A Richard Murphy
Richard Murphy – formerly Senior Lecturer at Islington Technical College – tells us that the British economy will suffer from the coronavirus to the same extent that it near fell over in 2008.
Rishi Sunak would be wise to consider all such measures. But he needs to do something much more than that. He needs to prepare for government deficits on the scale of 2008 to 2010, because the chance that they are going to happen is very high. There are three reasons for saying so.
Well, there’s his prediction.
A 5 or 6% fall in UK GDP. Leading to 10% of GDP budget deficits:
No, I don;t think so either. I expect this all to be over very quickly. Partly because China’s already recovering, partly because we’re arriving at the Northern Hemisphere spring and therefore the summer in which ‘flu viruses don;t thrive and partly because disease just isn’t that important to an economy.
But let’s just take this as a marker from the Sage of Ely and see what happens, shall we?
The language we use matters - it provides clarity to our own thoughts and enables…
It is now generally acknowledged that the structure of the NHS needs to be overhauled…
In the film Apollo 13, a loss of oxygen causes the crew to start inadvertently…
There's an idea out there which seems intuitive but then so many ideas do seem…
When we think about the darkly opaque goals of modern central bankers as they relate…
As the papers recently filled with the distressing images of desperate souls looking to escape…
View Comments
I do agree with you. Maybe white haired old bastards like me are a bit at risk. But I don't really expect society as a whole to notice a bad flu season.
Does he define "very high" odds? Or are definitions superfluous when you are agitating for government activism?
Well he's put his cock on the block. Let's see him worm his way out of this one.
As I understand from various doctors coronavirus is not like flu and will not recede as we exit winter. So far its death rate has been higher too, by quite some way. Its interesting to look at proxies such as coal usage in Chinese power plants, which show no recovery from the lows associated with Chinese New Year and suggest economic activity is 20% down or more.
We will see, and hopefully it will be nothing much.
Either this is or isn't a truly damaging pandemic, time will tell. Theoretically it could be a 21st C Black Death but more likely it isn't. However, one day the chances of a modern day plague that kills millions upon millions is likely, such is the nature of biology. Personally I refuse to panic, for in panic there is a great deal of harm. So I will just KBO and hope and expect that others will do the same.
Panic about coronavirus could have this effect, even if the virus itself doesn't.