mike carey

They are those plastic cones that are used to mark off areas. And a most profound apology, I should have written 'witchs' hats' I'll correct my earlier post post haste!

Yes they do, but usually those limits are planned in advance. Imposing limits in reaction to panic buying is a different dynamic.

Me too! But the 84pc had me confused.

I wasn't talking about just the US, I was also talking about Australia, Canada, the UK and even Aotearoa/New Zealand. Australia had a multi-billion AUD bond issue last week that was over subscribed. Those four aren't the only countries other than the US that have the capacity to issue debt. The other EU countries outside the eurozone would also be able to, and there would be others.

Possibly yes. But a country that can borrow in its own currency and can print money has an advantage. It can roll the debt over till the end of time. (Or until inflation kills it.)

Way to go, Canada Post. [MEDIA=twitter]1252919280519315456[/MEDIA]

I rarely order things for delivery, so I had been unaware of anything similar happening here, but there was a story on the news this evening. They didn't canvass supply chain issues, of which I'm sure there are similar ones to the Amazon issues that have been described in this thread, rather it was about the effect on Australia Post. They are seeing parcel delivery traffic that have been running at Christmas levels for six weeks. They spoke of a 470% increase in 'department store' parcel dispatches, whatever that means, over normal levels. There had already been increases during the drought and the summer fires as city people were ordering things from small retailers in the bush to help the businesses through what were hard times, but this has supercharged mail order stuff. Australia Post are reducing their letter delivery to every second day in metro areas and switching their postmen to delivering parcels on the other days. They are also cutting out signatures on delivery where they can as a distancing measure.

I completely disagree. No retail business would react precipitately to a run on an individual line of stock on one day, they would want to see a pattern. They would respond more quickly if it was a threat to their bottom line or the stability of their operations. This wasn't. They wouldn't allow an individual shop manager, much less a checkout operator, throw the switch, but they would fairly quickly see that it was happening in multiple outlets and their IT systems would tell them the scope of the issue. That would be when they would move, which is what they did. It wasn't a threat to the company, the restrictions were implemented to calm shoppers down. That calming effort was complemented by detailed e-mails of what they were doing to their loyalty card holders and signage in the shops. This wasn't a run on a bank.

Nope, that during the first day or so of panic buying when it was only just becoming apparent that was what it was. Stores running out of stock on one day is not a crisis, it only becomes a problem if it keeps happening for no logical reason. Limits were put in place very quickly, just not on the first day or so. We have legal restraints on some things we can do in this country. How many toilet rolls we can buy is not one of them. Shops can and should limit sales to ensure continuity of supplies but gaol is an Orwellian response. There were profiteers organising several people to mass purchases to sell on e-bay, that is a different case to an idiot shopper (or lots of them) deciding that they suddenly needed five years' supply

It might be the first, certainly the first I've seen during this crisis. Airline Virgin Australia has gone into voluntary administration yesterday. That's analogous to US Chapter 11 (I don't know precisely how that works so I'm not sure how close it is), with an external administrator brought in to run the company rather than the company management being allowed to continue. The airline had been signalling that it needed help of the order of $1.4b since flight restrictions began, but its shareholders (Branson; Singapore and Etihad Airlines; and a couple of Chinese investment funds) have been unable or unwilling to provide any funds. The Australian government had also declined to provide any funds, either as a loan or an equity injection. It does, however, have an interest in retaining a second major carrier in the country, so will assist in some way in the process that has just begun. The administrator will continue to operate the airline (for the time being on a vastly reduced scale), retain its staff and assets, and basically try to sell it as a going concern. The restructure will wipe out the existing owners' equity and probably eliminate much of the airline's debt. Any new owners will probably be required to operate the airline and not be permitted to asset strip it and close it down. The airline management, the administrator and the government are all confident that the firm will be restructured and be ready to continue operations after the crisis. Apparently there are already 10 expressions of interest, but the administrator is very tight lipped about them, not even being prepared to reveal whether any of them are foreign airlines. Although the process of restructuring and sale could well be completed fairly quickly, the recovery of the airline industry in the country will be much slower. The progress of the epidemic in Australia is looking positive, and the prospect of domestic aviation opening up here, and across the Tasman where New Zealand is on a similar Covid-19 trajectory, is reasonably positive. The prospect of international passenger aviation resuming in any meaningful way is much less clear. Nobody is confident that travel from Australia to anywhere except New Zealand will resume before the end of the year. Virgin's international presence was quite small, operating its own metal to only a few destinations (one of those is the US, where it has a partnership with Delta), but it covers other international destinations with code shares on Singapore, Etihad and South African (that I know of). The administrator gave an interview on ABC radio this morning and the presenter asked him about the travel credits that the airline currently holds (swollen by all the cancellations of the last two months) and whether they were at risk. His view was that they probably weren't, mainly because honouring them would be one key to retaining and even enhancing customer loyalty. Of course, any potential buyer would be able to factor that contingent liability into their offer price. One other issue, that was a concern to me, is their frequent flyer program, but they sent an email to program members yesterday. The program is run by a separate Virgin owned company, and its points liability is covered by cash in a trust account. How secure that is, I am not sure. The email said that they are confident of continuing to operate, and hope to continue their relationship with the airline.

I went to the closest grocery shop today (Woolworths, that's the Australian version of Countdown, @azdr0710) rather than the one I used last week, no line (but they had set up the witchs' hats and tape to mark it by the time I'd finished), no hand sanitiser at the door, but they had a staff member wiping down the baskets and another handing them to customers at the entrance. Also no one-way aisles, but people were very good at distancing. And, drum roll, I bought a large flat white (coffee) to drink on the walk home, and with the chocolate éclairs I bought in the grocery shop. I feel better now.

I've looked at the FT charts and occasionally scan-read the threads their author posts in Twitter. Today I've read a bit more closely and he is really thorough, looking in great detail at a variety of trends in the statistics. I'm about to go back in a minute and go down a few of the rabbit burrows there. A couple of things, he explains why he (along with other reporting on the epidemic) uses logarithmic scales on the y-axes of charts (it's in a video), and why cases and deaths per million people is not of much value in analysing things. He also does a dive down and looks at regional statistics (for over 100 regions) for a different perspective than that provided by national figures. There's a lot of stuff there, and there's some intelligent discussion in the comments (some asking why he does things, when he had already said why in the thread, but this is Twitter). [MEDIA=twitter]1252696929244413959[/MEDIA]

Why don't you start making ... Oh, never mind!

You keep saying BRIE, but the Wiki article you posted earlier was about BREI. I know I live upside down on the other side of the world where toilets drain the other way*, but I am confused. Spoiler: They don't.

Maybe he means a case of 24 for like $48?

If you enjoy Hilary Mantel's books, she was also the presenter of the BBC Reith Lectures a couple of years ago. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vkm52/episodes/player The ABC, BBC and CBC have similar lecture series every year (the Boyer, Reith and Massey lectures respectively). They are well worth taking the time to listen to.

On my to do list.

Mullets are not acceptable even in private.

Yes (having checked Wiki), they both did. Mary was a daughter of James II & VII and William's mother was a daughter of Charles I, so Mary had the higher claim.

That's be my choice. I haven't watched the series but I've seen heaps over the years of him hosting TV series to know that he would have been fascinating to chat with. The IRA made a gross error of judgment.

Exercise is allowed here but not gyms, and trainers are only permitted to do one-on-one training.

Cafes here are generally open for takeaway coffee.

For you the risk is probably minimal, for him a little higher. As long as you don't hug, it seems to me not to be a great risk.

Comparatively, we're doing really well, but we're about to go into winter and nobody knows how seasonal the virus will be. Except Donald Trump, and he knows everything. We have lockdowns that will go for at least another month. Only essential trips out of the house, but shopping and exercise count. Restaurants and cafes are closed for sit down customers but takeaway and delivery is allowed, including wine from licensed premises. A lot of food outlets are being really creative. Schools are open but universities are not, but both are encouraging on-line learning rather than have students attend in person. Canberra is fairly liberal in what you can do, and the police haven't issued any fines, they've just told people what the rules are. Australia has 6.5K cases and 71 deaths, and the trend is down. Here in the Capital Territory (population c400K) we haven't had any new cases in the last six days and we've only had 103 cases and three deaths.