I was just wondering

[Suff]

On the numbers I took a 2019 figure quoted from the national stats. Might have fallen in 2020 though.

You are right, there are people from all walks who may feel it is their social duty to vote for a (more) socialist government.

It is true to say that it is too early to know. At least 4 more years before that becomes a valid point to discuss heavily. 4 years for the so called "socialist" parties to get their story straight and 4 years for the Tories to muff it up.

Time will tell.

[manxie]

I think most people are being frightened at present ,.... today almost everyone has social media and the means to access all media through TV computer internet etc and are much more knowledgeable.

Being retired with an enquiring mind I often surf lots of different sites for opinions and factual pieces. Many are a bit naive some are terrible but many are laudable.

Today we are in very unusual circumstances but bear with me a while,.. look at many of the worlds recent viruses, how many seem to originate from China, after the bank crash in 2008/9 when the stocks and shares crashed who was buying up many utilities and industries? I see a pattern myself and can liken it to after the last war the "winners" paid to rebuild the vanquished, they in turn went on to amalgamate , the EU solidarity and control of europe by alternative means.

20-25 years ago Japan had a collapse borrowed trillions and recovered to now, I am thinking China is doing similar, this virus has decimated practically the whole world economy all governments are going to have to borrow trillions and increase the individual countries debts with many other options , devaluation of currencies, quantative easing, saving some and killing others off.

I maybe way off the mark I may be myself naive but of one thing I am sure we will all live in a very different world to the one we grew up in.

I am a believer that our leaving the EU was the right idea so many of the EU countries were on the verge of going bankrupt like Greece did, how can they ever hope to recover from this virus on top of it all?

The big question is can the UK still recover from Brexit and Covid 19 and be a viable player on the world scene, when I was younger the $$$$ USA was king currency before that it was the british pound, will the Yen now replace it? we are seeing the US now rapidly following Italy and Spain for confirmed cases of covid 19, deaths will follow too if it cripples the US it will do the same to all other countries.

Back to China, many around the world invested in shares in many markets recently to get a bit extra return, I have read that pretty much all of these investments went directly to the Chinese government to pay for the new navy they have formed? am I the only one who thinks they are playing the long long game to dominance?

I appreciate that you can't believe all you read or hear but often the truth is just below the surface were you to dig a bit deeper.

Thanks if you have read my ramblings I hope I have not bored you all but if I were a believer in any god I would be asking for help and praying.

Manxie xx

[Workingman]

Manxie, I think there are crumbs of truth in all that you say, but there are so many of them I just cannot figure out where the big ones are or how big they will eventually be. The one sure thing is that the world will be different once this is over. It is bound to evolve differently, socially and economically.

We might even embrace doing those things on the environment, population and climate that we know need to be done but have held off from for fear of tipping the apple cart. But if the cart has already tipped.... then why not?

It will be interesting to see the direction of travel in a few years.

[Suff]

I, too, wonder about the way things will go. I also think that mistakes will be made. Whilst the Japanese Government thought that the US had wounded them fatally by blocking them off from Oil, therefore seeing it as inevitable that they had to attack and disable the US, many others in Japan who knew different were ignored. Post Depression US must have looked like a fragile and vulnerable target which could be easily overwhelmed.

However when the US threw the fiscal rulebook out of the window, put the entire country on a war footing and starting waging war to win, Japan found a sleeping lion, fully awakened and fearsome to confront.

Equally, today, anyone who thinks that the western world will simply bind itself in rules, then be ravaged by others who do not, is deluding themselves.

The problem with politicians is that power corrupts and delusion abounds.

The direction of travel is already apparent. We have ditched fiscal controls, will do what it requires to survive this situation and then we will come together to build a new future.

It won't be the same one as we have been living for the last 90 years, but it will be one which gives us a level of surety.

As with WM, I shall wait and watch.

[manxie]

I am not expecting it to make a huge difference to my life now I am 73 this year few friends now of my era still here but I do care for my grandchildren and their futures x
Manxie xx

[Suff]

Cheer up Manxie, Mrs S is now 73 also. She fully intends to live for another 2 decades and to see some great grandchildren.

Personally I think She'll see me in my grave.

[Workingman]

Manxie, I am not far behind you and my thoughts are now more about the young... What this Covid-19 and other diseases have shown is that our existence on this planet and the way we now live it is not guaranteed. It is rather quite tenuous and those little nanometre sized devils don't care less how much money or technology we have or where we live. If they are coming for us they will get us, so we had better start to clean up our act; or should that be to get a bit dirty again and learn to live with them?