Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Milnzo]

45 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Anyone who can see the lockdown lasting 2+ months longer is deluded. Where the hell would the Govt get the money to pay all the Universal Credit, Furloughed wages etc. Already they must have given out a ton (plus the grants that small businesses will get).

Furlough scheme is in place until June already. It'll be lockdown, of sorts, for two months minimum. 

Spain are extending their lockdown until May 10. That will be about two months. 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Fucking hell. This is an embarrassment.

Why is Scotland always represented by a whinging ned? 

[DiegoDiego]

Anyone who can see the lockdown lasting 2+ months longer is deluded. Where the hell would the Govt get the money to pay all the Universal Credit, Furloughed wages etc. Already they must have given out a ton (plus the grants that small businesses will get).

Why would they have to keep furloughing wages? Italy aren't.

[Mastermind]

10 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Fucking hell. This is an embarrassment.

Why is Scotland always represented by a whinging ned? 

Brutal. Makes Mhari Black look eloquent. 

[Cosmic Joe]

4 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

Trump seems unstable and probably highly dangerous.

In other news, Elvis is still dead

[Thereisalight..]

33 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

1 hour ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Anyone who can see the lockdown lasting 2+ months longer is deluded. Where the hell would the Govt get the money to pay all the Universal Credit, Furloughed wages etc. Already they must have given out a ton (plus the grants that small businesses will get).

Why would they have to keep furloughing wages? Italy aren't.

Well if the lockdown was to continue beyond June, they’d have to pay people in some way. If its wasn’t through the furlough scheme then it would be through Universal Credit. Just because Italy is or isn’t doing something doesn’t mean we’d be the same

[Snobot]

45 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Fucking hell. This is an embarrassment.

Why is Scotland always represented by a whinging ned? 

Genuine question- do you agree or disagree with his hypothesis?

[invergowrie arab]

When the restraunts open before the pubs they are all going to look like the Counting House at 9am on a Scotland match day 

[ICTJohnboy]

13 hours ago, Stellaboz said:

One in four voters in Scotland is a Tory, truly frightening and stupid stuff.

 

2 hours ago, cyderspaceman said:

Nearly two out of five voted for brexit...

 

Half a million English live in Scotland.

Lovely people of course, but perhaps just a tad politically naive.

[pandarilla]

Borrow it.

Same place they got the last lot from. Bond issues and QE.

I'd like to see this discussion play out a bit more (along with the nurses pics).

Every instinct i have says they're has to be long term and very damaging consequences to this. But I'm generally pretty clueless on economics so I'm happy to be persuaded.

What are the main reasons that we can't keep borrowing /printing money? And why do you guys (and a couple of others) think that doesn't need to apply?

[carpetmonster]

1 hour ago, Mastermind said:

Brutal. Makes Mhari Black look eloquent. 

Calling someone ineloquent while spelling their name incorrectly isn't all that great even for you M62. 

EDIT to put pic in. 

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by carpetmonster

[Theroadlesstravelled]

34 minutes ago, Snobot said:

Genuine question- do you agree or disagree with his hypothesis?

I've no idea. I had to turn it off after a few seconds of hearing him.

 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Scots are voting for the Tories because they think Labour and SNP are worse.

There is no other explanation.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, Mastermind said:

Brutal. Makes Mhari Black look eloquent. 

Where’s the PM m8?

Still in hiding?

 

[Snobot]

40 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

I've no idea. I had to turn it off after a few seconds of hearing him.

 

Well that would probably open you up to accusations of being the very definition of a bigoted ignoramus, regardless of the strength or otherwise of McGarvey’s argument.

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, pandarilla said:

What are the main reasons that we can't keep printing money?

You end up with hyperinflation. The money people have becomes worth much less and prices sky rocket.

Following WW1 Germany printed money to pay off its war debts. In the end, children played with huge bundles of banknotes worth trillions of Marks as they were absolutely worthless.

See also Zimbabwe.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, pandarilla said:

I'd like to see this discussion play out a bit more (along with the nurses pics).

Every instinct i have says they're has to be long term and very damaging consequences to this. But I'm generally pretty clueless on economics so I'm happy to be persuaded.

What are the main reasons that we can't keep borrowing /printing money? And why do you guys (and a couple of others) think that doesn't need to apply?

From what I've read by people who ought to know on the left and right, if we don't borrow and spend our way through this we won't have an economy to come back to. There's little point in the country having less debt if we have 30% unemployment by July and catastrophically less money in the system.

[ArabianKnight]

Great video I watched earlier. Seems to me to make a lot of sense.  Guy has done his research and this isn't any tin foil hat nonsense. 

 

 

[Guest JTS98]

2 hours ago, pandarilla said:

I'd like to see this discussion play out a bit more (along with the nurses pics).

Every instinct i have says they're has to be long term and very damaging consequences to this. But I'm generally pretty clueless on economics so I'm happy to be persuaded.

What are the main reasons that we can't keep borrowing /printing money? And why do you guys (and a couple of others) think that doesn't need to apply?

Printing money is a risk, but it's not correct to be as black and white as 'printing money = catastrophe'. For example, the Japanese economy has done fine out of the central bank using money out of thin air to buy up government bonds. There are a lot of factors involved in that, but it's not the case that printing money always leads to disaster. America's current approach is similar to the Japanese model, for example.

As for borrowing, interest rates are extremely low just now, meaning, in simple terms, that it's a great time to borrow money. This will obviously lead to a huge spike in national debt, but governments may reasonably come to the conclusion that that's better than dealing with the economic and social consequences of a large percentage of the public losing their jobs: How can the public help a recovery when they have no job and no savings?

Huge debt levels can be handled. It just relies on smart policy. The approach to debt in the west after World War 2 was largely very different to post-WW1, and much more successful. Generally speaking, austerity (such as post WW1 Britain) to deal with this kind of thing proved to be a bad idea as it simply slowed output and made the problem worse. The whole point is that you borrow to prop up the economy and then accept that it's a shit situation and we need to wait quite a while to bring the debt back down to levels we are happy with. Governments could also implement financial repression, where they force banks etc to lend to them on terms that favour the government. 

Handled well, a massive increase in debt needn't be much of a problem. If that debt has ensured the public come out of this with disposable income, then they are ready to go shopping once it's over and get the economy moving again. It may cause a rise in inflation if governments choose some version of printing money to accompany borrowing, but short-term that's not going to lead to a Zimbabwe situation.

So, I think the government will continue to borrow their way out of this. Certain newspapers will bang on about rising national debt, but it's not really something to panic about, especially when compared to the alternative.

Edited April 20, 2020 by JTS98

[Ludo*1]

1 hour ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Scots are voting for the Tories because they think Labour and SNP are worse.

There is no other explanation.

Then they are fucking morons.

We can appreciate that some people think the SNP want to break up the island and that's a bad thing, I disagree with it, but for the older generation I can at least get my head round it.

Labour are an irrelevance. They'd be a disaster - and they just scream incompetence so again I can understand why people don't vote for them.

Still doesn't make me understand why people think the most evil c***s in the land are electable though. I'd much prefer genuine incompetence or someone I profoundly disagree with coming into power than someone that's blatantly an evil b*****d. Yet, a sizeable minority in Scotland still believe they are the way ahead.