Logosone

In recent years, economic growth slowed from 4.2% in 2018 to 2.4% in 2019. The key drivers of slowing growth were weaker demand for exports reflecting the impact of US-China trade tensions, slowing public investments, and a drought, impacting agricultural production. Key development challenges also pose a risk to Thailand’s future growth if it wants to attain high-income status by 2037. These include weakness in education outcomes and skills matching, which risk future productivity and chances of the younger generation, and increasing spatial inequality, with remote areas falling behind in economic and welfare indicators.

Economic growth in Thailand contracted to 6.1% in 2020 due to a decline in external demand affecting trade and tourism, supply chain disruptions, and weakening domestic consumption. The COVID-19 outbreak has created several additional challenges in the labor market. The primary impact has been a spike in unemployment rate, which doubled from 1% in the first quarter of 2019 to 2% in the second quarter of 2020.

Between 2015 and 2018, the poverty rate in Thailand increased from 7.2% to 9.8%, and the absolute number of people living in poverty rose from 4.85 million to more than 6.7 million. However, from 2018 to 2019, the poverty rate dropped to 6.2% and increased to 8.8% in 2020, due to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. 

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/overview

2 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

 

In other words, it is just as wrong to say it is 70% as it is to say it is 50% or any other number becuase these numbers are only the result of a hypothetical mathematical modem, and do not reflect what actually happens in the real world.

 

Bravo WaveHunter! Mathematical modelling is just use of symbols. The use of mathematical modelling is fraught with danger because it assumes that all parametres are fed into the model to make it accurate. As Neil Ferguson found out, and now admits, often those parametres are not known. What happens in the real world is more complex than any mathematical model can portray, or else mathematical modellers would all be stock market billlionaires. I could not agree more with what you just wrote there.

15 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

Jab away.

 

 

 

I didn't post what they say. I don't care about pro- or anti-. I gave you the facts.

 

 

 

So you know where to obtain rate graphs but you are deliberately ignoring that data. You probably have good reasons for that, or not!

 

 

Ok. We're done.

 

 

Over to you, Jeffr2! ????

 

 

Oh you mean facts like the opinion of a Swedish royal, ????.

You can pretend you don't care about either side, but you're actually very obviously highly pro-lockdown. 

It's you who's ignoring the data. If you wish to comment on Sweden having less deaths per capita then most EU countries who locked down hard, please feel free to do so. You probably have a good reason not to, though!

13 minutes ago, fdsa said:

I don't know about days range but in few years I'm cashing out at $150k

I would not bet against that. I believe BTC/USD will go up again eventually. Just not in the short term.

21 minutes ago, Fromas said:

For the last time, where's your data, Logosone?

 

Since you bring up that article, what do opponents of Tegnell say?

 

What does the data show?

 

RATES vs CUMULATIVE TOTAL. Do you genuinely not know the difference?

Our discussion ends here. You struck out a long time ago with your multiple deflections, false premises and straw men.

 

I already posted data, and you chose to ignore it Fromas. I wonder why. Hence no need to pretend you want to interpret data further.

You already posted what opponents of Tegnell say, I already posted links that set this out quite clearly.

The data shows that before and after adopting lockdown Sweden had less deaths per capita than most European countries who decided to use lockdown.

Yes, I know the difference, but I prefer Incidence figures.

You will not post anymore, oh no, how will I survive? You crush my last happiness, Fromas. Oh you mean strawmen like rates on Mars? Lol.

Tegnell and the public-health agency finally recommended wearing masks—but only on public transit and only during rush hour. (Tegnell sees distancing as the most important barrier to the virus—“Masking is not a golden bullet,” he said—and only recommends the use of masks where distance cannot be maintained.) Days after this new rule was passed, I asked Tegnell whether he still thought the evidence for masks was “sketchy.” “Yes,” he responded. “Unfortunately, there is not much new evidence in place.” But he told me that he had decided that it was better not to take chances. “Due to the developments we see, we need to use even measures where evidence and effect is low,” he said. 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/swedens-pandemic-experiment

And thus lockdown in Sweden.

Andres Tegnell, leading epidemiologist of Sweden, worked in Zaire during the 1995 Ebola epidemic, and then served as an expert on infectious diseases for the European Union before being hired by the Swedish public-health agency, in 2013. He...has often said that lockdowns are not supported by science...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/swedens-pandemic-experiment

13 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

I understand now. The King of Sweden, he was wrong. The Swedish health authorities, they were wrong. Tegnell, he's right. This statement, more than anything else, shows that you do not possess even a basic grasp of statistics. It is also a poor attempt at deflection. Bring up the data showing rates and the results or non-results of intervention.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know what your obsession with the King of Sweden is. I wouldn't take health advice from any Royal. Maybe his royal title gives you some warm feeling, it does not for me.

Tegnell worked in Zaire during the 1995 Ebola epidemic, and then served as an expert on infectious diseases for the European Union before being hired by the Swedish public-health agency, in 2013. I think I'll take the word of the leading epidemiologist in Sweden over some inbred Royal or indeed your own.

Tegnell was right when he did not go overboard with lockdowns. Both before Sweden's lockdown and now deaths per head were lower in Sweden, and continue to be so, than in almost all EU countries which used hard lockdown.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/

6 minutes ago, sandyf said:

Take it historical doesn't count?

 

With coronavirus putting households around the world in lockdown, can the English "plague village" of Eyam, which quarantined itself for more than a year, offer us lessons on how to fight back?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-51904810#:~:text=When plague arrived in September,And suffer they did.&text=For 14 months pestilence%2C pitiless,seemingly random%2C ravaged the village.

Interesting link about Eyam, but of course it does not provide any evidence that lockdowns work whatsoever.

"For 14 months pestilence, pitiless and seemingly random, ravaged the village.Deaths reached six a day, with one woman losing six children and a husband in just over a week. The graveyard was shut and bodies were dragged into fields for burial.Traditional estimates put the death toll at about 260 - 75% of the population"

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-51904810#:~:text=When plague arrived in September,And suffer they did.&text=For 14 months pestilence%2C pitiless,seemingly random%2C ravaged the village.

Leaving aside the 260% death toll, a typo I presume, it looks like this village suffered terribly due to the lockdown, however, there is no data provided in this article whether this lockdown stopped the wider spread of the plague. The plague's spread of course continued in other parts, despite Eyam's lockdown.

What is interesting though is that Eyam created a plague epicentre and even within these horrible plague infested places the plague disappeared eventually after 14 months. So you can say this is because of the measures, but then it also disappeared in other places which did not take these measures, so one can not really say any measure in Eyam led to the plague's disappearance.

One interesting point: "The main lesson here is that before imposing control measures to stop the spread of an infectious disease, it is essential to understand the way it spreads.

"There is often more than a single route of transmission, in which case it becomes important to estimate the relative importance of the various routes."

So you need to have certain facts before a measure like lockdown can be a success. I note experts even now are debating whether this virus is airborne or not.

2 minutes ago, The Cipher said:

 

Day to day price action is so hard to predict.

 

Best guess is that BTC will be range bound through the next couple of months but could start seeing another meaningful run up later in the summer if headline inflation and input costs continue to come in significantly higher than central bank guidance.

 

Of course meaningful developments between now and then could change that outlook too. (Is this financial advice? No it is not.)

Yah, I think that looks about right, looks like the fall is plateuing again and we'll see a bit of range action. After such a big fall it's unlikely an upward trend will come soon. Like my Forex sensei said "After you fall down the stairs you don't run up for a while".

10 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

the majority of which locked down hard WHEN?

 

And what is the data of infection RATES in those countries?

Do you have trouble distinguishing RATES versus static snapshots?

 

 

Of course the infection rate itself is merely a snapshot in time, nothing wrong with that.

Yes, the majority of EU countries which have a HIGHER number of deaths per head than Sweden did lock down hard, you can look up the dates. Sweden did not for a long time and still had less deaths per head than those countries that did lock down, and continues to have less deaths per head.

6 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

Extraordinary claim.

 

Proof?

Still waiting for your infection/case temporal graph for Sweden, not static snapshots of different countries (judiciously avoiding mention of her neighbors).

 

Extraordinary is rather that you'd try to cast doubt on the fact that Tegnell was under huge pressure from pro-lockdown quarters in Sweden. It's well documented, look it up.

Incidentally, Tegnell himself was very clear on what the reason for the rising numbers was, which was not lack of lockdown but rather:

"He reiterated that the agency’s assessment is that the reason for the increasing spread of the virus is declining compliance with existing recommendations and restrictions."

And, as I said above:

"Nilsson Carlsson reported a rise week-on-week in infection rates among elderly people receiving at-home care, and said this highlighted the need to continue focusing on vaccinating the most vulnerable people in society."

https://www.thelocal.se/20210325/pressure-on-swedens-healthcare-increases-as-covid-19-patients-in-icus-rise-to-292/

Of course another factor is that Sweden suffered from the same vaccine shortage as Germany, due to the EU's lawyers' failure in securing vaccines from suppliers.

6 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

And on Mars, where there is no lockdown, there are 0 infections.

 

False comparison.

 

What's your data on Sweden? If lockdowns are useless as you claim, why did they lock down?

 

 

 

Mars, talk about strawman, lol.

No it's a perfectly valid statement, before the change Sweden had less deaths per million than most EU countries and after the change Sweden still has less deaths per million than most EU countries, the majority of which all locked down hard.

Why they lock down? Because the pressure  on Tegnell from people who favoured lockdowns simply became too large and Tegnell caved, after many months of brave resistance in the face of hateful and personal attacks. And Tegnell had to do it because his health ministries (again) made the mistake of not focusing on the elderly population and figures went up, and if he had not put in place the lockdowns he would have been exposed to the charge that not using lockdown caused the increase in figures. So he protected his own job and probably was at  a loss how to deal with the rising number anyway. But the fact remains his figures are actually better than most EU countries, both before and after the lockdown.

I gave you data, but you seem to not want to comment on it:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/

1 minute ago, Fromas said:

 

Now you're making me laugh.

 

When were vaccines widely available for this novum?"

 

The clue is in the word "Now". Actually you're making me laugh, because you specifically asked what should be done "Now".

I told you, stop priority rules for vaccination, vaccinate everybody and trace and isolate the infected. It's not rocket science.

3 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

Sweden changed its "no lockdown" policy. FACT.

 

Data please.

 

It changed it, sure, but both BEFORE and AFTER this change Sweden had less deaths per head than many other EU countries, most of which used hard lockdown.

6 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

They did nothing. To rephrase, they got it all wrong. What would YOU do differently, then and now?

 

 

Health ministries and politicians did nothing at the start of the pandemic and watched it unfold in China on TV, quite right.

Obviously in Dec/Jan 2020 there should have been as thorough a lockdown as was possible in all countries, to stop the virus spreading in their countries. No country took this obvious measure.

Even though the Robert Koch Institute warned the German Bundestag of coronavirus pandemic in 2015 nothing was done to prepare.

The obvious failure at the start was not to go into full lockdown mode early, when it still would have made a huge difference.

Now, there should be less reliance on lockdown and more reliance on vaccination. Many countries got this wrong. For example, Germany put in place a "priority" system. So unlike Israel where everyone who came to a vaccination was rightly vaccinated, in Germany you had to comply with stringent priority criteria or you would not be vaccinated. That was a HUGE mistake, and apart from British/Swedish AstraZeneca prioritising UK vaccines and not delivering promised vaccine, and Biontech sending 40 million vaccine doses to the UK and not keeping them in Germany, was the main reason why the German vaccination effort dragged on so much.

Also, the health ministries are the problem. They are not even digitalised in Germany, they are useless at tracing and have publicly admitted they are overwhelmed and can not trace the virus. This is Germany. So there needs to be a lot of work done to enable countries to trace the virus and isolate the carriers. 

There needs to be a wider access to vaccination WITHOUT priority conditions such as which have hampered the German vaccination effort.

It's not rocket science really. It's vaccination across the board like in Israel, and proper tracing and isolation like in South Korea. Those can end the pandemic, if it can be done, but not lockdowns.

3 minutes ago, placeholder said:

China locked down wherever it had to to suppress the spread of the virus. China's success is obvious, except to those who maintain that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

You're contradicting yourself of course. If the Wuhan lockdown had been a success, and not the total debacle that it turned out to be, with 5 million Wuhan residents leaving before the lockdown was put in place and thus spreading the virus, there would have been no need for continous lockdowns because the Wuhan lockdown would have been such a success and stopped the pandemic, right? You can't have it both ways and say on the one hand "Ah Wuhan lockdown stopped the pandemic" but on the other "ermmm, yes further lockdowns were needed to stop the pandemic". Do you not see the inherent contradiction?

Yes, the Chinese put in place MANY, MANY lockdowns after Wuhan, which simply illustrates that their lockdowns were failures. The fact that the virus moves in waves, and eventually disappears is a fact which has been seen in history in many places, not just China, and will be seen in many more countries. Including Sweden, which hardly had any lockdowns. But still less deaths per head than most EU countries.

1 minute ago, Fromas said:

 

You CONTRADICT your own statements.

 

Not at all, you just missed where I said that lockdowns had to be done early in the pandemic. After the virus spread widely any use of lockdowns lost in usefulness in proportion to that spread. At the very start of the pandemic of course it was a different story. But like deer in the headlights our health ministries and politicians just watched and did nothing. Then when it was too late they went into panic mode and most likely overreacted.

4 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

Lockdowns in early containment stages, when vaccination has not reached a critical mass, useless?

 

Assertion of fact. What's your proof?

I am not saying lockdowns are always useless, but for sure a large number of the lockdowns that were done were useless. Lockdowns can only reduce transmissions to a certain degree, by some numbers, but it is clear they can not stop the pandemic and only vaccines coupled with contact tracing and isolation can do that.

The proof is that pandemic has kept spreading despite lockdowns.

4 minutes ago, placeholder said:

So it would have succeed for them had they locked down early, but it was not a success in China which did?

First of all this virus is a novum, so health ministries and politicians have had to start from 0 with gathering information about this virus, just like the rest of us. If you ask me, yes, I think of course all countries could have succeeded in staying safe and prevented wide-spread covid 19 disasters IF they had locked down early, when spread was minimal. Don't forget the media was quick on the case and we saw fairly early what was happening in China. We all watched it. Inlcuding the politicians and health ministries who did NOTHING. Until it was too late.

China's lockdown in Wuhan came too late, and what's more they did in such a way that 5 million residents of Wuhan left the city, thus the lockdown there actually helped to spread the virus across China and most likely the world.

The lockdown in Wuhan did reduce transmissions to some degree, but it certainly did not stop the spread of the pandemic in China or the world. There were many outbreaks both in China and across the world, after the Wuhan lockdown.

9 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

Who claimed they would? You?

 

 

If the lockdowns do not end the pandemic then we need question seriously whether they are needed.

Because they cost billions and ruin people's livelihoods.

If there is no clear benefit such as ending the spread of the virus then lockdowns should be used more sparingly than they are now.

What seems clear that it is vaccination coupled with tracing and isolation that will stop the spread of the virus, if that is even possible, but lockdowns will not do so to any meaningful degree.

Just now, Fromas said:

 

Sweden changed gears. FACT.

 

What the King of Sweden, or some Swedish health official thinks is MORE INFORMED AND MORE IMPORTANT than what you think. FACT.

 

 

Indeed, but that may turn out to be a mistake. Despite all the alarmism Sweden has far less deaths per head than a lot of EU countries that locked down. Whether the change of gears will make any difference remains to be seen.

I note you can attack me personally, that's fine, but you can not attack my arguments so that explains your personal insults. But that's fine, it's well established when those come out.

7 minutes ago, Fromas said:

 

Humans make mistakes.

 

You are human.

 

Ergo, you may have made a mistake.

 

So?

 

 

They certainly do. But they are generally smart enough to see when things are obvious. 

It seems obvious that the lockdowns that were put in place in many countries did not result in an end of the virus spread.

It is also obvious that these lockdowns had a stratospheric cost and ruined many people. Proper cost benefit analysis needs to be done. A full enquiry of the handling of the virus, as the UK is planning to do to their great credit.

There have been tons of mistakes done by health ministry officials and politicians in this pandemic.

The first was not to have prepared for the pandemic in the first place. In 2015 the Robert Koch Institute warned of a SARS pandemic, but nothing was done. Bill Gates warned of a pandemic, nothing was done. Our health officials and politicians have failed us.

Then when the pandemic hit nothing was done at all initially, when it would have made all the difference. The health ministries and politicians were watching tv and what was happening in Wuhan, instead of locking down when it could have succeeded.

Then they took knee-jerk measures many of which proved to be false. The handling of this pandemic has been a disaster across the board, from China to Germany to UK to USA. Everywhere.

Bitcoin falling today again. What is your guys' take on the price development of BTC in the next few days?