The problem with Economists, when somebody in the office sneezes they panic, pound drops and the stock market falls, but they will make money out of the misery they cause.. Furthermore, they all seem to appear OTR on the matchday thread. Gutless the lot of them.
The problem with the internet is that anybody can post their opinion on it, and sure as hell someone else will cite it as fact
It's best when people contadict 'biased media reports' by posting another media report that's supposed be unbiased
I was working with a bloke who was a Covid denier. I asked him if he thought his "opinion" was as valid as those of Chris Whitty, Patrick Valance or Jonathan Van Tam. Amazingly he said yes and rubbished these eminent professors learned views. He is a painter and decorator. I know whose opinion I believe, and it's not the painter's. Same reason I wouldn't phone Chris Witty to paint my house
Yes, it's amazing when people don't believe what experts on a particular subject say about that subject...
Early on in Covid19, following on from the vaccine beginning to roll out. I had bad tooth ache and had to go to the dentist. The topic of the day of course was vaccines and possible side effects. The dentist and her assistant were both female, the dentist was from.Holland I think and fairly direct In attitude. She explained the likelihood of side effects by saying, both her and her assistant were on the 'pill', their was a 1 in 100,000 chance that they would have mild side effects. On the AZ vaccine there was a 1 in 4,000,000 chance of mild side effects, ie 40 times less likely that the 'pill'. Not many women stop taking the pill for a chance of mild side effects of 1 in 100,000, you only get pregnant by not taking the pill. You could die (as an older person) by not having the vaccine, when there was only 1 chance in 4,000,000 of mild side effects. I thanked these young women for sorting out my tooth ache and explaining the 'side effects ' question so well. Ps Currently my blood pressure tablets, are causing swollen ankles and crampy feet. I am changing to an alternative. Most medicines have side effects, usually not life threatening... its part of managing your health problems, navigating treatment side effects.
Oh this bloke was a full on conspiracy theory nutcase. He reckoned the vaccine was an excuse for government's to deliberately kill their own people via some heart disease. I asked him how he came by this amazing information. Yep, you guessed it..... The internet
It's fine to disagree with people, in fact it's essential to progress on any given subject, in academic or research terms at least, but to deliberately refuse to acknowledge any other view point than your own and then to say that other people are biased is incredible.
My own 'conspiracy' theory involves the origin of the virus and how it had evolved to effect particular ages/races more than others. Simple probability of the virus 'evolving naturally'. You start of with the basic virus, there is a 50:50 probability of it muting a particular way. To end up with the Covid19 version we knew and hated would have taken multiple mutations ie the probability of it happening naturally is way less than 1%. It so happened that the town in China where the virus was found has a experimental laboratory nearby
I do not think it is a conspiracy theory to surmise that the Chinese laboratory had something to do with it's origin, it is too much of a coincidence not to.
Two years ago you'd have been cancelled for saying that. People got fired and had careers ruined over similar. A consequence of letting politics lead science.
Read that as because you objected to the dentist you ended up with high blood pressure resulting in swollen ankles and crampy feet. He wasn't cancelled, see above.
January saw a budget surplus for the UK. Around 12bn better than analysts predicted. Looks like costs of energy support are going to be lower overall too. The smallest of small green shoots hopefully...
