phil harris
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Hi Raul
You ask for an explanation of the global fall in covid cases.
This actuary has a fair analysis https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch
I have been following this UK actuarial group for a while. They and FT have seemed very reliable about analysis in the UK and tell us about uncertainties when its needed.best
phil harris” there are plenty things to say about climate change”
yep
Phil H
Its not just those big cycling systems like carbon, hydrological and the positive feedback etc. or even the race for resources, or even industrial pollution and not even our – mostly the industrial half – acting like a slightly slower asteroid wreck extinguishing lifeforms and habitats. Guess you all know that.
There always have been dangers in our growing connectivity. given the industrial fuel. This one I’m sad to say I had not come across until this year https://necsi.edu/transition-to-extinctionIn Britain the Murdoch press was strongly BREXIT Trouble with ‘right wing’ is the spin when identifying causes of economic dysfunction. In Britain we have had ‘shirkers’ and more recently ‘immigrants’. The image is refugees but the reality here is significant numbers EU workers. And there is no way (I think)cBritain can deport something like 3 millions people.
The UK Guardian – shameless.
I agree.
I have been a Guardian reader for more than 50 years.
(The Manchester Guardian had a good reputation. An early and great Editor spent the desperate 6 weeks before the First World War trying everything he knew to stop it happening.)
The last few years however of propaganda and shameless words – think also Ukraine, Syrian civil-war and lots more, all including Putin smearing, make the paper almost unreadable. As another example, the farcical Climate Change promotion recently lacked proper appreciation of the predicament. In my view it mis-educated us concerning the industrial world. Climate Change, like a number of things, is too serious to be left to the likes of the Guardian.Re pneumonia
I need to apologise for my comment on pneumonia above. I had not allowed for virus contagion and for viruses that can cause pneumonia (RSV virus or sometimes influenza). Otherwise, “Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, which causes most cases of pneumonia, is far less contagious than a cold or flu.”Re pneumonia
I am not a fan of HC policies but pneumonia can strike anyone, often suddenly; especially the elderly and frail. The ‘bugs’ are around – it is almost entirely a matter of succumbing rather than exposure and transmission like influenza. She was almost certainly diagnosed only after she had felt unwell and retreated. Her health however does come under further questioning.I am glad for what as you put it, you have “… seen in such sparkling bright light here in Athens”.
I agree just about totally with what you write about Brexit, but I still have problem in voting to leave EU. So for instance Osborne talks tosh and lies, but that has been his whole economic position since he took over the Treasury – the necessary ‘political lie’. So what?
First time round in 70s I voted to leave because even back then we dimly discerned a corporate future dominated by ‘market rules’, a bit like the one we got, and the dismantling of a social settlement. Arguably this time round we seem faced with a dissolving civilisation, dissolution perhaps not restricted to our Continent. (Britain is in Europe, period, even if globalisation obscures the fact.) The big decision could actually be about Russia, which is also in Europe. Luckily, or maybe it was Red Army discipline, or something, Russia did not break up in a civil war, but I can’t see anything EU did that helped much – just the opposite. I should have better grasped EU limitations, and worse, when I was intermittently working for EU in the Balkans 1997 to 2006; but there you go! These days? Man, it’s about NG pipelines and heating houses and fabric relying on electricity even if motor cars are a passing phase. And latter-day farmers must still get round those big fields with their giant machines and NPK for a while yet.
So why do I hesitate? Well, it’s like Corbyn is a better conservative than the fantasists and liars perhaps? The original conservative Edmund Burke supported the American Colonies but thought we ought to learn something from the French Revolution; like, “Be careful what you wish for”.
Best wishes for you down there in the kitchen!
Phil“2016, when denial will no longer be an available option”.
But misrepresentation will be legion?
very best
philI remember that picture (Children in Kent, England 1940). It was the year before I was born and was in a book of pictures my older brother had in 1946. The book was a constant in my early childhood. Brother was 9 years older than me and about the age of the older children in the slit trench when this was going on, As a family we saw quite a bit of action, some of which is still fresh in my memory.
The children were watching the overhead battles as hurricanes and spitfires took on the Luftwaffe which was trying to destroy the airfields south of London.
Bombing of any form tends to evoke strong emotions in me, probably more so as I get older.
best
PhilI think it is a good idea to support MSF with what we can afford. There is a UK campaign starting where some local authorities are declaring that we will accept regugees.
Heading South? Through Iraq? Saudi Arabia?
From Medecin Sans Frontiere
“In just 100 days, MSF has rescued 11,482 people who have risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean. The survivors of a capsized boat also tell us about their treacherous crossing and why they made the journey.“In Yemen, MSF is witnessing “one of the worst conflicts” it has seen, according to Dr Tammam Aloudat, as fighting between armed groups intensifies.
Note: I was an internal refugee as a small child in WWII; we were called ‘evacuees’.
Phil
Tangential to topic but not to solidarity.
When family health permits any chance of getting to Lesvos and helping local Greeks who are helping refugees?
MSF are on the ground and say it’s the worst they have seen in Europe.Glad TAE was in Greece – it helps.
To be continued … good.
best hopes for family in Holland of coursephil
This is a serious moment – even allowing for the farce – even for us crowd in more comfortable seats with our bags of popcorn.
In the wider EU context we remember that these were the stage managers who were willing to transition a risk to a certainty of civil war in Ukraine after colluding with ‘regime change’ outside of democratic procedures. Behind that were the shadowy forces of political ‘triangulation’ internal within a less than competent US administration.
I left this as part of a comment at Ugo Bardi’s blog a few days ago:
“It seems clear – and again from the media reports of the incoherent ‘dinner’ the other night at ‘EU Summit’, where UK PM Cameron was allowed a 5 min “commercial break” which at least in its irrelevance lowered the temperature a little – that they have ‘lost the plot’. That is; the ‘narrative’ is separate from reality. They fail at technocratic financial/ economics, at military understanding and do not grasp the meaning implicit in any real response to ‘climate threat’. They have no idea to manage the coming unstoppable flood of refugees from war and contagious breakdown. They even fail at knowing who Europe is. (I think of Russia as an essential part of Europe.)best
PhilNicole
I agree about a contracting ‘trust horizon’ but Greek majority opinion apparently still stays in the ‘trust zone’? Ditto in Eire.
Continuing youth unemployment, particularly across the Eurozone, may prove to be the ‘killer’ factor, but it could take a while yet. And ‘floating’ currency is no guarantee of anything; see https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/european-economy-guide
best
PhilA very good idea for TAE to be in Athens and contributing.
Amazing to read Ambrose EP saying it pretty much word for word – right wing or “Burkean conservative” or whatever.
EU was a good idea as a way back from WWII, but what a mess we face. With more than a little American help, EU failed to take up the opportunity with Russia in the early 90s.and then failed again in Balkans. We cannot just blame the Americans though: Europe can’t deal with Ukraine, the results of the financial crisis, refugees, youth unemployment, or as Ambrose puts it this “Iraq War of Finance”.
Give what we can!
There was always going to be a ‘reality moment’ (China @ 10% growth p.a. doubles in 7 years; and reducing to 7% just makes it 10 years). Presuming that world resources continue as yet to be available per day to keep the machine they have built alive (and no civil war or USSR-type break-up of politics) then Chinese middle-class will have to figure out how to control their oligarchs. The CP might be their Trades Union? The working class I guess needs a ‘Labour Movement’ to transcend the inevitable divisions on the factory floor and to provide solidarity. What that latter means for the CP I cannot guess.
Given the break-neck rate of change, as you rightly say, the CP probably did not envisage what they were getting into. (Reminds me of Europe before 1914 thinking that industrial warfare could be managed by existing structures.) If China’s middle class expect a Japanese or for G-sake American prosperity model – and seriously copy into that – then 10 years might seem much too long before time is called on the project.
Thanks a lot for continuing interest provided by TAE
The Guardian?
The Guardian has been strongly anti-Putin and has adopted ‘propaganda’ reporting of Ukraine since at least this time last year. Most G’ commentary is in line with this stance except for Seamus Milne who is given occasional space for to write on the folly of our policy.The reason? Something to do with ‘Enlightenment’ view point and support for the EU as a vehicle for expansion of modernised ‘Enlightenment’ values. This is European liberal version of US ‘inevitable Progress’, ‘spreading of democracy’ – ‘freedom including of speech’ and etc. perhaps? e.g. “Anyone close to Ukraine understood that this was an incredible moment to take Ukraine forward in a way that it hadn’t gone quickly enough over the past 22 years,” she says.
best
PhilDon’t forget FSU
google land grab ukraine – ignore very recent use of the term for Crimea – see large-scale agriculture. It is different, but the motivation is the same.best
PhilIlargi
That would be nice – and I hope we hear more from RWG about local ecosystem renewal (build the soil; retain water in a dry land – there are some beautiful projects in the USA https://www.theoildrum.com/node/4185 )Zulubuddha and his mates make a micro United Nations! Great!
Why end up in USA and Bozeman, though?
Wondering about the answer, I ponder the notion that the US is still going to be the best (low risk) place to be for the next 50 years and a platform for future civil society, in a favorable sense. Sounds like heresy, but this is partly, not kidding, from reading ZB and, amazingly, that amusing guy down at the Forum, Dimitri Orlov (and Ghung, see above and elsewhere). Otherwise, perhaps back in the good ol’ FSU might not be so bad, though the latter’s tradition of tyranny is not a plus. My own experience in Eastern Europe and the Balkans makes me less sanguine for Europe, but my daughter’s experience living and working in Russia in late 90s early 2000s keeps reminding me how people got by. Surprising really.
Die off? Yes, many places.
USA, big time, near future?
Not so likely?
Would be nice to get some of the kleptomaniacs who run the shop hands out of the till, but that need not pull the whole show down, IMHO, unless drought and storm really do for the USA. Still, keep those Canadian beans under nitrogen just in case there is a serious blip, eh?
