Shocking article

Blah blah blah. Its vile to talk of culling.

Baggs, that's an excellent article you mentioned. Thank-you.

Monica

Have you noticed my question to you yesterday.

Have you read the article, not the link GNHQ put forward?

Can you provide where in the article you feel Warner is making such a judgement as I do respect you as a poster and want to understand where / why we are so far apart in the context of the article, not the one paragraph that has been pounced on by the OP/GNHQ.

David turn your equation round you have an otherwise fit and healthy older person or a young person with several pre-existing conditions that make survival very slim. Who 'surely' gets the intensive care bed then?

The choices will not be between the young and fit and the old and ill. It becomes between two people with competing justifications for getting the one IC bed.

A young and otherwise healthy person may very well only experience mild symptoms and not require hospitalisation. In fact, in all probability, will recover without medical intervention.

Baggs the article you mention is very measured and interesting. Thank You.

You can intellectualise to your hearts content but it is awful language to use. No, I won't be signing up to the Telegraph any time soon to read it.

We cannot be culling various groups of people because they are economically inactive can we? Mind you some people have already been starved into submission.

However much we dont like it, it is the elderly and vulnerable that are going to succumb first to Corona Virus, moreover when resources are limited who do you give help to, the young other wise healthy young person or a 90 yr old with other serious problems.

Someone has to make that decision, you don’t like it, I don’t like it but if you only have one intensive care bed you give it to the young person surely.

How to think about the corona virus: a primer. Very interesting and, I think, well-rounded article from an epidemiologist who writes for the American Scholar magazine.

Monica

'POGS It seems to me that if someone claims we are a drag on the economy then we need to look for the real figures about the contribution older people make to the economy.'
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Have you read the article, not the link GNHQ put forward?

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/03/does-fed-know-something-rest-us-do-not-panicked-interest-rate/

The article is discussing related financial matters such as Interest Rates, Bull Markets, Stock Markets, Shares et al. through the actions predominantly by the US Fed/Federal Reserve.

I do not see any attempt by Jeremy Warner in his article that
' claims anybody is a drag on the econony'. COVID 19 obviously is as he mentions.

Can you provide where in the article you feel Warner is making such a judgement as I do respect you as a poster and want to understand where / why we are so far apart in the context of the article, not the one paragraph that has been pounced on by the OP/GNHQ.

POGS It seems to me that if someone claims we are a drag on the economy then we need to look for the real figures about the contribution older people make to the economy.

I did a straight forward google search and found this report written for AgeUK by an economist who is an expert on economics and aging. His report shows that the total contribution to the British economy by people over 65 is: £160bn.

I found another slightly older report published in 2011 WRVS (with whom I have no connections). They showed that

In 2010, over 65s made an astonishing net contribution of £40 billion to the UK economy through, amongst other contributions, taxes, spending power, social care and the value of their volunteering. In spite of future costs around providing pensions, welfare and health services to a larger and longer living population of older people in the UK, over 65s’ net economic contribution will actually grow to £77 billion by 2030.

In other words the author of the DT report was talking tosh. Older people, even extremely old people, are not a drag on the economy, on the contraray we continue to make a contribution until we die.

M0nica

'He is talking a load of tosh.'
----
WHO?

'My money is on the Age UK report and their expert in economics and aging who wrote it, than any journalist, looking fr a cheap sensationalist byline. He'll learn.'

WHO?

What is your connection to Age Concern and the article in question, I must be missing something.

He is talking a load of tosh.

Below is the opening paragraph of a report issued by Age UK in 2017. The author, Prof José Iparraguirre, is an economist specialising in economics and aging

The monetary value of the direct economic contribution of employment, informal caring, including childcare,and volunteering by people aged 50 or over in the United Kingdom in 2016/17 amounted to £796bn (approx. 45per cent of Gross Value Added), of which people aged 65 or over contributed with £160 bn. Employment contribution amountedto £570bn(£ 54 bn from 65+);informal caring activities added another £175bn(£ 95 bn), informal childcare was worth £7.7bn (only estimated for those aged 65 or over) and volunteering represented another £43.4bn(£ 2.7 bn) www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/reports-and-briefings/active-communities/the_economic_contribution_of_older_-people_-update_-to_-2017.pdf

My money is on the Age UK report and their expert in economics and aging who wrote it, than any journalist, looking fr a cheap sensationalist byline. He'll learn.

Hear hear POGS and Baggs ?

One only has to look at history to see where thoughts of isolating one group in society to the benefit of the whole leads.

Greymar ...give me a call when you're going, I'll come with you!

Lauragransnet ... if your looking for a reaction you'd be better off dissing the Duchess of Sussex ... just saying! .

pogs ..thank gawd for your common sense!!

POGS, I can't take any more of it.My son is in a shared house, the house mates have it. I'm so scared for him and his friends.

I don't want to read an economist talking of culls and listen to the Prime Minister tell me I may lose people before their time.

I assume you must be made of sterner stuff than me. And I dont mean that unkindly.

Greymar

I am ' self isolating' and have been for 3 weeks as I am late 60's and have the lung disease Bronchiectasis amongst other health issues. My granddaughter comes here before her grandad takes her home from school but we smile when we ' elbow bump' and she goes home straight away as we both are acutely aware I am in the ' high risk' category and have to take note from the Government guidelines. Never thought I would be the worrier but I am.

I assure you I hardly want to ' culled ' by COVID 19 but that is not what the article called for so the use of the word ' culled' holds no passionate meaning, if it had I would personally want to kick him up the arse.

I read the article and it most definitely did not ' shock' me nor did I take it personally as I understood he was making

Well, in the circumstances (Grim Reaper ? maybe calling a bit early) it’s opportune that dh and I were in any case in the process of updating our wills.

We’re not in the very elderly category, and certainly not at all frail, but had better get a move on anyway. I look on it as insurance - if you have it, you’re less likely to need it.

I’m sure I read somewhere recently - maybe on here - that some solicitor or other was inundated with people wanting wills drawn up! So that’s one business that’s still doing OK.

The full piece does need to be read

How can I do that please?

Fine. It's an appalling word, but its meaning, as used, is true. So it's the truth that's appalling.

Which, with regard to Covid19, it is.

You can make a disinterested economic statement without being a psycopath.

What he said is not shocking. Uncomfortable truth, maybe, but not shocking. The underlying economic argument is very easy to understand.

The argument that human life matters and that old people are not of less value than anyone else is a separate argument.

I do hope my elderly relatives or indeed my son ( who is self isolating and rather afraid) are culled by this awful thing.

Economics or not, it is an appalling word.

I don't even think the use of the word culling was crass. Covid19, we are told, will kill/cull vulnerable old people much more than younger people. This is a fact of science.

I think it takes a particularly determined kind of obtuseness not to understand the economic point Warner was making, namely that the massive social care bill western governments have been wondering how to pay for over the next few decades, and possibly longer, will, if projections about the killer virus are correct, reduce that bill. Economically this can be seen as a good thing. In human terms it can't, and isn't, seen as a good thing, not even by Warner. He made that clear by his careful use if the word 'disinterested' to mean unbiassed by emotion.

PS

I can read the article by keeping my finger on my tablet and scrolling up, if it goes back behind the pay wall go back again and quickly get to where you left off. It's ruddy tedious but if you want to engage in the debate then you should read the article for context.

'once the idea has been given a platform in a respected mainstream media outlet, then it can start to creep into mainstream thinking.'
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He was not calling for the ' culling' of the elderly, he crassly used the word ' culling' in an article that discussed the financial implications of Covid 19.

I never noticed anybody going out and shooting the elderly to stop them voting in the EU Referendum although many commentators did take a delight in the prospect of them dying off.

Mainstream thinking surely has discussed the fact we are as a world population living longer and that has both social and economic consequences, same as the birth rate etc. etc. It is common sense the debate has to be had and it cannot be sugar coated by getting upset by words.

Had Warner stated we need to ' cull ' the elderly then I would be on his back like a shot. I think that is what those who raise his article are hoping for if I am being honest. I wonder if it had been a Guardian journalist this would have taken the same tone, I doubt it to be honest.