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Finance, coronavirus, the economy, etc (Read 53676 times)

seankenny

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I’m not sure how much I agree with this, but it’s food for thought...

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/04/whack-mole-long-run-virus.html

T_B

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I’m not sure how much I agree with this, but it’s food for thought...

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/04/whack-mole-long-run-virus.html

Jeez glad I didn’t need cheering up.

I don’t think the younger generation will settle for that level of bleakness.

ali k

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Pete, just one thing. In the same way as the £80k/yr guy on newsnight seemed to think he was somewhere close to the average salary your statement that ‘anybody can invest and make or lose money’ ‘even with borrowed money at cheap interest rates’ is just delusional.

Do you not understand that there are a huge number of people in the UK who don’t have the means to put ANY money aside at the end of the month, and the only access to finance they have is through pay day loan companies who lend at far from ‘cheap interest rates’? And if they do manage to scrape some savings together they might see putting that money towards a house deposit as more urgent than risking it by investing?

And also that a significant proportion of the above (nurses, carers, high-rise flat dwellers etc) are the ones who are doing all the hard lifting during the current pandemic?

I’m not sure you realise what a privileged position you’re in relative to average.

T_B

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Maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the Guardian had published a useful article. Eg why furloughed workers might try and keep up their pension contributions despite the crash in the stock market and 20% loss of their income.

I think it’s a bit patronising to assume that key workers don’t have the ability to make investment decisions. I know plenty of key workers with different attitudes to risk who are very money savvy. They may not have a lot of spare cash but they certainly think about how to make best use of it.

seankenny

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I’m not sure how much I agree with this, but it’s food for thought...

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/04/whack-mole-long-run-virus.html

Jeez glad I didn’t need cheering up.

I don’t think the younger generation will settle for that level of bleakness.

Agreed. I don't believe every climber in northern Europe will suddenly quit dreaming of Catalunya in February because of coronavirus. What might make a difference is being turned down for flying at the airport due to a failed temperature test or similar - would you take the risk of losing money given it's likely to be expensive to insure against? I suspect many of us would but travel with a family might suddenly become impossible.

It's just too early to tell tho.

petejh

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Pete, just one thing. In the same way as the £80k/yr guy on newsnight seemed to think he was somewhere close to the average salary your statement that ‘anybody can invest and make or lose money’ ‘even with borrowed money at cheap interest rates’ is just delusional.

Do you not understand that there are a huge number of people in the UK who don’t have the means to put ANY money aside at the end of the month, and the only access to finance they have is through pay day loan companies who lend at far from ‘cheap interest rates’? And if they do manage to scrape some savings together they might see putting that money towards a house deposit as more urgent than risking it by investing?

And also that a significant proportion of the above (nurses, carers, high-rise flat dwellers etc) are the ones who are doing all the hard lifting during the current pandemic?

I’m not sure you realise what a privileged position you’re in relative to average.


Just a quick reply as I'm between feeding prime fillet steak to the seagulls from my super-yacht moored off Llandudno.

Yes I realise. No it doesn't follow that investing, for those who are able or willing, is a social ill; or that timing your investments with respect to events so as to buy low and sell high is immoral.


Quote
And if they do manage to scrape some savings together they might see putting that money towards a house deposit as more urgent than risking it by investing?
I don't own a house. (But I could buy one for cash, from profits made investing). That should give you a clue to my priorities through my thirties and early forties - i.e. they weren't family life or owning my own house. In that regard I'm also different from the average.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2020, 01:46:52 pm by petejh »

SA Chris

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I’m not sure how much I agree with this, but it’s food for thought...

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/04/whack-mole-long-run-virus.html

I started writing an article a few years ago about the golden ages of climbing, and the last section said are we living in a golden age right now, where travel is cheap, easy and unrestricted, climbing gyms are widespread and of excellent quality. It concluded by saying i expect we will soon get transport levied heavily due to climate issues, but maybe CV-19 will herald the end of it instead. Depressing.

ali k

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Maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the Guardian had published a useful article.

True. I suspect we’re having this conversation because it’s a bit of an outlier in terms of the Guardian’s output. To be honest I was surprised they ran with it. And it’s allowed you, Pete and Shark to rip it to pieces, probably rightly so.

But the Tory fan boy press is littered with this kind of stuff day in day out - sensationalism barely based in fact - and yet unfortunately it doesn’t suffer the same scrutiny (I don’t mean on ukb).

Offwidth

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Go back and read it again. What it actually says is simply not that bad and the views presented in it are pretty balanced. The people accusing the firm, as per the headline, were people like Mc Donnell and even as a liberal I think such views rarely get a fair exposure in the UK press (and in this rare case where he gets coverage it makes him look pretty silly). Hence, the anger here seems to me as odd as that from Mc Donnell in the article itself.

Maybe I'm missing something and someone can explain in detail what that is.  Sure, the headline is probably a rhetorical hook: you see the 'Rees Mogg' and ' cashing in' bits and  miss "accused"...... but which saintly UK editor avoids such tricks in the mainstream press.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/05/rees-mogg-firm-accused-of-cashing-in-on-coronavirus-crisis

shark

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What exactly about the article made you to think it was worth highlighting here?

Offwidth

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What exactly about the article made you to think it was worth highlighting here?

I already said, I thought it illustrated how surreal things were getting and it's got clear political importance as possibly the last salvo of a departing shadow minister. I wouldn't put it past the Guardian editorial team to it being partly a set up to damage him, as there was no love lost there (nor in most of the Guardian readership). I should have explained things better with the link but life is difficult and I was leaving my job that day. I always saw UKB as humorously  tolerant of such mistakes and of course expected people to take the piss.

So maybe you can now explain exactly what's so wrong with it, and why the response to my posting was so aggressive (standard-press-issue rhetorically misleading headline aside)..

I got to regularly read the Times and the Telegraph at my in-laws place over the decades and their decline in standards over the last few years is depressing. The rhetorical bile in the Telegraph over the end of last year was worthy of The Fail

petejh

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The biggest thing 'wrong' with that article was who posted it. Offwidth you may or may not realise that you come across - to me at least and rightly or wrongly - as someone utterly determined to make political points at the expense of the tories almost at every possible opportunity you get. You're the most political person I've ever interacted with online, and I don't mean 'political' in a good way. I mean it in a blinkered by the righteousness of your cause way.

I think most people familiar with your history of posting will have assumed you posted that article because it appeared to present something 'bad' about the government. That's what you do.
I think the reaction on here caught you out and now you're scrabbling around for a reasonable-sounding justification for posting what was basically a load of BS. Clear political importance?! Do us a favour!
I think it stretches credulity to believe you posted that clickbait with the intention of enlightening us all to how it made Kier Starmer and the shadow chancellor 'look silly' as you claim. But maybe I have you wrong.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2020, 08:32:01 pm by petejh »

Duma

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I think that article is nonsense and not worth posting. But whatever, meh, etc.

Far more noteworthy is the outpouring of bile from pete and will especially, who have been increasingly unreasonable toward anything offwidth posts, and jumped on this with obvious glee. You both come across more and more over the last few months as personally antagonistic to him and point scoring, and it's a poor look. Will in particular, I remember almost choking on my coffee when you had the astonishing lack of self awareness to accuse him of being sanctimonious! Ha!

Offwidth

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Views differ Pete.  You are right that I do not like this government but some of their mistakes are pretty serious in my view, not least the state of brexit. I think our clown PM has had an amazingly easy ride in the UK press, has forced out most of the tory MPs I've been impressed with and selected the worst cabinet in my living memory (incredibly beating even Corbyn's shadow cabinets.....including heavily biased towards reactionaries, some grossly inexperinced, some incompetents and even some with criminal behavior). Why should I disguise my views on this, and my wish for political parties to try to better represent the breadth of their membership and voters, and my liberal sensitivities?

petejh

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You shouldn’t, and nobody had said you should. It’s tiresome, but that’s your choice.

But you’re being unrealistic (that’s being kind, some may say disingenuous) to act surprised when people don’t believe your claimed motives for posting crappy guardian clickbait.

Oldmanmatt

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So, are you saying you’ve cancelled your Guardian subscription, then Pete?

old cheese

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You shouldn’t, and nobody had said you should. It’s tiresome, but that’s your choice.

But you’re being unrealistic (that’s being kind, some may say disingenuous) to act surprised when people don’t believe your claimed motives for posting crappy guardian clickbait.

So what are offwidths real motives? I am fascinated and I am sure he is too, I mean if we know what is wrong with us we can self improve eh!!

Fuck me! Some people need to get out more! Oh...

ali k

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petejh

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So what are offwidths real motives?

Well, he says so himself - the motive behind a vast majority of Offwidth's posts on ukb is: 'I want to express how very angry I am with this government'.

Against this backdrop of posting, it's reasonable to assume that this post by Offwidth - a link to a Guardian article with an anti-government slant - is simply another in the apparently endless canon of Offwidth's posts themed: 'I want to express how very angry I am with this government'.

Fair enough if that's your thing. I'm not the only one to find this style of posting tiresome - hint: we're all aware of the Guardian and are freely able to read it, and most of us do because it's free and because it's not the Mail or Sun.

But no. Wait! Apparently we've missed the nuance here:

Really, he was trying to enlighten everyone about the 'clear political importance' of this particular Guardian article, and to also make a point about how silly Labour's Starmer and McDonnell are made to look because they were talking bollocks about investment funds.

It all makes sense now.
Cough-bullshit-cough


It's not a big deal, but seeing as you asked and seeing as I've not much better to do..  :)

Offwidth

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Ok Pete I give up and admit I must be the Blofeld of social liberalism. I thought I was as a whim posting something that illustrated how weird life was during my weird current situation but clearly my manchurian side was in total control.

SA Chris

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I didn't even know you were from Manchester.

Offwidth

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Shit....it's all connected....the BMC fanboyness.....Lynn ... if only I had known.

Duma

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That Maitlis bit is great

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Stabbsy

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Emily Maitlis saying it how it is:

https://twitter.com/ed_son/status/1248021250267656192?s=20

Good that it's been said, let's hope it doesn't stop at words though. It's a long way from it being said and people nodding along when they're shit scared of what's going to happen to people "in peacetime" recognising that something needs to be done and being willing to support it despite it not being in their own best interests financially. People can have selective/short memories following times of crisis.

I'd love to be proved wrong, but I don't think it's something that we will get from the current government.

 

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