Professor Neil Oliver - on the subject of Covid 19 in the UK.

[Phil Perry]

 

[facthunter]

I really had difficulty with the accent. I did research the firm, GB News and it makes an interesting read if you are interested in News organisations.   Nev

[old man emu]

Neil Oliver is a very well-known documentary presenter. He does a lot of English history and such. It was strange to see him coming out with a politically orientated comment. But, like us all, he has a right to an opinion.

[Jerry_Atrick]

GB News launched recently as a right wing TV channel - something like FOX News/Sky News (Australia). I don't even know what channel it is on.

 

It so far has not gathered much of a viewership (though I haven't really checked lately). It touted itself as the non-cancel TV show where anyone could express whatever opinion they liked and they would not cancel them. Well, apparently, one presenter was too far left for them, so they cancelled him.

 

I guess, as the price of freedom/democracy is eternal vigilance, so I should be watching them and complaining if they have gone too far.. However, that would mean I should be doing that for all meedia, and I don't have the time (thankfully, their are organisations that do that).

 

[facthunter]

The proof of the Pudding will be in the eating.. Advertising revenue is usually the funding. There's Saudi money in it. Trump is trying something similar I think.  Fact checking  has to be Port of free speech IF you are Fair Dinkum.   Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

We know what Saudis do to journalists who don't get it right in their eyes

[facthunter]

OIL used to be enough to fund the Population of the Kingdom but the viability of that is far from assured. Plenty of "More well off" Saudi's want outside investments and will leave when the place becomes too hot in more ways than one.  Nev

[old man emu]

Another from Neil Oliver:

 

[red750]

Somehow I missed this topic before. We have recorded a number of Professor Oliver's documentaries. He did a few series on coastlines - Coast Australia, Coast New Zealand, Coast Canada, etc., for the Foxtel National Geographic channel, each episode taking a part of the coastline, such as Pt Phillip Bay to Warrnambool, and discussing the history and ecology of each area. His crew included a geologist and a marine biologist. Very interesting.

[onetrack]

"A recently-published study from the world-renowned John Hopkins University in Baltimore found lockdowns had had little to zero public health benefits, and instead imposed enormous economic and social costs, like we didn't know that already ...."

 

Neil Oliver has obviously never heard of W.A., where lockdowns and tight controls on immigration have worked, and the "economic and social costs" of the few lockdowns and tight immigration controls are barely measureable - unless you want to listen to the steady wailing of those who had all their constant partying curtailed ... or you wanted to listen to Allan Joyce comparing W.A. to North Korea, and Mark McGowan as Kim Jong-un - because Joyce is losing millions because he can't follow his personal mantra of "unlimited and uncontrolled flights everywhere" ...

 

And furthermore, Neil Oliver might want to do his research on who funded the anti-lockdown study carried out by John Hopkins University. No doubt, a little research would find it was a right-wing organisation, intent on the pursuit of intense economic activity, without regard to the general health and death rate of the local population.

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

GB News is the UK's new Fox News/Sky News (Australia).

 

Although having said that, I agree with some of his analysis. Sawing the bottoms of classroom doors is just crazy.

 

There are a few other things he neglects to mention. The UK has the highest rate of deaths and still a high rate of COVID. When it finally entered into a half serious lockdown, the numbers plummeted. But while Boris dilly-dallied, as did his Welsh, NI, and Scottish brethren, the numbers went up and the death toll was horrific. Compare this to any Australian state (NSW excepted, and the unfortunate breach of the lockdwon protocols in Melbourne early in the pandemic - All economies bounced back and in fact lost little. Once Australia (WA excepted) let it rip, they started paying for it. NSW is (or at least very recently was) in its worst economic dip since the pandemic began.  I am sure Vic is not too far off.. People will be scared to go out..

 

The John Hopkins university would have looked at US lockdowns, which were, on the whole, even more lax than the UK's. So, yes, I would agree, a Clayton's lockdown would have little real effect and impact the economy terribly because everyone is ship scared to go out and contract the disease.

 

I do agree that there has been too much focus on COVID at the cost of fighting other ills of society. Sadly, and I think because of the way the press operates, it seems that the human race, at least in the western world, can only focus on one thing at a time. Partygate over here is consuming the news, and the right wing nutters are now using the quite valid observation of is it that important when there are other things going on that could become very problematic - like - oh, I don't know - a possible European war? That's because the media - at least the electronic media, can seem to only focus on one major controversy at a time. 

 

However, despite him being a professor, he seems to be very selective in his analysis - which one would expect on what is trying to become mainstream media right wing nut job TV UK..

[onetrack]

There is one over-riding aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic - and that aspect is, the largely total failure of many of our elected leaders to develop, produce, and put in place, a fairly definitive plan out of the pandemic, and back to some kind of normality.

The vast majority of our political leadership has fumbled and bumbled their way through, placing political and economic aims above the health of the nations. If you have a vast number of your population sick, unable to work, and dying, you work on fixing that problem first, and attend to the economic and political and social problems later.

 

I believe that there are probably three over-riding features that have raised their ugly heads in the pandemic. One is a major lack of discipline on the part of our leaders. Two is a lack of training in ability to deal with a pandemic. Three is the way that party politics become dominant over any sensible plans to deal with the pandemic.

 

On that basis, Mark McGowan, with his military training and background (he was a Navy lawyer), has produced the disciplined leadership needed to deal with the pandemic. Military training is some of the best training you can get, and it deals with every subject under the sun, including how to handle outbreaks of disease.

 

Of all the people who should not have had any say in how the nation is run under a pandemic, the three people in the first photo in the article below, are top of the list.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-07/health-versus-wealth-the-unexpected-costs-of-opening-up-early/100809076

[old man emu]

I wonder what the total amount of money is that has been given out for many reasons, and the costs of conducting testing and providing vaccines. I suggest that it is in the billions. Whatever the figure is, I wonder where it came from. Did the Government go deeply into debt, or simply divert funds from one area to Operation COVID?

 

What's has been done, has been done, but how long will the taxpayer be taxed to pay back the debt? The horse has bolted, and the milk is spilled. Will our kids be living with another virus in the environment while at the same time paying for the debt that was incurred.

 

One thing I did here was that the patent for the Rapid Antigen test is held by the Rothchild family - the world's richest.

 

[Old Koreelah]

LNP governments have gradually run down funding for the CSIRO, one of Australia’s greatest treasures, spent squillions importing vaccines, test kits, etc., now they seem not interested in supporting a locally-made Covid test:
 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-06/covid-breath-tests-made-in-australia/100807090

[onetrack]

The undated (like so many sites and information pages, which shows the abilities of the site originators as unbelievably deficient) Govt "Covid Response" site below, says the Govt has spent around $300B just on COVID support measures (business and personal) during this financial year.

As the site says, (expenditure) "to May 2021", I guess that is the date of the figures tally - so the figure will be well over $300B, by now.

This does not include direct COVID-19 costs such as vaccines, health care (including consumables such as vast amounts of PPE), security measures, enforcement of the security rules and regulations, and so on. I would hazard a guess the support measures and direct costs to the Govt may be closer to $1T.

 

Then there's the immeasureable economic costs - the business closures and personal losses, the tourism income losses, the economic loss of dead people who were worthy contributors to workforce and community. I don't really know how you get a true handle on that figure, but it probably would come to another few hundred billion. 

 

As far as the Govt is concerned, I believe the tax base has not been too badly affected, thanks to good production levels of valuable exports such as grains, minerals, coal and gas. But the Govt would certainly have had to borrow to fund a lot of their COVID-19 measures.

It's not uncommon for the Govt to borrow sizeable amounts of money for many things - wars, major defence projects, major infrastructure projects, natural disaster clean up and repair costs (fires, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, etc).

 

But I don't think the amount the Govt has borrowed or spent on COVID-19 measures is going to break the nation. It will cause a "blip" in the financial situation (a blowout in the current account figures), which will be eventually remedied when things return to normal. Remember, we financed and fought WW1 and WW2, at an enormous and staggering cost to the nation, both times - but the financial War costs were eventually paid off with a recovery in economic activity, within 10-15 years after each War ended.

 

Of course, the cost of losing over 60,000 of our fittest men and women during WW1, and around 40,000 in WW2 is incalculable, in financial terms, in emotional terms, and in loss of valuable human contribution terms.

 

https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus#:~:text=The COVID-19 pandemic continues,billion as of May 2021.

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by onetrack

[nomadpete]

So. Looking at that financial disaster that the L&N parties have created, I conclude this.....

 

The incumbent government has racked up a massive debt. They are now desperate to lose this next election in order to spend the next three years pointing to the debt blaming Labor for it. So they are planning a landslide in the following election.

[Jerry_Atrick]

It's funny because you credit them with more intelligence then they most pollies show.

 

[Yenn]

If they had any intelligence they would dump their leader right now, but going on their past performance, they would then adopt Clive Palmer as leader.

[nomadpete]

I doubt that either Libs, Nats. Or Labor can present a human figurehead sufficiently interesting that I'd bother chatting to.

[spacesailor]

NEW STRAIN OF COVID19.

 ' ROYAL COVID ' .

spacesailor