Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis part 2 - Ireland

[seventiesdemon]

you miss lots of difficulties.

How many people have been saved from covid by all the interventions? All we have is a total of people who all these measures still failed to save. Its a calculus of failure, not success. Tell me how many were saved, not how many died anyway.

What we can say is the the UK and US and similar european countries have numbers x10 worse than other countries have managed, with placesas diverse as india and Japan doing much better. Sweden with a policy of less intervention did better than the UK.

Governments habitually allow people to die who could be kept alive a bit longer but at more expense. This should be obvious to you, that its a choice who we allow to die and how much we are willing to pay per life year saved. Covid has been incredibly expensive in life years saved, way beyond what government would normally agree to spend.

How do you reconcile the much greater money being spent now per life year saved from covid, compared to the normal refusal to spend the same in every other year? Who is the hypocrite here?

Most people dying from covid have rather low life expectancy. low for their age group, that is, but most are of course old anyway. saving a life is much more a short postponement than a victory. We saw this in action in the Uk spring 2020 when the NHS chose not to treat older people, but for example boris Johnson in his 50s but very ill was a good candidate for treatment because if you kept him going now he has a good life expectancy still.

Measured by excess deaths, fatalites attributed to covid have fallen steadily through the epidemic, so that last i looked from May, we were in a negative excess deaths situation. So fewer people than normal were dying during this allegedly fatal epidemic. Since Novemeber some 40% of deaths attributed to covid are below the average deaths rate. There has been much talk about how many people have died as a result of not getting treatment for other diseases during the crisis. This has to be chalked up to mis management, and would reduce the real excess of deaths due to covid illness even further.

So make a case how what has been done has really saved lives, how many lives and at what cost for each.

Cost? Not one point you make in all the posts you give of your own personal situation.

What I look at Dandy, is what people omit from their posts in their answers. I read through the paragraphs.......yet I always look for what is not there. You are always willing to let them be statistics.

Never, not at anytime do you mention, parents, grand parents, great grand parents. Your ancestors, your elderly who posses the wisdom from years past. Held you, told you stories, showed you photos. Those whom have lived though virus, world war and depression.

Yet you, like Boris, are willing to let them be statistics, after their sacrifice for the young to live the life they do now? They give their life they missed out on when they were young.................again in their elder years?

Why is that?

Cost?? I think it's more along the lines of we Owe. Don't you think? But, obviously you don't. You have a health system built upon what they sacrificed. Yet you think they are expendable. Are they the selfish?

 

[Industrialsize]

you miss lots of difficulties.

How many people have been saved from covid by all the interventions? All we have is a total of people who all these measures still failed to save. Its a calculus of failure, not success. Tell me how many were saved, not how many died anyway.

What we can say is the the UK and US and similar european countries have numbers x10 worse than other countries have managed, with placesas diverse as india and Japan doing much better. Sweden with a policy of less intervention did better than the UK.

Governments habitually allow people to die who could be kept alive a bit longer but at more expense. This should be obvious to you, that its a choice who we allow to die and how much we are willing to pay per life year saved. Covid has been incredibly expensive in life years saved, way beyond what government would normally agree to spend.

How do you reconcile the much greater money being spent now per life year saved from covid, compared to the normal refusal to spend the same in every other year? Who is the hypocrite here?

Most people dying from covid have rather low life expectancy. low for their age group, that is, but most are of course old anyway. saving a life is much more a short postponement than a victory. We saw this in action in the Uk spring 2020 when the NHS chose not to treat older people, but for example boris Johnson in his 50s but very ill was a good candidate for treatment because if you kept him going now he has a good life expectancy still.

Measured by excess deaths, fatalites attributed to covid have fallen steadily through the epidemic, so that last i looked from May, we were in a negative excess deaths situation. So fewer people than normal were dying during this allegedly fatal epidemic. Since Novemeber some 40% of deaths attributed to covid are below the average deaths rate. There has been much talk about how many people have died as a result of not getting treatment for other diseases during the crisis. This has to be chalked up to mis management, and would reduce the real excess of deaths due to covid illness even further.

So make a case how what has been done has really saved lives, how many lives and at what cost for each.

Wow

 

[g0nz0]

Straw man. no one said it did.
But you just said...
thats the point, the vaccine uses the machinery of human cells to replicate viral proteins which are released in to the blood. It does take over human cells, and that must make them targets of our immune system. Thats deliberate, we want to create cell killers too. So in the process it will end up with some of our body cells killed.

You just said it there again. The vaccine doesn't replicate. The mRNA is *translated* into proteins.

Viral replication is something entirely different - it is the formation of new viruses during the infection process in the target host cells. The vaccine does not do this. Terminology is important.

Straw man. no one said it did.

Perhaps you can reply just how many protein copies are created by one RNA strand which arrives in situ in a cell? I would think it goes on creating viral protein until the cell gets killed?

No, the cell getting killed isn't what turns it off.

mRNA turnover is a highly regulated process, and sequences within the mRNA itself can determine the rate of its decay. mRNA essentially has a half-life which determines the (more or less) fixed quantity of proteins it produces.

mRNAs usually have relatively short lifespans within a cell. There are other parts of the mRNA that control its stability and there are several surveillance pathway to degrade unwanted mRNA, such as the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), non-stop decay and no-go decay.

So while there may be a multiplier effect (in mRNA translated to proteins), it is roughly known and quantifiable and it isn't a replication in the biological virus sense.

I presume this is a limiting factor in the dose which is given, too much would certainly make people sick. I'm not saying there is any real harm happening, we replace vast numbers of cells every day. Just observing this IS what is happening and you would die from an overdose of vaccine (of course, thats not unusual with medicines).

That's a bit of a random argument -- I don't quite get the point you are attempting to make? Consuming too much of almost anything can kill. You can die from drinking too much water, for instance (water intoxication).

The viral load is one of the factors that causes severe Covid. Vaccine doses are much lower, deactivated/unable to replicate, and thus safer all around.

Did I also see that vaccine is supposed to be injected into muscle and not the bloodstream? Presumably that causes the vaccine to infect nearby muscle cells, which are fairly expendable. if it enters the bloodstream it could end by killing cells anywhere or doing important tasks.

That's not actual the reason - which is why presumptions can so often lead you down the wrong path.

I guess that vaccines could be modified to work when injected into the vein, but there isn't any immune response advantage and there certainly plenty of additional practical difficulties, so why bother?

From a practical perspective, injecting into a vein is more difficult, would take longer and certainly be more error prone. By contrast, intramuscular injection is super quick, and requires minimal skill.

From an immunological standpoint, intravenous injection of an antigen is more likely to result in severe complications in the case of a strong reaction, whereas intramuscular is more likely to just result in localised pain and swelling.

From an efficacy perspective, intramuscular injections are used because the muscles are pretty vascular sites and there is a strong and quick immune response. In blood, you'd also require much more antigen to generate a similarly strong response due to dilution.

Incidentally, the old traditional buttocks injection is no longer favoured, as the layers of fat don't contain the phagocytic or antigen-presenting cells needed to effectively initiate the immune response. Any resulting antigen could take much longer to reach the circulation after deposition in fat, leading to other difficulties. For example, the antigens may end up being denatured by enzymes in fat.

Intramuscular wins!

 

[dandelion]

You have a health system built upon what they sacrificed. Yet you think they are expendable.

i already said it but you seem to have missed it. it is always possible to extend life by spending more. society could spend every last penny it earns on health. So thats no TV, no amusements, no consumer goods, no holidays, minimalist homes, basic food, no education... and the old would live a bit longer. You really believe that should be our policy?

Since you want a personal answer, my late mother at the end of her life refused further treatment. One reason she stated was she would prefer the money be spent on someone to whom it could do more good. Terry Pratchett on discovering he had early onset altzheimers campaigned for the right to end his life at a time of his choosing rather than continue in decaying mental capacity.

You make a grave mistake demanding eternal life for yourself at any cost to society.

 

[g0nz0]

So according to a Sky News report it seems that the ONS estimates 952,000 people in the UK were infected during the week to July 24 - indicating the trend is in fact increasing
COVID-19: Has third wave already peaked or not?

Then we have https://twitter.com/ReicherStephen/status/1421047400228134914 where PHE data suggests that cases have fallen to around 25-30,000 per day, and the Zoe app data, based on reported symptoms, suggest that cases haven't fallen and remain at about 60,000 per day.

Finally, we have COVID-19: Sewage surveillance reveals 'widespread increase' of coronavirus in England last month which tells us that English shit is literally riddled with SARS-CoV-2 - indicating infection rates are sky high.

UK figures are a mess. They have been from the start, but it looks like they’re only getting worse… The simplest plausible explanation is continued political interference with testing logistics.

The good news appears to be that deaths and hospitalizations with severe disease are still holding thus far, albeit with a lot of trepidation over the Beta variant and how ineffectual it does or does not make the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The next few weeks will tell a lot - whether Boris’ Great Pandemic Take-Back-Control Freedom Day experiment is working, or whether it is causing significant increases in mostly avoidable mortality.

 

[Jason]

UK figures are a mess. They have been from the start, but it looks like they’re only getting worse… The simplest plausible explanation is continued political interference with testing logistics.

The good news appears to be that deaths and hospitalizations with severe disease are still holding thus far, albeit with a lot of trepidation over the Beta variant and how ineffectual it does or does not make the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The next few weeks will tell a lot - whether Boris’ Great Pandemic Take-Back-Control Freedom Day experiment is working, or whether it is causing significant increases in mostly avoidable mortality.

Agreed, figures are a mess. They cannot all be right!

NHS has released a report setting out that the number of Coronavirus cases in hospitals has been over-stated throughout the pandemic. The headline figure is that a quarter of those recorded with coronavirus shouldn’t be. In effect the real figure has been inflated by a third. This is a long-term problem with the figures. And of course government decision about resources and lockdown used these figures.

in the case of the NHS figures the supposition is that it suited the NHS to inflate them. It is hard to see that anyone else benefitted. This is a smoking gun story as it does suggest someone senior pushed for wrong figures to be submitted to support. The NHS’s resource demand.

It is beyond shocking that we are still struggling with basic figures. Hospital admission figures are now reasonably low and steady, but still collected on the method that is over-inflating by a third. Presumably they should be lower.

deaths still include anyone with a positive coronavirus test within 28 days even if coronavirus didn’t cause the death.

the UK sewage figures are using a methodology which has been changed to pick up even smaller fragments. There are real problems with comparing with any past data.

ONS data lags. PHE is more recent.

it makes sense to look also at hospital bed occupancy (some of the lowest ever) and excess deaths (a lagging indicator, but the most recent show deaths well below average).

the figures just seem chaotic. I think we have consistently over stated deaths and hospital cases. Maybe we need some sort of revision. I cannot see any good from using wrong data.

the issue around unlocking is “if not now, when?” It is very hard to see that there will ever be a better time. The alternative is to stay locked up forever. We therefore accept coronavirus deaths as inevitable along with deaths from anything else.

 

[dandelion]

UK figures are a mess.

Well theres something we can agree on gonzo. i think test and trace has been a vast waste of money, and at least when investigated this year parliament agreed. But what ought to have been created is a robust prevalence monitoring system using testing, and it simply has not happened.

Instead what i think we have created is a government testing system which has corrupted the other monitoring schemes people have tried to run, ie the ONS monitoring which I think is done by oxford university and a polling company. The react study which is imperial, and zoe from Kings. each of these has a method which ought to work for establishing repeatable test conditions over time. ONS has a big panel regularly tested. react chooses random people to test each round, Kings/zoe uses several million people regularly reporting if they feel ill using a phone app (with follow up testing). So three different ways ought to be rather useful.

The problem I see is that all respondents are asked to report a history, and if they have had government testing it will affect the results of the surveys by inflating numbers of positive tests. If government testing was stable this wouldnt matter, but it increases with time maybe now by x100 over the duration of the epidemic. so more and more external cases are being included. But even worse, government testing changes short term depending on its policy whims, so the nature of the bias it is imposing on the other surveys keeps changing too.

The simplest plausible explanation is continued political interference with testing logistics.

i think we are seeing an aspect of the pingdemic.

Government testing has always imposed positive feedback on case number reports. if there is the start of an outbreak, government sends in more testing, which would find more cases even if there is no rise at all. But generally any rise gets exaggerated in their figures. Similarly, as soon as it starts to fall testing scales down and exaggerates the rate of fall.

This time we relaxed movement restrictions, which meant the government phone app shot up in reports of close encounters between infected and non infected people. these people were told to isolate and took tests. the great majority of these reports are false alarms. But the outcome was many more people taking tests and so more cases being reported. Even if the number of real cases remained exactly the same, as there is more and more movement it will cause more and more testing and therefore more and more cases reported. An illusion of a rising epidemic which is really measuring more movement of people.

Since more people have reports of positive tests they would not have known about otherwise, these also get reported when peope take part in the other surveys of prevalence, which all ask people about their history. And so a government fake epidemic becomes a fake epidemic in these other measures too.

The government phone app has been another disaster. Its use should have been discontinued or its sensitivity scaled back as measures were relaxed. Its pointless trying to slow an epidemic when your policy is to relax restrictions and let it run.

 

[Freddie53]

Dont know. no one has ever taken a human population, divided it in half to each group and counted. no one has repeated this experiment after 1 wave of covid, 2 waves of covid, etc, to see how much each wave reduces deaths by natural immunity/depletion.

At the moment deathes seem to be lower compared to previous outbreaks by a factor something like 1/10. We dont know how much of that is due to vaccine, how much to post infection immunity, or simply because many high risk are already dead.

You seem to be missing the point as things stand. Death rate falls something like x1/2 for every 4-5 years younger people are. That means the huge majority of deaths is amongst pensioners, and its generally considered pretty low risk below maybe 50. Especially if you separate out people with medical conditions predisposing them to covid. All that has been done in the Uk and all these people vaccinated.

if you look at the halving rate, assume death rate at top age group is 1, next 5 years 1/2, next 1/4, next 1/8... you get a mathematical series where most deaths are in the oldest age group. Thats true whatever starting point you take. it means vaccinating the oldest is far far more important than vaccinating the youngest in reducing deaths.

The public issue at the moment is only about vaccinating low risk people unlikely to come to harm from covid, most of whom remaining unvaccinated are now at more risk of dying from accidents than covid.

No case has been made that herd immunity is possible which might help protect older people, because all the experts are saying this is rather unlikely however many you vaccinate. Because vaccine does not work well enough at stopping reinfections.

Meanwhile, most covid cases have always been amongst the young, amongst whom few die. They have always been the reservoir of infection pushing cases into the older population. Get rid of that reservoir and deaths immediately fall because the old cease being infected. Many people survive epidemics not because they are immune or vaccinated, but because the disease never reaches them. So the strategy to minimise deaths has always been to get the epidemic over fast amongst the young and it will disappear amongst the old too. We did not do this 14 months ago, but chose instead to deliberately keep it going. That was the critical decision which went wrong.

Government is unwilling to admit we could have ended this long since with a much lower deaths total by letting the youngest segment of the population be infected fast. That wouldnt make the old safe, they would still have needed a vaccine when it arrived, but it would have made them safer until it did.

There seems quite a bit of evidence Hastings in the Uk had covid winter 19/20. Yet deaths must have remained within normal winter levels, because they did not create an alarm. An unrestricted outbreak seems to have been safer than the later ones with restrictions and lockdowns.

I've followed your understanding about COVID from the beginning. I live in a rural area where I know more people than I don't know.

I have discussed COVID with people age 50 who did come down with COVID. They tell me that for them, COVID was no worse than the common cold.

However, we have had a new strain appear on the scene, the delta mutation. Government officials here in the states are telling us that COVID has much more symptoms for the young adults than did the original strain. There have been several reports of young adults dying from he delta strain. It appears to me from what I have read that the death rate for young adults is higher for those who contract COVID delta than for those who contracted the original several months ago.

My question to you, Dandy, is how should we proceed in the future to this delta strain? From your prospective what changes by government and medical personnel need to be made now that the delta strain is much more prevalent?

We Americans are being told that the delta strain is 9 times more contagious than the original strain. In areas where less than 40 % of adults have received their jabs, hospitals are already full of COVID patients.

Is the concept of letting all the young adults getting exposed (when we were dealing with the original strain) a good idea now that this delta strain is here with much more serious symptoms than did the original?

 

[Jason]

I keep coming back to Boris Johnson’s comment on unlockIng: “if not now, when?” The UK picked summer, as schools broke up, and with very high vaccination rates (adults 90%+ single, 70%+ double). There was talk of waiting to the end of the summer until more were double vaccinated, but that is going to mean the schools back and weather worsening.

For nations (or perhaps areas of USA) where vaccination rates are high then I think we have to unlock. Maybe in the community you describe @Freddie53 there’s a case for a very local lockdown, or for use of some sort of emergency hospital for coronavirus patients.

in UK I think we have to continue with the return to normal ASAP. I think it’s difficult for Australia (delta present and low vaccination rates). And we are just not getting all that much news anymore from nations where vaccine rates are low.

 

[dandelion]

However, we have had a new strain appear on the scene, the delta mutation. Government officials here in the states are telling us that COVID has much more symptoms for the young adults than did the original strain.

In the UK it was reported this spring that symptoms for covid have become milder. I have seen no evidence that symptoms from delta are worse, though obviously with an increasing percentage vaccinated you would expect all symptoms milder. There is no evidence of worse disease amongst youngsters, just that it is a bigger proportion of all disease what with older people having been vaccinated more. Plus an unknown contribution from the millions in the Uk who have already had covid and attained immunity that way. That has to be single digit millions, but could be tens of millions by now immune through infection. Sage recently confirmed they really dont know how many have already had covid. Could be half the population, but it will be a larger proportion amongst the young than old (which nicely compliments the vaccination program).

Its quite hard to say whether you would expect delta to have worse symptoms or not. Infection is a balance between the virus' capacity to get into us, and our 'immunity' from several different sources to prevent it. As one goes up, the other may too. So its possible as we have become more immune on average, so covid has changed and become more effective at infecting. So someone who never had covid mught now be in a worse position and get sicker. But not necessarily, it rather depends exactly how it has changed. It doesnt help the virus to kill people and probably doesnt to make them very ill either. Its optimum is probably someone still able to go out and about.

My question to you, Dandy, is how should we proceed in the future to this delta strain? From your prospective what changes by government and medical personnel need to be made now that the delta strain is much more prevalent?

I dont think it makes any difference. It seems vaccines are less effective, but that changes nothing - those are the vaccines we have. I have persistently maintained the best strategy has always been isolating and protecting the high risk while the rest catch covid. vaccine is obviously a way to protect the high risk, and its all we have. if half the population has been vaccinated starting from the oldest thats about as good as it gets. Further on down is very clearly diminishing returns.

Its also possible infection will give better protection against future strains than the vaccine. This is an unknowable thing at the moment. On the one hand covid might mutate to something even better at evading vaccine than delta strain. On the other, different theories of how viruses work argue its scope to do so may be more limited. It depends on whether the model is a thing which steadily and remorselessly keeps changing, or whether its more like a swiss army penknife with lots of blades, but it can only bring out the blades it always had in waiting.

i believe I had covid in 2019. Evidence is anyone who has had covid has pretty good immunity as a result and should be safe. thats partly because they will have boosted their original immunity, but also because they know they arent one of the unlucky ones who were more susceptible from the outset. many more will have had covid than are officially recorded as having had covid, and most of these will be young (nb including in this context people more normally called middle aged, young as contrasted to old.). I further think the only way out of this is the same model as colds or flu where we do nothing much to prevent spread. Infection generates updated immunity and keeps you safe for the future, for when you do get old and start to up your risk. It should be allowed to take over from vaccine immunity.

For those for whom vaccines work poorly, their best bet is whatever benefit the vaccine can give, plus hoping everyone else hurries up and catches it so it is over.

The irony I see is that human immunity had this disease covered from the outset. All we needed to do was nothing and it would have taken care of things no worse than we managed by intervening. A vaccination program in 2019 would have helped, but obviously thats a pointless observation. For the future, it all depends what happens next, but we do not have any choice but to test the current vaccinated population against new strains.

In everything, the sooner its over, the better.

 

[dandelion]

but that is going to mean the schools back and weather worsening.

I think closing schools was a bad mistake. it simply created a reservoir population to re-start the outbreak last september. i just hope their measures to stop spread in schools this year failed, so the same does not happen again.

For nations (or perhaps areas of USA) where vaccination rates are high then I think we have to unlock.

deaths from covid halve for about every 5 years younger. contemplating the implications of this demonstrates that vaccinating the younger half of the population has negligible benefit compared to vaccinating the older half.

I think it’s difficult for Australia (delta present and low vaccination rates).

Moment of maximum risk for them. Especially maximum political risk if you made the decisions in australia.

And we are just not getting all that much news anymore from nations where vaccine rates are low.

My prediction it will die out without vaccination. Theres decent evidence in the Uk the death rate had fallen already before vaccines arrived. (although re my point above, the first half million vaccines might have done more good than the next 5 million, than the next 50 million, something like that. hard to quantify it, but that sort of progression)

 

[chrisrobin]

The economies of France Spain and Belgium have been hit as the British vote with their wallets in protest of the UK's treatment by Brussels.

In research done by the pro Brexit think tank Facts4EU published today based on figures from the Office for National Statistics last Tuesday indicate sales into the UK by members of the EU27 in the last 12 months were £27.8billion lower than in 2016.In the study, based on the same ONS figures, it lists the principal losers.
Starting with Germany, which has seen exports to the UK fall by an eye-watering £12.2billion compared with five years ago.
Belgium is the second-biggest loser with a £3.7billion drop, closely followed by
France on £3.3billion, with
Spain losing out to the tune of £2.6billion and the
Netherlands (£2.7billion),
Sweden (£1.2billion) and the
Czech Republic (£1.1billion) have also been hit.

Any move by British people and businesses to buy less from EU27 companies has nothing to do with the British public's views about the citizens of EU27 countries.
If there is a trend away from buying from EU27 companies, we suggest that attention be focused on Brussels and the fanatical ideologues who reside and work there.

 

[Jason]

There has been a short-term economic hit to the UK through Brexit. However it has been camouflaged by coronavirus and is getting minimal media attention. A reasonable political calculation is that no one cares. Medium and long-term it seems much better, with the UK economy set to grow faster than that of any EU nation. Historical economists will be arguing for decades about just what the impact was on the UK, but their arguments may lack relevance s no-one really cares.

The hit to EU nations is substantial as @chrisrobin points out. Cumulatively the Brexit hit to the EU has been greater than the hit to the UK, though divided by the EU nations. There’s an important element around perception by people in the EU nations, probably with as many answers as there are nations. It may be that people are just not aware of it. It may also be that some political parties run with it and that it will get domestic media coverage.

UK is rebalancing. It’s not going to be instant, but the trend is for more trade with nations including the Pacific and less with EU. There will be many in UK who embrace this change. Do you want to buy a bottle of French plonk or Australian plonk? Attitudes are shifting. I think the preference is going to be for Australian.

 

[dandelion]

A reasonable political calculation is that no one cares.

They will when the tax bills arrive. no one cares when government is giving away money.

 

[Jason]

They will when the tax bills arrive. no one cares when government is giving away money.

Yes, but these will all be blamed on coronavirus. The politics of the situation are actually quite simple.

Graeme

 

[g0nz0]

The economies of France Spain and Belgium have been hit as the British vote with their wallets in protest of the UK's treatment by Brussels.

In research done by the pro Brexit think tank Facts4EU published today based on figures from the Office for National Statistics last Tuesday indicate sales into the UK by members of the EU27 in the last 12 months were £27.8billion lower than in 2016.In the study, based on the same ONS figures, it lists the principal losers.
Starting with Germany, which has seen exports to the UK fall by an eye-watering £12.2billion compared with five years ago.
Belgium is the second-biggest loser with a £3.7billion drop, closely followed by
France on £3.3billion, with
Spain losing out to the tune of £2.6billion and the
Netherlands (£2.7billion),
Sweden (£1.2billion) and the
Czech Republic (£1.1billion) have also been hit.

Any move by British people and businesses to buy less from EU27 companies has nothing to do with the British public's views about the citizens of EU27 countries.
If there is a trend away from buying from EU27 companies, we suggest that attention be focused on Brussels and the fanatical ideologues who reside and work there.

“Pro Brexit think tank”? Sure that is a contradiction in terms? Funniest thing I heard all day…

Fanatical ideologues indeed… You’re absolutely killing me here… I seem to recall the UK having more than its fair share of those… Brexit was nothing if not about its ideologues… Or have you forgotten about the likes of these photogenic chaps?

How about an impartial report, rather than that Brexiteer nonsense? From UK Trade in the Time of COVID-19: A Review

During 2020, UK goods exports contracted more sharply than those of its international peers. Statistics suggest that UK had a deeper decline and slower recovery than Germany, Italy, Spain, and the US. Further, the trends from 2017-2019 show a weakening in the UK’s global competitiveness, suggesting a more persistent development against the backdrop of productivity slowdown and Brexit uncertainty.
​

Given this backdrop, it is not surprising that the UK imported less, because it can’t afford it!


All joking aside (because those guys are jokes), of course a more balanced macro-view paper (“Brexit: UK services are losing out to EU rivals – but Asia could be big winner”) provides the extra context that both the EU and the UK lose from Brexit. It is a lose-lose scenario, dreamt up by the Brexiteers. By virtue of its enormous size in comparison, the EU is obviously losing less than the UK per-capita. (Put simply, with ~5 times the population, the EU would have to lose 5x in monetary terms for it to be comparable per capita - it is nowhere near that).

Seven months after Britain’s exit from the EU, the chilly effects on UK trade are being felt. Total exports of UK goods and services were down by 13% (£36 billion) and imports down 22% (£66 billion) for January to May 2021 compared to the same period in 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In a separate new ONS report into UK services, exports and imports fell 12% and 24% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period in 2019. To some extent this is due to the pandemic, but the decline with EU countries was more severe (exports down 15% and imports by 39%), which suggests Brexit was relevant too. The difference between services exports to EU and non-EU countries was particularly marked in sectors like construction (-43% vs +24%), maintenance and repair (-62% vs +11%), and manufacturing services (-40% vs -12%).

It seems to confirm that the UK’s services offering has been made less competitive by the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement hardly covering such business. This has left EU members free to decide whether to allow different UK providers into their markets. But as we shall see, other services exporting countries outside the EU may also benefit as a result.

In our recent paper, Ireland looked like the big winner. It has probably benefited from firms relocating and business being re-routed from the UK, not to mention low corporation tax and a young well-educated workforce. Between 2016 and 2019, Ireland’s services exports rose 24% (that’s €144 billion or £123 billion), driven by financial services, IT and transport.​

Ireland looks like the big winner, so there is that I guess. So in general, Brexit has made people in the UK and in Europe poorer. Especially the UK. But apparently it wasn’t about that, right? It was about taking back control, becoming more xenophobic , and deciding yourselves to become poorer… Stiff upper lip, tally ho, while you haemorrhage out your wallets.

Wasn’t it funny that Patel’s claim her asylum bill was worked on in close cooperation with the Police Federation was refuted by the Police Federation The bill that the UN described as so damaging they risked Britain’s ‘global credibility’ and threatened the integrity of the UN refugee convention (which ironically the UK helped write in 1951) failed to find any support with the EU for its aspirations for deportations.

Having successfully left the EU and “gotten Brexit done” (much to the surprise and subsequent chagrin of the Unionists in Northern Ireland, where the oven ready deal seems to be raw in the middle - Boris evidently doesn’t cook much, preferring to live on take-out on the public purse), it seems to have missed the UK’s attention that it also left the “Dublin regulation” mechanism that allows EU governments to transfer applicants back to other member states where they had previously been registered…

You honestly couldn’t make up the level of incompetence, xenophobia, and duplicity of Boris’ government!!!

 

[seventiesdemon]

i already said it but you seem to have missed it. it is always possible to extend life by spending more. society could spend every last penny it earns on health. So thats no TV, no amusements, no consumer goods, no holidays, minimalist homes, basic food, no education... and the old would live a bit longer. You really believe that should be our policy?

Since you want a personal answer, my late mother at the end of her life refused further treatment. One reason she stated was she would prefer the money be spent on someone to whom it could do more good. Terry Pratchett on discovering he had early onset altzheimers campaigned for the right to end his life at a time of his choosing rather than continue in decaying mental capacity.

You make a grave mistake demanding eternal life for yourself at any cost to society.

No-one is demanding eternal life. Your version of a use by date is a number. People can reach 90 even a hundred in excellent health and all of a sudden drop off the perch. Some may suffer a short illness then become well again. People can go their whole lives, not suffer illness, never a drain on the social or medical system. Work, pay their taxes, raise a family. Then, reach an age when for the first, or second time in their lives they need help from a system they have always contributed to. I don't see a problem with that.
No-one should be denied medical treatment based on age. You skate very close to the edge where you use age as a determining factor. What's the move on from that? There's a hell of a lot of people out there who deserve a lot less aid than an oldie at 80 who has put in the hard yards, fought hard to to be part of life, for most of their life. I'm not saying you keep them ticking over at all costs, but they deserve a chance if there is an opportunity of recovery. If they wish to donate their brownie points to another that's all well and good. But we aren't talking cancer, or terminally ill patients.

No-one is in any position to determine the use by date of another, unless they posses the legal right to do so, or have prior consent to turn off the switch. Everyone gets to a stage where they have had enough, either refuse treatment, let nature take it's course.

Just don't get a job in the geriatric field Dandy, don't think you are suited or up for it ...or, don't become an older patient one day, you might come across someone impatient and accidentally bump the switch..

 

[dandelion]

No-one should be denied medical treatment based on age.

Everyone is denied medical treatment based on age. age is the biggest risk factor for all diseases. if you want to stay alive, just dont get older. (and yes, there is research working on this)

No-one is in any position to determine the use by date of another,

You are missing the point., Smoking is another severe risk factor for illness, but some can smoke massively all their lives and never get smoking related diseases. Its still a very strong risk factor. Although it is true some people argue we should refuse to treat people who continue smoking, or refuse to treat people who over eat and so become obese.

I didnt suggest anything of the sort. All I said is society chooses how much it is willing to spend on health care. Medics by and large allocate that money for best effect. And so they withdraw care when they consider it no longer cost effective.

This isnt new, in 1906 George Bernard Shaw wrote a play called the doctors Dilemma. Its about a doctor who has to choose between treating a patient who can afford to pay, and another who cannot but is arguably much more deserving of the treatment. Set at a time where there was little free or state medicine allocated based upon need and benefit.

Things have changed since then, so the NHs or other national care systems mean this choice is less stark. but it still comes down to a political decision on how much money to allocate to health care.

Covid has thrown the normal calculations of cost/benefit out the window. The vast sums spent on covid have not been justified in comparison to normal limits on health spending. Politically it became necessary to be seen to be acting even though simply ignoring covid and spending more each year on health permanently would have done more good in the long run.

 

[Drifterwood]

On a completely different track, the anglosphere (and I am excluding Ireland so as not to upset Gonzo) is currently winning around 35% of the Olympic medals with around 7% of the world's population. How do people feel about that?

 

[Industrialsize]

On a completely different track, the anglosphere (and I am excluding Ireland so as not to upset Gonzo) is currently winning around 35% of the Olympic medals with around 7% of the world's population. How do people feel about that?

This is not even remotely true.
Tokyo Olympics medal tracker: Gold, silver, bronze counts for Team USA, every country at 2020 Games