Poor households spend a greater proportion of their income on essential items such as food, electricity and heat. Nevertheless, beneath the headline figures showing that much of the population has become wealthier, there is growing inequality. In that context, Stormont’s latest version of ‘free money’ - the high street voucher scheme - is a curious policy which may be more to do with finding an easy way to quickly spend some of the billions of pounds sent to it by the Treasury than about finding the most judicious use of public funds. The staggering sums which the government has pumped into the economy over the last 18 months means that there is no shortage of money waiting to be spent. The Bank of England estimates that households saved more than £200bn between March 2020 and June 2021. British households built up their savings to the second highest level on record earlier this year. Other pandemics and major wars have seen the population hoard wealth during the crisis.
Will mcbride show me full free#
Receive today's headlines directly to your inbox every morning and evening, with our free daily newsletter.Įnter email address This field is required Sign Up Outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague, such as that observed by Defoe, were often followed by economic booms - partly for the crude reason that the plague had killed so many workers that those who were left could command greater wages due to labour shortages, prompting inflation.ĭaily Headlines & Evening Telegraph Newsletter Recalling the Great Plague of London in the 17th century, Daniel Defoe wrote that as the numbers of deaths suddenly began to decrease, it was “impossible to express the change that appeared in the very countenances of the people… such was the joy of the people that it was, as it were, life to them from the grave”. There will also be many deaths as an indirect consequence of the pandemic - those who die not from Covid, but from an inability to access healthcare because of the strain which the virus has put on an already broken health system in Northern Ireland. On Thursday a 14-year-old died after testing positive for the virus in the Republic - the youngest Covid-linked death south of the border. Just because the virus may be in retreat does not mean that it is now unthreatening. Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California and a cautious voice on dealing with Covid, told the paper: “To me, particularly once I got my booster, it prompts me to accept a bit more risk, mainly because if I’m not comfortable doing it now, I’m basically saying that I won’t do it for several years, and maybe forever.” And that is what Covid-19 is likely to do in 2022.” Two weeks ago, The Washington Post reported that “the pandemic appears to be winding down in the United States in a thousand subtle ways, but without any singular milestone”. This week Edward Carr, deputy editor of The Economist, wrote: “Pandemics do not die - they fade away.
0 kommentar(er)
