“The Cost Of Saving Lives Is Too High”

[Paul Calf]

Russell Lynch, Torygraph economics correspondent here:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/05/05/cost-saving-lives-lockdown-high/

It's paywalled, so obviously I'm missing the point of the article that it's satire in the vein of A Modest Proposal.

Right?

[Thomas]

The Cost of Reading Telegraph Articles is Too High.

It's often said that human life is priceless, but that of course is a nonsense. Insurers and actuaries weigh it in their scales every day and now Boris Johnson has the biggest call for any prime minister to make outside of a war: the trade-off between "health and wealth" as he plots a path out of lockdown

To be fair, his party has been doing that for years (cleverly managing to increase the numbers of those in poverty and billionaires), so it should only take them a couple of minutes.

[Buelligan]

The unpaywalled bit of sixth form philosophy -

How do you put a cost on a life? It's often said that human life is priceless, but that of course is a nonsense. Insurers and actuaries weigh it in their scales every day and now Boris Johnson has the biggest call for any prime minister to make outside of a war: the trade-off between "health and wealth" as he plots a path out of lockdown.

Politicians are deeply uncomfortable discussing such issues in public for fear of being portrayed as callous. Behind every cold statistic in the mounting Covid-19 death toll is, after all, an individual personal tragedy. But the Cabinet has been divided into hawkish and dovish camps for weeks now, and the calls from the Government's own backbenches for reopening have been getting louder...

Speaking as a fifth former, banished to the naughty kids block, let's use your life, Russell Lynch to work out the value of a life.  Let the market decide, I think that's what you believe in isn't it?  Let someone with a quota to fill weigh up whether your product, your one and only moment of consciousness exploring this Fibonacci mandala of infinite possibility, is worth anything at all or whether you and your extended family should be used as landfill for our great sales project. 

[jobotic]

Of course actuaries have to make predictions of pensioners' ages of death - part of their role is not to get them to die earlier though.

[BlodwynPig]

The Cost of Reading Telegraph Articles is Too High.

To be fair, his party has been doing that for years (cleverly managing to increase the numbers of those in poverty and billionaires), so it should only take them a couple of minutes.

I don't want to see the words "to be fair" associated with anything to do with this government...it exacerbates the problem even if your intention is the opposite

[dissolute ocelot]

Killing Russell Lynch would save millions of pounds in healthcare spending,  misguided corporate welfare, and other costs. Of course I'm not advocating his slaughter, but it's a fun thought experiment.

[Butchers Blind]

How do you put a cost on a life? 

The government reckon its about £60k

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/families-health-staff-die-coronavirus-get-60000-payouts-matt-hancock

[Buelligan]

And yet, by his own admission, Johnson says £250K is chickenfeed.  He should buy some dead people new lives with this chickenfeed.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/14/boris-johnson-telegraph-chicken-feed

[Thomas]

The Cost of Chickenfeed is Too Low

[Sebastian Cobb]

the mask slips

[Quote]

You can see why he went into economics rather than healthcare.

[idunnosomename]

Because hes a cunt?

[Bently Sheds]

Because hes a cunt?

It looks like someone tried to make a Toby Young/James O'Brien hybrid character in Fallout 3.

[thenoise]

Insurers and actuaries dont work out the cost of a life, ffs. They calculate the cost to a company of an insurance out/an annuity (etc). Does he think that's the same thing? Does he think someone's salary is the sole measure of their worth? It's a difficult thin to justify while fat cunts sit on their arses while the underclass keep them supplied in food, booze and cleaning products.

[BlodwynPig]

[Thomas]

keep them supplied in food, booze and cleaning products.

and newspaper sales. #buyapaper

Perhaps if columnist's salaries were lowered to minimum wage for a year - and more money siphoned into public services through some sort of 'tax' system for the greater good - there might be a bit more cash to spread around so that we can keep the economy going for a while longer. Clearly this Russell character is comfortable with the idea of making sacrifices.

As it stands at the moment, The Cost of Keeping the Very Wealthy Happy is Too High. It's a tough decision, putting a price on the worth of blue-tick paywall punditry, but in these difficult times it must be done.

[Pink Gregory]

There is something fundamentally wrong, that some shithead columnist can say this kind of thing in a major newspaper with no repercussions.

[Barry Admin]

and newspaper sales. #buyapaper

Aye. https://theguardian.com/media/2020/may/07/mirror-and-express-owner-reports-30-slump-in-revenues - "Mirror and Express owner reports 30% slump in revenues
Reach, formerly Trinity Mirror, says print and digital income fell in lockdown month of April"

[idunnosomename]

Lmao

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1258323725855993857?s=19

[wasp_f15ting]

http://archive.is/7qCSM

Full article

Nice chap

"Meanwhile the emergency monetary policy measures from the Bank squeeze savers but also tend to support the prices of the assets more typically held by the old. The quicker we get out of lockdown, the sooner the talk of a Piketty-esque wealth tax to help pay for the aftermath might fade."

[Thomas]

Aye. https://theguardian.com/media/2020/may/07/mirror-and-express-owner-reports-30-slump-in-revenues - "Mirror and Express owner reports 30% slump in revenues
Reach, formerly Trinity Mirror, says print and digital income fell in lockdown month of April"

The poor sods that own these outlets might have to tighten their belts for a while. I don't know the net worth of Jim Mullen, CEO of Reach plc, but I bet it's higher than that of everybody on CaB combined. Might have to sell a few bits on eBay, Jim.

Imagine dropping down to only a couple of million :(

[Captain Z]

From that Peston tweet my attention was caught by one from Piers Morgan which in turn brought up this:



For reference,  Piers Morgan's tweet:

How many of those furiously & blindly defending the Govt's lamentable handling of this crisis so far would be doing so if it was a Labour govt?  Answer: none.
Partisan politics, fuelled by toxic Brexit & social media, has reduced many people to shrieking echo chamber lemmings.

Since he fell down that well I've cautiously upgraded my opinion of Piers from 'most despicable person in the country' to 'perhaps not so much of a cunt after all', but aware that he may get kicked by a mule and go back to normal at any time.

[idunnosomename]

I trust them in that i know theyre all a bunch of yah yah oxbridgers who do not care if i live or die

[Johnny Yesno]

http://archive.is/7qCSM

Full article

Nice chap

"Meanwhile the emergency monetary policy measures from the Bank squeeze savers but also tend to support the prices of the assets more typically held by the old. The quicker we get out of lockdown, the sooner the talk of a Piketty-esque wealth tax to help pay for the aftermath might fade."

In a more extreme example, economists Andrea Ichino and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer studied the impact of lost education among 1930s-born children in World War 2, contrasting Germany and Austria with non-combatants Switzerland and Sweden. In Germany and Austria the pair found "an earnings loss that is still noticeable in the 1980s".

Good grief.

[Barry Admin]

Lmao

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1258323725855993857?s=19

The sheer brass neck of these cunts. Journalists/newspapers are always asking for money now, because people give it to them. They clearly don't require alternate income streams because they charge for their products, get paid a wage and take advertising.

Actually, I bet that'll be the next thing some bastard comes up with: crowd-funded advertisements.

[Johnny Yesno]

Since he fell down that well I've cautiously upgraded my opinion of Piers from 'most despicable person in the country' to 'perhaps not so much of a cunt after all', but aware that he may get kicked by a mule and go back to normal at any time.

He made Paul Joseph Watson have an online meltdown as well, which was good entertainment, if nothing else.

[Barry Admin]

Yeah what actually happened with the Trump thing tho? Before that actually happened, I'm sure I saw Morgan denying speculation that they had stopped following each other.

Then all of a sudden he spontaneously grows a sack and goes after Trump for making characteristically shit-brained comments? Seems like there was more going on there to prompt this sudden rebellion, surely.

[BlodwynPig]

The sheer brass neck of these cunts. Journalists/newspapers are always asking for money now, because people give it to them. They clearly don't require alternate income streams because they charge for their products, get paid a wage and take advertising.

Actually, I bet that'll be the next thing some bastard comes up with: crowd-funded advertisements.

Martin Bell: "Little Laura can't afford Louboutins this week and Robert has had to miss lunch at The Ivy for 3 days in a row. Please Give to Support Our Brave Journalists."

[Fambo Number Mive]

I have some sympathy with local papers but not for most of the national media.

My local paper has introduced a paywall but I'm not sure I want to pay £5 a month or however much it is to subscribe, even though the information is important.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Yeah what actually happened with the Trump thing tho? Before that actually happened, I'm sure I saw Morgan denying speculation that they had stopped following each other.

Then all of a sudden he spontaneously grows a sack and goes after Trump for making characteristically shit-brained comments? Seems like there was more going on there to prompt this sudden rebellion, surely.

Morgan fell for the classic Trump tactic of acting like your best friend for as long as you're useful and then forgetting you ever existed once you've served your purpose.

There's only so long you can fawningly write articles about and tweet to your "very good friend" without any acknowledgement before you realise you've been had.