get people back to work.’
Roust them from their beds and put ’em to work. Not slavery if in an emergency.
I’m reminded of Obama’s “shovel ready jobs.” We don’t use shovels anymore. Substantial training is required to learn how to operate the tools we use today.
Surely many of ‘all these unemployed people’ had jobs a couple of months ago? Are we to understand that these jobs will never return? Can no other jobs be created?
Surely many of ‘all these unemployed people’ had jobs a couple of months ago? Are we to understand that these jobs will never return? Can no other jobs be created?
One small example. 3X Motorcycles in Wimbourne has closed or good. The owners and the employees are now out of work as a result of this lock-down. Can other jobs be created? Out of what? Businesses will be folding across the country. How will jobs be created? In the case of 3X other similar businesses will have seen their business shrink, having lost the best time of the year for selling motorcycles. How likely are they to be taking on more mechanics, sales people and office staff mad redundant by this collapse?
The only way out of this mess would be for the government to just get out of the way of people, and let them do stuff without trying to regulate them out of business all the time. Then we might see new businesses created from the ashes of old ones. But how things are, when starting a business means prostrating yourself in front of a barrage of busybodies and prod noses? Forget it.
Surely, Mr in Spain, the question is: can your dog assemble a wardrobe?
Not sure I’ve ever trusted dogs in matters of home improvement…
Don’t call me ‘Shirley’.
@Mr Ecks
Sit down, relax, then read
BoJo’s Grand Plan to stimulate economy post House Arrest & Shutdown
£ Billions to Build lots of new cycle lanes, widen pavements, ban cars….. bring back horse & cart too probably
Littlejohn
@Jim
We should be grateful the prodnoses in UK don’t require a licence for most trades/jobs, unlike USA
Sadly Chicken Little Johnson is scared of prodnoses and won’t order them to back-off. Priti told plod to back-off, but received no Gov’t support
“We should be grateful the prodnoses in UK don’t require a licence for most trades/jobs, unlike USA”
Formal licences to do X, largely no. A barrage of various inspectors and hurdles to overcome from a myriad of government bodies and the local authority, yes.
Went by a local strabucks and saw they had a sign saying they won’t be reopening, lot of large chains could take this as an opportunity to cull stores, especially where rents are high
There’s a lawyer of my acquaintance has totally failed to assemble a simple Ikea flat pack wardrobe despite several attempts
Were their first two attempts just interrogating it aggressively, picking up on a minor semantic detail in the instructions and using withering sarcasm? Did they bill IKEA for the time they took assembling it?
Went by a local strabucks and saw they had a sign saying they won’t be reopening…
I imagine it’s a godsend for companies such as BA, rationalisation of businesses that would normally struggle to get it past the unions.
Longrider, every story is different. My motorcycle dealer is doing fine. My Mustang tuner is doing fine. My regular car maintenance shop is begging for work. My hair cutter is crying for the government to let her go back to work.
Predicting how this is all going to shake out on an individual business level is impossible.
My fine governor is going to allow some restaurant dine-in service starting tomorrow. Exec order published Friday; effective at 12:01 AM tonight. Gotta love bureaucrats . . . WTF is different tonight from Friday? No damn reason for it not to been effective immediately. Arbitrariness is mandatory for government.
@BniC
Unless you know it’s not a franchise branch, wrong to conclude that
@Gamecock
MC stores: weather – UK is cold, temp today 7C / 44F
Upper 60s(F), low humidity here yesterday. Rode moto a couple hours; it was glorious.
Rode by a couple of hip restaurants. Parking lots full. Hmmm. I love South Carolinians! I carp about the governor’s idiocy of delaying effectiveness til oh-dark-thirty this AM; actual South Carolinians say, “Fvck that, we’re opening now.”