This is a pretty harrowing two minutes: It was woefully disingenious of Hancock to say treat PPE as a precious resource – the hospital or care home has a legal duty of care towards its staff – period. And that includes a duty of care by the health secretary himself. Then to infer that the… Read more
Category:
Coronavirus
Numbing servitude is your future if you wish…
There is a wonderful post from the comedian Frankie Boyle here: Writing on our current Coronavirus problems he suggests: The whole crisis does raise some interesting questions though: if we all agree that we can’t have the weakest people in society dying as a healthcare system, then why do we tolerate it as an economic… Read more
The perfect excuse to remain…
So Johnson is being looked after by a member of the medical profession who is here as the veritable result of EU ‘freedom of movement’: For the avoidance of doubt he is an NHS doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’. As David Graeber has said “Boris Johnson is a heartless bastard but I’m not, so… Read more
The Treasury Select Committee are on the case – but are they in time?
As their statements and copy letter show, this is urgent. But the failings of the Coronavirus compensation are so obvious that I just cannot understand what Sunak is doing at the Treasury – he seemingly has no concept of urgency. Whilst he may be a millionaire and married to the daughter of a billionaire he… Read more
Assets and Debts are simply a matter of marketing…
I’m influenced by some objections to my Positive Money (PoMo) accepts Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) article. Yes, sure, PoMo always accepted that money could be created, but it was supposed to be by a beefed-up, or entirely separate, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee. That is not Direct Monetary Funding or Financing – that is… Read more
The US’s privatised healthcare disaster
Starting with New York, the US is clearly in a current and incipient Coronavirus disaster. With Trump vague on much, if any, support, the US individual lack of (state created) money doesn’t bear thinking about – as this well put together and interesting half hour video episode of Ross Ashcroft’s ‘Renegade Inc’ all too evidently… Read more
Spanish UBI may well be forthcoming
The Spanish (Socialist coalition) government is looking to roll out a Universal Basic Income (UBI) it seems. Although the British Prime Minister may be in intensive care, importantly, so too are the lives and livelihoods of many of the rest of the British. Radical measures are needed. So it seems entirely logical that the Spanish… Read more
The banking party
In the old joke about hell the French were supposed to be the mechanics and the chefs were British. Times have changed; not only are British chefs rather good but so too are the French much better at the ‘mechanics’ of society. The French government’s emergency, state funded, unemployment pay of 84% of normal wages… Read more
Debt is control
Nick Macpherson, former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury has tweeted: Writing off NHS trust debt only justifiable if correlated with high pressure areas, eg London. Otherwise an inefficient way of addressing resource constraints. Of course, it adds another 0.7% to national debt/national income ratio. This crisis is becoming expensive. #soundmoney Which comment is, as many… Read more
Criticism all round – even from your major supporter abroad
When even the Trump administration – and indeed the man himself – ridicules the UK government’s covid-19 policies you are not in a good place… Hers is a good point of course, but it would be better still when we know that the survival rate on a ventilator is roughly 50:50, I understand. Whereas fewer… Read more