Home » Posts tagged 'Coronavirus Economy'
Tag Archives: Coronavirus Economy
Rethinking the UK Education System in the Coronavirus Era
It turns out that Coronavirus didn’t magically disappear during 3-months of lockdown, in fact, it seems to be back with a vengeance. And while treatment has improved, those already hit with the nasty virus may have permanent heart damage according to experts who now say that 2/3rds of all COVID-19 survivors suffer from decreased heart function.
Heart Damage Even After COVID-19 ‘Recovery’ Evokes Specter of Later Heart Failure (MedScape.com)
Yes, the miracle drug (hopefully!) Remdesivir may turn COVID-19 from a killer disease into a week or two of self-isolation and flu-like symptoms (which is bad enough, but it beats dying from the Novel Coronavirus) however it doesn’t stop people from catching it. Remdesivir helps patients recover more quickly from the disease — especially the very ill — but nowhere in the literature that accompanies the medicine does it say that it prevents COVID-19.
Coronavirus drug remdesivir to cost $2,340 per patient in the U.S. (GlobalNews.ca)
And (you’ll hate this part) the present Coronavirus strain is merely one version of the larger Coronavirus family with newer versions appearing at irregular intervals. So my bet is that there will be another COVID crisis — perhaps with a more serious variant than the present SARS-CoV-2 (which most people know by the name COVID-19, or the Novel Coronavirus)
Naming the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the virus that causes it (WHO.int)
And now, cats, dogs and ferrets are dying from Coronavirus. Which is not great, as they roam everywhere and like to lick their friends and family to greet them — making pets potential carriers of the disease to unsuspecting humans and to other pets.
So, it looks like Coronavirus is going to be around for a long time; Yes, the treatment is improving, but it’s still a serious disease even with presently available treatments. And a vaccine seems like it will be ‘only a year or two away’ for the next five years — if you take my meaning.
With the “R Rate” Increasing and School Openings Looming, Now’s the Time to Rethink the UK Education System
According to Cambridge University, the R-rate (the rate at which a virus is retransmitted to others) is over 1 to 1, and may be as high as 1 to 1.04 in some parts of the UK.
And that means the UK is (temporarily) losing the battle against COVID-19 — no doubt due to the recently relaxed lockdown and with thousands of people visiting beaches, packed pubs, and other public spaces without the dual disciplines of mask-wearing and regular handwashing.
Coronavirus R rate ‘above one’ in some parts of UK amid second wave fears (TheMirror.co.uk)
So, people, let’s get real. Coronavirus is here to stay. Which means it’s time to make some decisions. These aren’t the kinds of decisions that we can chew on for months;
These are ‘August decisions’ — which means these decisions must be made in August 2020. And these may well turn out to be life and death decisions so don’t shirk your responsibilities to your family and community.
In the Quest for Efficiency, Schools Have Been Getting Larger Every Decade (which is great for efficiency!) But it’s Also Great for Virus Retransmission
Maybe now is the time to reverse the economic efficiency mandate and do what’s best for children’s health, for family health, and for pet health as it may turn out that pets are major retransmitters of Coronavirus.
Think of a school system where all children in Grade I and Grade II attend their classes in one building, while Grades III and IV attend their school in a different location (maybe only blocks away for the convenience of parents who drop-off and pick-up their different-aged kids from school) and Grades V and VI in a different school — again, not too far apart; just let’s have them not breathing the same air.
- None of those proposed schools should have more than 100 pupils per location.
- Grades I and II (for example) plus teachers and vice-principal shouldn’t total more than 120 people.
- That keeps the cohort of potential COVID-19 infections to a small number of people.
- And similar applies for other grades; III and IV in another school, V and VI in another location, and grades VII and VIII in another building, etc.,
- Gymnasiums could be in a 5th (nearby) location, and employ a reservation system.
YES! Schools would become more numerous, much smaller and more quickly built!
If China can build two Coronavirus hospitals in one week, the UK should be able to build two 100-pupil schools per county, per week, in the UK.
How China Built Two Coronavirus Hospitals in Just Over a Week (WallStreetJournal.com)
All that needs doing is to source the land and plunk some fast-build structures in place designed to hold 120-people.
If you know anything about construction challenges — that’s about the smallest challenge ever offered to large construction firms! — especially if they decide to use ‘modular’ design, and much of the construction could be done in factories that already produce construction-site oriented buildings or other temporary buildings.
Companies all over the UK could be building these structures during August and deliver them in time for the beginning of the school year. ‘On-time and On-budget’ please!
High School kids might need to wait a few weeks for their buildings to be delivered, but nothing that would stop them from completing their studies by June 2021.
Parents, School Districts and Various Levels of Government: Now is NOT the Time to be Timid; Now is the Time to Leap Forward to a Decentralized School Buildings Model!
There are some great school buildings in the UK — some with a brilliant history. Sir Isaac Newton was schooled in the UK, for example.
And there’s no doubt that special buildings should be preserved as an entire generation switches over to small cohort school buildings. Such valuable buildings could become museums, City Hall office spaces, office space for MP’s and doctors/dentists, etc., or be carefully preserved and listed — but leased to companies for office space.
But for now, keeping kids safe should be the main concern.
Decentralizing the present school buildings/location model might be the way to dramatically lower the R-rate and simultaneously prevent the UK economy from failing during future waves of Coronavirus (or other virus) infections throughout the country.
And we can do that by keeping cohort sizes small among school-aged children by educating them in small, relatively inexpensive, modular school buildings, in handy locations for parents and kids in each and every neighbourhood throughout the UK.
As COVID-19 appears to be with us indefinitely, it’s time to build new and smaller schools and thereby reduce future retransmission of infectious diseases.
Two Surefire Ways to Stimulate the post-COVID Economy
Eliminating the VAT until December 31 would stimulate the UK economy so much that by 2021 the economic hit from COVID-19 would be completely reversed.
Prior to July 08, 2020 the VAT in the United Kingdom was 20% on most items. However, the government sought to stimulate spending in the tourism sector by lowering their VAT to 15% on most items and admissions. Which was a bit underwhelming. To say the least.
I understand that the present UK government is Conservative-led and that caution rules their thinking, but a 5% cut to the VAT is nothing. They might as well not bother as it’s likely to have little effect.
Yes, they’re concerned about driving up the deficit in a (perhaps) uncertain economy. But let’s not feed that uncertainty by underwhelming the credit rating agencies!
Uncertain times call for CERTAINTY, not TINKERING with the economy.
Even Canada, a Country of 38-Million People Saw Fit to Run a $256 Billion Deficit to Assist Canadians
By contrast, the UK government which leads a country of 67-million people has cringed at running a deficit of £361.5 billion. That’s too little, too late, I’m afraid.
UK public borrowing to exceed £350bn with Sunak stimulus plan (FT.com)
To run with Canada and other Western nations in the post-COVID economic recovery period, the UK must do better than that!
Basic arithmetic will tell you that to meet Canada’s level of committent to its citizens, the UK with 67-million people would need to spend £451 billion in 2020.
That’s real money, delivered into the hands of Britons and British businesses to be spent in the UK economy to restart the UK economy.
Really, at this point, there’s nothing more important than restarting the UK economy; Debt-to-GDP and the present deficit are unimportant next to restarting the economy.
Rishi Sunak — nice person that he is — has listened to too many Conservative MP’s and not enough to economists, citizens, and the UK business community.
Normally, it would be a fine thing that a Chancellor of the Exchequer would pay such close attention to MP’s, as it signifies that the Chancellor is a good listener, but now is not the time to listen to overly-cautious (non-economist) Parliamentarians… now is the time to act boldly!
Regular Readers Know I Complain about Deficit Spending
But I only complain because, historically speaking (some) governments were just too lazy to oversee every pound spent in the economy and thereby engaged in deficit spending even when the economy was rocketing along with a high annual growth rate. And folks, there’s no excuse for that. It’s lazy bookkeeping and governments should be tossed from power whenever they fall below that level of fiscal responsibility.
The reason we need to be prudent with our spending during the boom times is so that we have some economic room to manoeuvre when things hit the fan, as they invariably do from time to time. Such as during Coronavirus, such as during the US subprime mortgage crisis, during times of high unemployment, or times of labour strife. And that’s the whole point of this blog post.
Governments need to be fiscally responsible during the boom times so there’s money to deal with things like Coronavirus.
Former Chancellor George Osborne was exceptionally prudent during a time of crisis (and unfairly) wasn’t able to retain his position long enough to enjoy the good times when they returned. He surely would’ve made the best of it — but was on the wrong side of Brexit — very unfortunately for him, and for the UK.
And unfortunately for Rishi Sunak — who is an easy person to like — he’s trying to please Conservative party stalwarts instead of trying to goose the economy to the same level as the UK’s competitor nations. And while we all like Rishi, that doesn’t work for him.
Please, Mr. Chancellor, put the UK’s stimulus spending to the same per capita footing as other Western economies to allow the UK to rocket out of the economic doldrums like an F-35 taking off from the deck of the HMS Prince of Wales… So important!
The Easiest Way to Stimulate the Economy…
Is by ‘topping-up’ the income of every adult British citizen in the UK to £1250 per month via a reverse income tax — thereby instantly replacing every other (overlapping and prohibitively expensive to administer) anti-poverty programme that poverty-stricken people receive assistance from in the UK, and that ‘top-up’ should also include any senior citizen who lives under the official poverty line in the UK.
For those earning over (approx) £20,000/yr. those people wouldn’t receive money from such a programme.
But for those living under the official poverty line amount, their income should be topped-up to £1250 per month in one payment from HMRC. And every pound sterling of that money will be spent in the local economy allowing that person to live and be ready to work when the economy improves, meaning 100% of that stimulus money will be spent in the economy.
Which is quite unlike when the government hands billions to corporations, where 50% of that stimulus goes straight to shareholders, many of whom may not live in the UK, spend money in the UK, nor retire in the UK. Therefore, half of any (corporate) stimulus money the government hands to corporations flies out of the UK never to be seen again. And that should be illegal. Certainly, if taxpayers knew the extent of this since 1950 there’d be a civil war.
The Coronavirus Economy NEEDS a Guaranteed Basic Income NOW! (LetterToBritain.com)
But my plea to the UK’s excellent Chancellor isn’t about plugging that particular loophole (yet) it’s about spending another £100 billion in the economy to better compete with other economies so the UK doesn’t get left behind in 2021 — and putting real money in the hands of Britons who will spend 100% of that money in local UK economies, instead of the government helping to make foreign shareholder returns more generous.
With the greatest respect, Mr. Sunak, it’s over to you!
The Coronavirus Economy NEEDS a Guaranteed Basic Income NOW!
Well, it appears that Coronavirus returned with a vengeance this week, just as I predicted.
The reasons for it’s return are both simple and complicated, and those reasons are; ONE: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic Western governments sat around waiting for someone to tell them what to do, and when someone didn’t, they sat some more, allowing the Novel Coronavirus to spread to thousands of people, who then infected many more thousands of people.
Mind you, once medical professionals told Western governments that Coronavirus represented an existential threat to their countries, they moved quickly to direct citizens towards healthier choices such as ‘social distancing’ and the wearing of PPE’s whenever they left their homes and only essential service workers were permitted to travel to and from work. Both modalities were surprisingly effective in reducing further airborne transmission of the disease.
TWO: A good example of the complete lack of personal responsibility shown by some is represented in the photo below, taken only days ago when the COVID-19 alert threshold was lowered (slightly) and thousands of people (who obviously AREN’T healthcare professionals) mobbed the beaches, disregarding the recently relaxed Coronavirus social distancing rules.
Bournemouth beaches under slightly relaxed lockdown rules. Image courtesy of SkyNews.
Consequently, the huge sacrifice made by millions of Britons staying home under lockdown for two months may be in vain!
And many may now catch the disease and perhaps die because a number of Britons lacked the personal discipline to adhere to the (recently relaxed) Coronavirus social distancing requirements!
Let’s hope it turns out that by sheer dumb luck only small numbers of Britons will subsequently catch the disease and suffer or even die on account of the irresponsible actions of those beach going Britons.
Why the UK Needs a Guaranteed Basic Income for the Coronavirus Economy
Due to initially slow response by Western governments (but see the effective response to COVID-19 mounted by South Korea here) and due to the lack of discipline shown by some Britons, it looks like Coronavirus is here to stay for the next two years. At least.
Not only that, but there WILL BE another COVID variant arising this year or next that may prove deadlier than the present Coronavirus pathogen. It’s typical of respiratory viruses that they mutate and those mutations often become more effective at terminating the lives they infect. ‘Nature of the beast’ as they say in virology labs around the world.
So, the economy can’t continue to be locked down and survive Coronavirus indefinitely. It needs real money to be earned, spent, taxed, and reinvested in the whole economy every day of the year.
Consequently, when large numbers of people aren’t working during the COVID-19 lockdown, money stops flowing and businesses begin to die. And that’s terrible for the economy. And it’s even more terrible for individuals who live from paycheque to paycheque as their cash and ‘fridge contents dwindle for as long as the crisis continues.
That’s why it’s no surprise that many headed to the beach over the past few days to gain respite from the living hell they experienced over the past weeks.
See how things are so connected? Demographers see it everyday.
To stabilize the economy and to prevent irreparable harm to persons during this and future Coronavirus lockdowns, the UK needs to institute a Guaranteed Basic Income
Handing huge amounts of taxpayer money to corporations isn’t the answer, as 50% will always and automatically be skimmed-off to add to annual profits and be thence distributed to shareholders — many of whom AREN’T UK citizens, don’t pay taxes in the UK, and may never live in the UK. Which isn’t any kind of pathway forward for the UK economy. So forget that plan.
Putting real money in the hands of Britons is the way forward, especially during times of lockdown, high unemployment, war, or natural disaster. By simply paying adults a minimum income, they can afford to eat, keep the lights on, and keep hope alive for their families for the duration of any crisis or emergency.
Many such facilities already exist in the UK, including all social welfare and Universal Credit spending, food banks, homeless shelters, substance abuse organizations, local charities, domestic NGO’s and foreign NGO’s operating in the UK during the pandemic.
What a GBI means to the UK economy is that all social welfare and charity gets rolled into one payments system — thereby eliminating the many parallel and overlapping programmes that were designed with the best of intentions to, (1) mitigate the effects of poverty on Britons, and (2) alleviate the sudden and unexpected poverty caused by local crises or national emergency.
It means keeping people alive until the crisis has passed (yes, it’s that dire in many cases) so that Britons can then pick up and carry on with their lives after the crisis and once again contribute to the wider economy.
Who Should Get It?
Every adult UK citizen (including senior citizens) who live in the bottom economic quintile and (a) thereby earn less than the annual official national poverty line (about £20,000/yr in the UK) or (b) any adult UK citizen temporarily affected by local crises such as flooding, or national crises such as pandemic, war, or other emergency situations that cause them real hardship; e.g. no money to buy food or find shelter, should automatically be eligible to receive GBI payments.
Non-citizens shouldn’t be eligible for a UK GBI, but should be able to (easily) access enough funds from the UK government to safely transport them back to their country of origin, allowing them to return to their home country until the crisis is over. E.g. A one-time payment of £1250.
How to Pay GBI to Citizens
The best way to pay a Guaranteed Basic Income to UK citizens is, of course, the easiest way. And that is via a reverse income tax, which simply means the UK government issues a monthly credit to individuals via their personal HM Revenue and Customs account to top-up their income to £1250/mo. for as long as they earn less than the official annual poverty line amount in the UK.
As HMRC knows exactly how much you earn due to your most recent income tax form, it’s a simple matter for them to credit your HMRC account to top you up to £1250 for that month and transfer it to your bank account via online banking. Some people may choose to allow HMRC to do this automatically, while others may wish to manually log in to their HMRC account to choose the date they want their GBI deposited into their bank account.
Some may wish to have their GBI payment deposited to their PayPal account. That should be OK too.
UK GBI: Reducing Government Overhead Costs, Supporting Low Income Britons, and Supporting Britons Hit by Natural Disasters/Pandemic, Etc.
Instead of today’s many overlapping and expensive government programmes, some with HUGE overhead costs, a single-payer system would put more actual money in the hands of Britons living below the official poverty line at a lower cost to taxpayers, and to more easily assist Britons during emergencies, again, at a lower cost to taxpayers.
How could it cost less when even more people are likely to receive a GBI, than presently receive Universal Credit?
By eliminating the many costly and overlapping anti-poverty programmes using the single-payer system (HMRC’s payments system) and by dramatically reducing homelessness, drug abuse, property crimes, policing costs, court costs, incarceration costs, mental health costs, and reducing NHS cost of (repeatedly) caring for homeless people or (repeatedly) caring for those injured while engaging in property crimes offences, or who (repeatedly) engage in confrontations with law enforcement, due to the nature of the poverty-stricken life they lead.
Read: Canada’s forgotten universal basic income experiment — BBC Worklife
A UK GBI Improves the UK’s ‘Velocity of Money’ and Therefore, the Whole Economy!
Economists call the speed of the transfer of money from one person to another, the ‘velocity of money’ and it’s a fascinating thing to examine. But to explain it properly, a short video is required to demonstrate how relatively small amounts of money can revolutionize a village, town, city, or rural area…
Now, for a more detailed look at the velocity of money, see Doug Andrew’s excellent example on the topic of how money really works, which refers directly to the ‘velocity of money’ — also known as MV = Py to economists.
FYI – All these examples are sans tax as they’re simple examples designed to demonstrate how velocity of money works.
But in the case of government stimulus — whether government stimulus paid to corporations (a corporate subsidy, or corporate welfare) or paid to individuals as part of a GBI (a personal subsidy, or personal welfare) every dollar or pound sterling of that stimulus (subsidy) returns to the government via taxation within 11-years — and the government is only ‘out’ by the amount of interest paid on the money they injected into the economy 11-years prior. And that’s why you pay taxes…
By the way, your taxes don’t pay for the full amount that the government lends to the economy, you’re paying tax to cover the interest on the money the government lends to the economy. If it wasn’t done this way (so-called ‘Cost of Use’ of money) your taxes would be much higher.
Therefore, British taxpayers don’t pay the full cost of social welfare programmes via taxation, they only pay the interest on the amount loaned to the economy by the government over that 11-year period.
Now, here’s a secret: Since I took my economics education (U.S.A. circa 1991) that 11-year repayment statistic has decreased to 4.3-years (U.S.A. stat roughly similar to the UK statistic) because the velocity of money has increased so dramatically since then. Ask any economist.
Therefore, the huge cost of homelessness, property crimes, policing costs, court costs, incarceration costs, property and vehicle insurance costs, medical costs, etc., to the economy will always be many times more… than the cost of 4.3-years worth of interest payments on money loaned to the economy by the government to solve those problems! Which means, that after 4.3-years (or thereabouts) the British taxpayer should be in for a tax break — courtesy of the GBI and a much better velocity of money factor. All of which equals a booming economy.
Conclusion: It’s cheaper to pay citizens a GBI than it is to pay for the huge costs of poverty on individuals and on the whole economy!
I love economics. Have a great day everyone!
Letter to Britain 