Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Detournement]

1 minute ago, MixuFixit said:

almost without exception funds that all of us depend upon for pensions etc. are subject to this at the moment. It's not about speculating, it's about it gubbing X years of someone's planned investments now, meaning when they come to retire their investment has had to repeat this growth over X years, meaning they have a crapper pension.

The companies are worth less though. It's not down to speculating it's down to the impending biggest recession in history.

[Granny Danger]

Just now, coprolite said:

The stock market is always about speculation and profiteering. Volatile movements in stocks protect real assets from speculation. 

 

That is absolute bollocks.  The overwhelming majority of shares (stocks) are held by institutional investors like insurance companies and pension funds and are held medium-to-long term.  If they reacted in a speculative manner to minor, let alone major, events the system simply wouldn’t work.

You obviously don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, Romeo said:

A self employed person I know has spent years laughing at how they bump the tax man. Now almost in tears because they will hardly get anything under this scheme.

Taking the long-term view, they are still quids in.  

[Todd_is_God]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The carbon in the atmosphere won't magically drop overnight, there will just be a marginal drop in the increase. Fool.

And if there is no drop, if it continues to rise?

Edited March 27, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Hymlick Manouvre]

6 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

It’s naive to look at that in isolation (no pun).  The NHS in Scotland is grossly underfunded due to the Tories austerity policy and I imagine there are far more pressing priorities that stockpiling equipment in the ‘unlikely’ event of a serious global pandemic.

Isn't NHS Scotland devolved to the Scottish Government, are those hospitals still sitting empty ?

[Dunning1874]

12 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

just explain what the limiting step is. If it can work in company A why not in company B?

Companies will have different setups, but generally your forwarding someone’s desk phone to their mobile scenario involves forwarding calls made directly to that phone. If someone calls your office phone it can go straight through to your mobile, and it you’re already on another call on your mobile meaning they can’t get through then that’s fine, they can call back or leave a voicemail while you’ll get a notification for the missed call.

No one phoning a call centre is dialling one of the phones directly, you have tens or hundreds of calls sitting in a queue for minutes waiting to be diverted to any one of those phones to become available when a call ends. You can’t simply bounce a call through to someone’s mobile the same way you can in the above scenario as there’d be no simple way of knowing when someone’s mobile is available without the call actually being handled on the phone in the office, and if you decide to just risk firing callers through to the forward mobile of whatever phone the call lands on hoping they get an answer then they don’t, all they can do is call up again and they’re going right to the back of the queue of calls.

Obviously there are technological solutions to this and FWIW I’m not arguing that call centres should be staying open just now, but it’s not as simple as just doing the exact same thing on a larger scale if you don’t have the existing technology to handle it.

[hk blues]

21 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Thing that annoys me about call centres is how the telecoms companies allow Bangalore cold caller/scammers to pretend they're phoning from an Inverness area code. Makes call blocking impossible unless you restrict it known numbers.

They're not calling from Bangalore, they're calling from MixuFixit's hoose apparently! 

[Granny Danger]

2 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

no he was saying GD was losing money because he was speculating when it's just wrecking anyone's investments. If I was close to retirement and still invested in funds with a lot of equities in them (bad idea in first place) I'd be very worried just now.

That’s my situation but I’m not overly worried, I think things will bounce back.

What I find laughable is that people think this only affects people with SIPPs/ISAs etc., it effects everyone who doesn’t have a DB pension.  That’s the overwhelming majority of folk.

[pandarilla]

cmon man we're talking about basics: gloves. masks. aprons. face shields. These can't be explained away because tories.

But surely normal levels of supplies will have been used up pretty quickly, and now getting these things is incredibly difficult due to unprecedented high demand?

I'm not blaming either administration too much as there's a lot of simple stuff that simply takes time due to the logistics right now.

You can't expect them to keep stock piles, surely? The stuff goes out of date.

There's criticism about long term funding of the health service which is absolutely legitimate - but I'm not sure the snp administration can take much blame for that.

[Todd_is_God]

3 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

no he was saying GD was losing money because he was speculating when it's just wrecking anyone's investments. If I was close to retirement and still invested in funds with a lot of equities in them (bad idea in first place) I'd be very worried just now.

It's times like this I wish I understood markets and had capital to invest. Some people will likely make fortunes out of it in the long run. Just not me!

[coprolite]

Pension funds are highly diversified and will hedge exposures to stock movements with short positions and other asset classes that tend to move out of step with the stock market. 

While a long term fall in stocks will affect them the impact will be limited. The dailly  movements will have little impact on pensions.  

Retail investors in specific stocks (as opposed to tracker funds) are taking risks with their capital in the hope of a bigger reward than they'd get on deposit interest. Exactly the same as the much maligned air bnb crowd. As all investments are, it is a bet. Sometimes horses fall

[Tight minge]

it just is though. https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/

That is GDP which isn't the same as richest countries. It's also out of date as the UK was overtaken by France and possibly also India. Although economic output is out the window for a while just now.

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, MixuFixit said:

coincidentally I live in Bangalore

[cyderspaceman]

If I were a homeless person, (I'm glad I'm not) I don't know if I would want to be taken off the streets at this particuar time, having just survived the winter and heading into spring. Being out on my own would perhaps seem preferable to being indoors with a bunch of others who may be infected. I don't imagine whatever accommodation provided will be particularly spacious. This seems like a move to protect the general public, rather than to help the homeless, which would maybe be ok if they continued with the scheme after this is over but that's unlikely.

 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

It’s naive to look at that in isolation (no pun).  The NHS in Scotland is grossly underfunded due to the Tories austerity policy and I imagine there are far more pressing priorities that stockpiling equipment in the ‘unlikely’ event of a serious global pandemic.

Im sorry Granny, i generally agree with you on a lot of things, but the unit cost of decent PPE is minuscule compared to the cost of running thousands of ICU beds for months.

 

Pandemic flu has never been ‘unlikely’ its literally been highlighted by many of the worlds eminent thinkers, scientists and business leaders as one of the MOST likely causes of a global emergency/world changing event. The UK got lucky with Sars, Swine flu etc and hasnt learned any lessons.

 

Thats only the argument on a financial basis, its the fact that they value their people so badly that they allow them to continue without PPE. Also its the complete lack of ANY coherent plan until this week, despite months notice that this was likely to come here. Im not laying the blame at the underfunding of the NHS on them, but their management of this situation has imo been shambolic. Ive highlighted that my wife and her practice have been asking for PPE since before the first case in Scotland occurred, its fallen on death ears, empty responses from people promising to have strategy meetings and develop policy, but really whats happened is a whole load of nothing. Nonsense bureaucracy has not helped us prepare. As a result i’ve pointed out that one of her colleagues has fallen ill with covid despite being told the inadequate PPE they had was adequate.

Then we come on to the shambolic organisation of childcare, I know of two police officers in ayrshire who’s nursery has closed and have been denied access to the child care provision and been told they arent key workers. There isnt even any cover for my child at all, im having to pay for my existing nursery and a child minder because the provision is shocking.

The Scottish government should have proper tested plans in place for all these things, they dont. Its a disgrace. I can’t even ask for help from my MSP because even at this time the selfish b*****d hasnt even had the decency to resign or put any alternative contact details on his website.

[MONKMAN]

Boris Johnson tests positive, i would drink myself into oblivion for weeks if he were to die.

[Granny Danger]

2 hours ago, dirty dingus said:

With God on our side.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/christian-pastor-who-thought-covid-19-is-just-mass-hysteria-among-the-first-in-virginia-to-die-from-virus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR3TvR2w_Bm3N6U0fdwRq1GZFy93iu1A72iVeTZavsZqTaaOWx0AhctC208

 

 

Every cloud and all that.

[Venti]

Tesco Greenock were only letting a set amount of folk in at a time. Was also well stocked & got everything on my list.

Relieved, as I was fucking dreading it.

[doulikefish]

Boris has covid 19

[Granny Danger]

1 minute ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

Im sorry Granny, i generally agree with you on a lot of things, but the unit cost of decent PPE is minuscule compared to the cost of running thousands of ICU beds for months. Thats only the argument on a financial basis, its the fact that they value their people so badly that they allow them to continue without PPE. Also its the complete lack of ANY coherent plan until this week, despite months notice that this was likely to come here. Im not laying the blame at the underfunding of the NHS on them, but their management of this situation has imo been shambolic. Ive highlighted that my wife and her practice have been asking for PPE since before the first case in Scotland occurred, its fallen on death ears, empty responses from people promising to have strategy meetings and develop policy, but really whats happened is a whole load of nothing. Nonsense bureaucracy has not helped us prepare. As a result i’ve pointed out that one of her colleagues has fallen ill with covid despite being told the inadequate PPE they had was adequate.
Then we come on to the shambolic organisation of childcare, I know of two police officers in ayrshire who’s nursery has closed and have been denied access to the child care provision and been told they arent key workers. There isnt even any cover for my child at all, im having to pay for my existing nursery and a child minder because the provision is shocking.
The Scottish government should have proper tested plans in place for all these things, they dont. Its a disgrace. I can’t even ask for help from my MSP because even at this time the selfish b*****d hasnt even had the decency to resign or put any alternative contact details on his website.

Was there a shortage of PPE in the Scottish NHS prior to this.  If the answer is yes then you have a point.

As for the obvious lack of a plan to deal with a pandemic, you’re absolutely right, it’s shocking that we have been caught flat footed on this but again I’m pretty certain that’s not a devolved function.