Coronavirus

Martin, I don’t know anyone who has died from the virus yet but I am sure it won’t be long with the rate at which the figures are escalating.
Dave W

My niece in London, in her mid 20s, is making a full recovery.

JA

Anyone with a 3D printer might want to make one of these little door opener keyring hooks and maybe for friends and family (I found myself pulling my jumper into odd shapes to avoid touching the doorhandles when leaving a public loo yesterday...)

www.thingiverse.com/thing:4192643

Wouldn't be difficult to knock up a few in the workshop. Wood might be a good material as its less conducive to the virus than metal or plastic?

Neil

Our chance to save the human race by staying in bed, watching TV, or driving a lathe. What's not to like?

Dave

Should be charging the greedy sods ones who are stuffing trolleys day in day out and clearing the shelves forcing the rest of us to keep going out shopping regularly in crowded stores trying to hunt down enough food to survive😢

Social distancing! Can’t do that in crowded supermarkets and no home delivery slots left😢

Edited By V8Eng on 20/03/2020 22:37:50

Edited By V8Eng on 20/03/2020 22:40:00

To the above post.

Steve.

Just got home from the last night down the pub for a while, it’s not looking good for the guy running the pub, his best offer was hand the keys back. As many of us are in the happy position of being pensioners we could be in quite a good place compared to many.

Mike

I can't see the low peaks strategy lasting, it's going to take too long

Within 6 weeks millions are going to be seriously skint and have cabin fever

Would martial law work in the uk?

Eventually they'll use the old system, let it run rampant and come what may

Want money from the government because your pension has suddenly become zero pounds per week?

Here's a 43 page form sir, we'll process it within 8 weeks and let you know

Edited By Ady1 on 21/03/2020 02:09:01

Doesn’t this lock down and reduction in services give the ideal opportunity for rail and roads to be worked on. Alright people will be working in close proximity but they should be using ppe anyway. Perhaps if some one knows an mp or two they could have a word. But knowing how these things work they will wait until everyone has to get back to work before shutting down at the weekends to do critical work.

Hi HOWARDT, PPE should be the last consideration i.e. if no other way of doing a particular operation can be done; and should also be considered during a risk assessment prior to doing any job. The proper use of any PPE must also be considered before it is assumed it can be used.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 21/03/2020 08:25:32

And as usual most of the sacrificing in this war is being done by the youngsters in the form of financial armageddon

While the main net beneficiaries in this war are the oldies who live in relative financial luxury

I would spread the pain

Do something along the lines of a 50% reduction to every public and private pension in the land

This cash gets diverted into a war chest which helps with the national cost of this war

We're all in it together kinda thing

Hi Ady1, slashing my pensions by 50% would put myself in financial hardship and besides which, I paid for my private pension during my employment with the company that pays it to me now and during the early years of paying it, made an impact of available funds in my younger days.

Regards Nick.

Being a lazy old whatsit I get my groceries delivered by Tesco. Tried to book a slot today for delivery and the earliest I can get is 15th April. Presumably I shall have to starve or break the Governments "social distancing" advice. Can't even book click and collect as these are all booked as well!

John

That could have far-reaching repercussions, not that I think it could ever happen the idea is preposterous.

Not only would you plunge millions who have lived their life responsibly, taking care of their financial future into hardship (people who are currently the last-resort backstop for a lot of people about to face becoming destitute) but you'd also remove the incentive for the following generations to make contributions towards their own future when they face the prospect of having THEIR pension pot snatched out from under them on a whim.

Here's a light hearted approach to isolation by Colin Furze:

Colins isolation chamber

John

Ady1:

Some of us did our working and frugal living way back when so we could have a comfortable retirement. While I concede that I managed to end up privileged I did a lot of that by being 'careful' and putting a larger proportion than most into savings and retirement funds. Those have already been knocked back 1/3 by the stock market crash and may well drop further. Suggesting I sacrifice another half of what is left doesn't have my support.

If gov do what you suggest then there is no point in folk saving for pensions ever again..might just spend it all week by week and then whine at gov for help when it's all gone. If gov does it once then they'll do it every time they run short of vanity project cash.

I have no sympathy for the members of the generation that buys take-away coffee fashionable smartphones, booze cruises and foreign stag-dos and spends £20K on a wedding or changes their car every 3 yrs or 'have it large' in clubs, sports matches, concerts etc

I was the generation that went thrugh gazumping, buying a small house I could just afford and spent the next years after work (and I often finished after 9pm) up ladders wire-brushing cast iron guttering and digging out wood-rot 'cos i couldn't afford to change it. This was also the generation that lived through 15%+ mortgages, used my annual holiday to do locum work so i could afford second hand appliances...

Yes it all worked out well for me when I finally managed to buy a business. It took off but like a lot of self-employed it was because I worked 12 hr days and 24/7 available for emergencies and dossed in a crappy room upstairs while my wife and kids lived 30 miles away and I saw them once a fortnight for a few hours for the first couple of years. And I'm still having to support my kids financially because they can;t learn that life is tough.

Well it is a point of view, and I would be enlightened to learn exactly how the over 65s are supposed to be benefiting from these depressing circumstances?

As has been pointed out by others, pension savings were made by forgoing other forms of instant gratification to prepare for a future that may not be benign.

You may rest assured that this crisis will be paid for, and primarily paid for by those that have scrimped and saved rather than those that lived in a dream world of no tomorrow and where debt was considered a form of free money.

Life is about to change and the era of low taxation and low inflation is about to abruptly end.

The prudent pensioners are the section of society most at risk from the virus. Pension fund managers must be thinking 'in every cloud...'. There will be spare capacity in retirement villages. In the future, the seasonal melt-down of the NHS will be mitigated. Perhaps the moderators ought to remove this...

PGK,PGK, I suffered much the same route to yourself to get the position that I am now in retirement. When we bought our first house I was 36 and worked 7 days a week at a variety of jobs in order to get a mortgage, and yes I remember only too well 15% mortgages, money was extremely tight in my younger days, we couldn’t spend money as wastefully as people do today, my daughters still call me a Scrooge because old habits die hard. I would like to know what planet Ady 1 is living on, no way I will give up any percentage of my hard earned pension.
Dave W

I have no sympathy for the members of the generation that buys take-away coffee fashionable smartphones, booze cruises and foreign stag-dos and spends £20K on a wedding or changes their car every 3 yrs or 'have it large' in clubs, sports matches, concerts etc

I was the generation that went thrugh gazumping, buying a small house I could just afford and spent the next years after work (and I often finished after 9pm) up ladders wire-brushing cast iron guttering and digging out wood-rot 'cos i couldn't afford to change it. This was also the generation that lived through 15%+ mortgages, used my annual holiday to do locum work so i could afford second hand appliances...

Yes, we had it so easy!!