Our brilliant Gov gave a billion pounds of our money to private health care providers to provide non Covid health care to NHS patients from the "overwhelmed" NHS last year.

Only sticking point? They never thought about where private health care providers get their doctors, consultants and surgeons from? The answer is...the NHS. As a result, private health care treated less NHS patients last year than in a normal year as their staff were tied up working in a near overwhelmed NHS.

amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/07/pr...tter_impression=true

This level of incompetence would see any individual or organisation finished in the real world.

Wyot wrote:
Our brilliant Gov gave a billion pounds of our money to private health care providers to provide non Covid health care to NHS patients from the "overwhelmed" NHS last year.

Only sticking point? They never thought about where private health care providers get their doctors, consultants and surgeons from? The answer is...the NHS. As a result, private health care treated less NHS patients last year than in a normal year as their staff were tied up working in a near overwhelmed NHS.

amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/07/pr...tter_impression=true

This level of incompetence would see any individual or organisation finished in the real world.

very astute post WYOT and major point overlooked by so many.

It also applies to most industry:

# The late Aussie billionaire Kerry Packer liked the Oz national broadcaster the ABC as he said they have the money to train superb technicians and presenters who he could then poach at their peak for no cost, for his TV Network.

## An obvious reason why higher education should be free and paid for by industry taxes as they are the ones who benefit when graduates go to work for them.

### How many Big Businesses now leach of the waged and other taxpayers (Facebook etc ?) by basing themselves in tax havens but hiring experts who are educated in the public schooling system?

#### Big corporations understood this for 200 years but now we are in a ghastly Trump style era where many corporate executives think there is no doubt to society.

I think you mean DEBT Hedda though DOUBT is equally applicable.

hedda wrote:
[quote]Wyot wrote:


#### Big corporations understood this for 200 years but now we are in a ghastly Trump style era where many corporate executives think there is no doubt to society.

Yes I saw a right wing commentator here - Simon Heffer - the other day droning on pejoratively about the public sector and repeatedly calling it the "unproductive part" of the economy. As if the private sector is not reliant on it; the economy not reliant on people being healthy or able to read. Ridiculous distinction to draw.

And you are right there is a further problem when the private sector actually leeches from the public sector (i.e us).

Why so many people have to set up public/private as a binary or zero sum argument is beyond me.

They so obviously need one another. The only question: in what proportion?

Was there ever a pandemic ??

Green Man wrote:
[quote]Was there ever a pandemic ??

I have never had any doubt there was a pandemic GM.

There were aprx 90 000 excess deaths more in the UK in 2020 than 2019. Not enough time for the many lockdown deaths to come (due to delayed health treatment, unemployment, depression etc) to kick in:

www.statista.com/statistics/281488/numbe...e-united-kingdom-uk/

The issue for me was: how lethal is the pandemic? I don't consider at a mortality rate of 0-1% that it merited the harms caused by lockdown. There can be a pandemic of any virus that doesn't mean it is an unusually dangerous one; like flu for instance.

But as soon as the media decided they could confect a Hollywood style pandemic (mainly by deliberately conflating infection rates with mortality risks) on us, millions fell for the surface story and at that point Boris et al acted in line with the story and continued to do so.

It was all for me simply about proportionality of response and assumptions about the effectiveness of restrictions based on no reliable evidence.

Yes there was no vaccine for large parts of lockdown; but death rates were more effected by the weather and season than anything else. All international comparisons show the only correlation with lockdowns is the damage caused by them. Death rates are unmoved.

Now thank goodness vaccines are here, everyone is bored shitless by it - even now the media - and we can all move on. But we shouldn't because the real story is how the media precipitated the whole thing and effectively dictated public policy and loss of freedoms.

If the virus did not terrify you (anyone I mean) then this should.

The results of a 2020 Australian academic survey of responses to lockdown are interesting. How can anyone ever forget, too, the politicians and senior advisors who got caught breaking the rules.

blogs.griffith.edu.au/gci-insights/2020/...-second-time-around/

yes DEBT not Doubt..bloody auto correct !

Today (Monday) is FREEDUMB DAY in Sydney and people have gone mad.

Hairdressers, shops and even clubs opened at a minute past midnight and the proles have gone haywire and queuing to get in. So odd.

Of course if you have been around a long time it's a bit difficult to understand how an enforced lock down is on young people.

parents with kids must have been tearing their hair out.

Meanwhile in Victoria it just gets worse.

md wrote:
The results of a 2020 Australian academic survey of responses to lockdown are interesting. How can anyone ever forget, too, the politicians and senior advisors who got caught breaking the rules.

blogs.griffith.edu.au/gci-insights/2020/...-second-time-around/

Interesting (if depressing) reasons why people adhere to lockdowns md.

However the opening line gets my award for non-sequitur of the year. Strictly, no thinking person should read beyond it; and if they do it should be with tears of laughter in their eyes....

Wyot wrote:
md wrote:
The results of a 2020 Australian academic survey of responses to lockdown are interesting. How can anyone ever forget, too, the politicians and senior advisors who got caught breaking the rules.

blogs.griffith.edu.au/gci-insights/2020/...-second-time-around/

Interesting (if depressing) reasons why people adhere to lockdowns md.

However the opening line gets my award for non-sequitur of the year. Strictly, no thinking person should read beyond it; and if they do it should be with tears of laughter in their eyes....
It’s the rule-breaking element that caught my eye. How long can rules be tolerated when they are confusing, are not shown to be backed up by the very people who impose them, and need an intense police presence to enforce them.

md wrote:
Wyot wrote:
md wrote:
The results of a 2020 Australian academic survey of responses to lockdown are interesting. How can anyone ever forget, too, the politicians and senior advisors who got caught breaking the rules.

blogs.griffith.edu.au/gci-insights/2020/...-second-time-around/

Interesting (if depressing) reasons why people adhere to lockdowns md.

However the opening line gets my award for non-sequitur of the year. Strictly, no thinking person should read beyond it; and if they do it should be with tears of laughter in their eyes....
It’s the rule-breaking element that caught my eye. How long can rules be tolerated when they are confusing, are not shown to be backed up by the very people who impose them, and need an intense police presence to enforce them.

It's all part of their plans.