With UK government borrowing running into the hundreds of billions, how can we stop any future recovery from being crushed by the sheer weight of debt?
One answer is monetisation.
Rather than central banks printing money and buying government bonds only in a crisis, they would do it all the time to fund ordinary spending. Rather than turning to international money markets to finance deficits, the state could effectively fund them itself.
We are already well on the way: the Bank of England now owns about one third of the UK’s national debt. After so many political failures, the left smells an opportunity.
Long mocked as believers in “magic money trees”, the response to Covid-19 suggests that such arboreal wonders do exist after all. If money can be summoned out of thin air to fight a virus then why, the argument goes, can it not be used to fight other deadly plagues: poverty, unemployment and climate change?
The first objection is economic. You can print infinite money, but there are limits on the goods such money can buy.
We still live in a world of scarcity. Unlimited demand for limited resources eventually generates hyperinflation. The currency would crash and the price of imports would soar.
Yet with so many countries monetising their debt at the same time, perhaps the pound would not fall relative to other currencies. Perhaps serious inflation could be avoided.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“A man walked into the doctor’s. The doctor said, ‘ haven’t seen you for a long time.’ The man replied, ‘I know. I’ve been ill.”
Tommy Cooper
Preparing For The Worst
A few years ago, I found myself at a hotel in Florida hosting a huge conference on Hurricane Preparedness, so I know that preparing for the worst can be big business. And that’s the premise behind a California based company. Earthquake Solutions makes it’s money from both consultancy work and the sale of emergency kits to the public.
Now I know that hurricane or earthquake preparedness isn’t a big issue here in the UK, but I do think that most of us (and I include myself here) are woefully unprepared for a natural or manmade disaster.
How would people cope following an unprecedented weather event, huge terrorist attack, total disruption of the transport system, the National Grid going down or fuel supplies drying up? Would they have the food, water, shelter and alternative power supplies they’d need?
Most would not.
I can’t pretend this is the easiest sell… people don’t like buying stuff when there’s no immediate need… but there’s no doubt that they would benefit from having a kit containing all the essentials to hand. If you can figure out a way to market this effectively there’s big money to be made.
Every home in the UK is a potential customer.
If this interests you, do some research on what’s available in the United States where preparing for the worst seems to be a National obsession?
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL RUNNING DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Dear Streetwise Customer,
Imagine sitting down this afternoon and tapping out a simple letter. It takes you perhaps a couple of hours to get it right…
And Then Over The Next Few Years It Brings In Over £5 Million.
Pure fantasy?
Not at all. I’ve done it. I’ll even show you the letter. And I’ve written lots of others just like it, although they weren’t all quite as successful as that one.
But Even So, Many Of Them Landed Thousands Of Pounds In My Bank Account Within Days, and Hundreds of Thousands Within Weeks.
Like to learn how to do the same?
Well there has really Never Been A Better Time for three reasons…
1. These letters bring in serious money when times are tough – and they don’t come much tougher than they are right now.
2. These letters are even more powerful when the world is relying on the internet for its requirements, just like it is right now.
3. You probably have some free time available to learn how to do this at the moment.
This is an exciting and realistic alternative to the gloom which is all around us today – an escape route. It’s an alternative that can quickly see you banking more than enough money to see yourself and your family right through this current crisis and then into uncharted financial success when all this is over.
This comes with a 100% cast iron 90 day money back guarantee. There is absolutely no risk to you to take a look.
You might not be able to shield your shares from a falling stockmarket, but you can at least protect your investments from the taxman with a stocks and shares individual savings account (Isa).
The Isa “wrapper” is a tax-efficient way to invest in shares, unit trusts, investment trusts, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), open-ended investment companies (Oeics), real estate investment trusts (Reits), and both corporate and government bonds.
You can even park your cash here while you’re scouting around for what to buy next. Just make sure to be aware that, depending on your provider, you may not earn interest on your cash while you decide what to subsequently invest in. That’s what cash Isas are for.
Still, with a stocks and shares Isa, you won’t pay any capital gains tax (CGT) on your investments. Better yet, any income, whether dividends from shares or interest on bonds, is also sheltered from tax in your Isa.
Remember that the value of your stocks and shares Isa can go down as well as up. If it does fall then you can’t top it back up if you’ve used up your £20,000 allowance already. And remember, that £20,000 allowance is spread between all of your Isa accounts, not just the one.
So, for example, you might put £10,000 in a cash Isa and £10,000 in a stocks and shares Isa. But in this scenario, if the value of your stocks and shares Isa falls, you will have to wait until the start of the next tax year to pay in more money. You can, of course, transfer money into your stocks and shares Isa from, say, your cash Isa.
What if you already have investments outside of a tax wrapper that you would like to save into your stocks and shares Isa? Not a problem. There is quite a useful trick known as the “bed and Isa”.
First you sell your investments on your trading platform. Then you can buy them back inside your stocks and shares Isa. It’s as simple as that. Because the investments were outside of the tax wrapper when you sold them, they will be subject to your £12,000 CGT allowance for the year.
If you are in danger of breaching that limit, consider selling your investments in different tax years. Otherwise, you can transfer an investment to a spouse who hasn’t yet used up their allowance. They can then sell it and buy it back in their Isa.
Because investment platforms do the selling and then the buying in rapid succession when they carry out Bed and Isa services, the good news is your exposure to price movements in the market is kept to a minimum.
There are several things to consider when choosing an investment platform for your stocks and shares Isa. Some charge a flat fee, good news if you have a lot of money invested (over £25,000). Other platforms will charge a percentage of the value of your funds, which suits better if you are investing smaller sums.
Then there’s the fee you will be charged for buying and selling investments. And finally, there’s the range of investments that they offer, as well as the small, but important things, such as reliability and customer service.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.”
Victor Kiam
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“It’s easy to distract fat people. It’s a piece of cake.”
Chris Addison
Lockdown Shaming
“Lockdown shaming” has become the latest ammunition in neighbourhood feuds. Police are urging the public to stop exploiting the coronavirus lockdown to settle neighbourhood vendettas after forces reported being “inundated” with thousands of daily allegations of people breaching coronavirus restrictions.
The West Midlands police, the second largest force in England and Wales, revealed it had been receiving 1,000 Covid-19 related calls a day. The majority of reports were for low-level incidents, such as neighbours reporting someone they had seen walking the dog twice in a day.
However, some are ongoing neighbour disputes and nothing to do with coronavirus. The police have asked the public to curb “deliberate false reporting” to punish nuisance neighbours or settle long-running feuds. However, the other side of the coin is overzealous policing.
We’ve had a glimpse of what a very British police state might look like. Police across the country have confused government guidance with actual law, busting people for illicit Easter egg purchases and scrambling drones over the Peaks to reprimand walkers.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL GO BAREFOOT DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Dear Streetwise Customer,
Imagine sitting down this afternoon and tapping out a simple letter. It takes you perhaps a couple of hours to get it right…
And Then Over The Next Few Years It Brings In Over £5 Million.
Pure fantasy?
Not at all. I’ve done it. I’ll even show you the letter. And I’ve written lots of others just like it, although they weren’t all quite as successful as that one.
But Even So, Many Of Them Landed Thousands Of Pounds In My Bank Account Within Days, and Hundreds of Thousands Within Weeks.
Like to learn how to do the same?
Well there has really Never Been A Better Time for three reasons…
1. These letters bring in serious money when times are tough – and they don’t come much tougher than they are right now.
2. These letters are even more powerful when the world is relying on the internet for its requirements, just like it is right now.
3. You probably have some free time available to learn how to do this at the moment.
This is an exciting and realistic alternative to the gloom which is all around us today – an escape route. It’s an alternative that can quickly see you banking more than enough money to see yourself and your family right through this current crisis and then into uncharted financial success when all this is over.
This comes with a 100% cast iron 90 day money back guarantee. There is absolutely no risk to you to take a look.
Most of the non-essential parts of the British economy have been put on hold by the coronavirus lockdown and the housing market, core as it may seem to many of our lives, is no exception.
With moving during the lockdown period being heavily discouraged by the government and many lenders now refusing to lend to those with anything less than a 40% deposit, property website Zoopla reckons that the number of houses sold in UK will fall by at least 60% in the next few months.
There are several factors behind the move – the shutdown has reduced banks’ capacity to process loans, surveyors are unable to value properties as easily and estate agents can’t show people around homes.
On top of that, it’s hard to value a house when transactions have dried up and there are no comparable deals going through, and it’s hard to write loans when job security across almost all industries and seniority levels is suddenly in question.
So for now, the property market is effectively frozen. Price data will be virtually meaningless in the coming months, as pretty much the only deals being done right now will be between those who are forced to sell and those who are cash buyers.
So what happens when the lockdown is over? A lot depends on the state of the economy, and also the level of restrictions on movement that remain. On that front, estate agents argue that there will be plenty of pent-up demand from both buyers and sellers, given that mortgage approvals in February hit their highest level since 2014.
Cheap funding available to banks from the Bank of England should mean the mortgage market remains open and rates stay low once the worst of the crisis is past, even if the riskiest loans are no longer on offer. But this might be wishful thinking. House prices are indeed largely dictated by the price and availability of credit.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.”
Michael Winner
Meanwhile, a key source of demand in some areas, mini-Airbnb empires in tourist hotspots, will also suffer as holiday landlords who were burned during the lockdown sell out.
In the longer run, interest rates are unlikely to rise because the Bank of England will be forced to hold them down, given soaring government borrowing. In time that could result in inflation, which would make property appealing as a “real asset”.
But that may take time, we expect house prices to fall by just 3% this year, but there are many risks that could undermine this forecast, a larger-than-hoped rise in unemployment being the key one.
That said, if you are keen to move, then look to the shires.
In relative terms at least, if there is any wider shift to working from home more regularly, you’d expect country properties to outperform city ones, while towns and villages once deemed to be on the fringes of commuting range of London and other big cities might also see a benefit.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL YOGA DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Dear Streetwise Customer
I hope that you and your family are well.
I don’t have to tell you that the Coronavirus outbreak has changed everything, and nowhere more so than in the world of sports betting. With almost all our regular ‘go to’ profit makers like European football, horse racing and golf on hold, you might be excused for thinking that the opportunity to make a lucrative extra income from sports betting was gone – at least for now.
That’s what we thought until we heard from a guy called Craig Russell and how he was…
Making an extra £150-£250 a week exploiting the ‘invisible’ betting opportunities exposed by the Coronavirus mayhem.
You see Craig isn’t your typical sports bettor. Long before anyone had heard of coronavirus, he was shunning the sort of events most of us bet on in favour of little-known sports, events and fixtures taking place in obscure locations.
Why did he concentrate on those?
Because he figured that the less ‘pro’s’ there were looking at these obscure markets, and the more time he spent studying them, the greater edge he’d have over the competition.
Obvious when you think about it.
So why this message?
Because it seems like now is the perfect time to bring this to a wider audience…but not much wider!
You see, in conjunction with Craig we’ve put together a totally unique service which is tailor-made for the times we find ourselves in. But there will only be 100 places available. Ever.
For full details on what’s involved and why the limit, take a LOOK NOW.If an extra couple of hundred pounds tax-free income would be worthwhile to you right now, I’d urge you to get in touch without delay. These places are really going to go fast.
P.S Almost forgot…you can get started with this for just £9.95. I’m pretty sure that makes it our cheapest service ever. Why? Well take a look now and all will be revealed.
If your income has been hit by the Covid-19 lockdown and you are worrying about making your debt repayments, don’t panic. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced plans to freeze loan and credit card payments for up to three months as part of emergency measures.
If confirmed, the scheme would mean that you can apply to your loan or card provider for a break in your repayments that wouldn’t affect your credit rating, as with a mortgage holiday. Lenders would also have to waive interest charges on arranged overdrafts of up to £500 for the same period.
This will relieve pressure on many people facing an income shortfall, but the government isn’t waving a magic wand over your debt.
When the crisis passes your debt will still be there. However, you can take steps of your own to tackle your debt. If you have credit cards you can’t afford to pay off, apply for an interest-free balance transfer credit card.
The longest interest-free balance transfer deal currently available is 29 months from Virgin Money with a 3% fee. But you can avoid the balance transfer fee simply by switching to Santander’s 18-month completely interest-free balance transfer deal, a much better deal.
A £500 interest-free overdraft, meanwhile, is great news if you need that little bit of extra help getting through the lockdown days. But, we would advise to be very careful about building up debt on your overdraft.
Last month a long-planned change to overdraft charges came into full force, meaning banks can no longer charge daily or monthly fees, merely a simple interest rate. Most banks planned to charge a set rate of around 40% on overdrafts, which will also still apply even when the current crisis has passed.
Tips on dodging overdraft interest rates: avoid that enormous interest rate by shifting your overdraft debt onto a money transfer credit card instead.
These cards allow you to pay money from an interest-free credit card straight into your bank account, giving you a bit of breathing space to clear the deficit without that interest mounting up. MBNA will give you up to two years interest-free with a 2.99% money transfer fee.
Unfortunately, if you have a car finance deal the government has yet to announce any help here. If you are going to struggle to meet your car repayments, you will need to contact your car finance provider and ask them for a payment holiday. Many are offering holidays or contract extensions, but unfortunately it isn’t guaranteed.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”
Colin Powell
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbour said, “Aren’t you going to help?” I said, “No, six should be enough.”
Les Dawson
The Best Way We Can Bail Out The Airlines
Coronavirus has wreaked havoc in the airline industry, for obvious reasons. British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic have all approached the UK government for help.
There is a strong case to be made for protecting the industry – about 80,000 jobs are attached to those four airlines, and some see them as too important to fail, both for the labour market and for the wider economy.
Others, however, suggest that this was already an industry in decline and that there are better ways to support affected workers. If the industry is bailed out, the government should learn from past mistakes.
First of all, be transparent about the rationale for any bailout, and upfront about the expected costs.
Second, make sure private investors pay their fair share. It’s only right. Those who enjoyed the profits in the good times must expect to be “bailed in” in the bad.
Third, require protection of jobs, employment rights and green standards.
Finally, be realistic about the future. Airlines were already facing strong headwinds – the government must take a more realistic view of the future profitability of the industries it tries to save.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL HAMBURGER DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Dear Streetwise Customer
I hope that you and your family are well.
I don’t have to tell you that the Coronavirus outbreak has changed everything, and nowhere more so than in the world of sports betting. With almost all our regular ‘go to’ profit makers like European football, horse racing and golf on hold, you might be excused for thinking that the opportunity to make a lucrative extra income from sports betting was gone – at least for now.
That’s what we thought until we heard from a guy called Craig Russell and how he was…
Making an extra £150-£250 a week exploiting the ‘invisible’ betting opportunities exposed by the Coronavirus mayhem.
You see Craig isn’t your typical sports bettor. Long before anyone had heard of coronavirus, he was shunning the sort of events most of us bet on in favour of little-known sports, events and fixtures taking place in obscure locations.
Why did he concentrate on those?
Because he figured that the less ‘pro’s’ there were looking at these obscure markets, and the more time he spent studying them, the greater edge he’d have over the competition.
Obvious when you think about it.
So why this message?
Because it seems like now is the perfect time to bring this to a wider audience…but not much wider!
You see, in conjunction with Craig we’ve put together a totally unique service which is tailor-made for the times we find ourselves in. But there will only be 100 places available. Ever.
For full details on what’s involved and why the limit, take a LOOK NOW.If an extra couple of hundred pounds tax-free income would be worthwhile to you right now, I’d urge you to get in touch without delay. These places are really going to go fast.
P.S Almost forgot…you can get started with this for just £9.95. I’m pretty sure that makes it our cheapest service ever. Why? Well take a look now and all will be revealed.
A large amount of people who have a lot of wealth are wealthy mainly because they have more than one income stream. Multiple income streams or multiple streams of income, MSIs, whatever you want to call them…
Is the real secret to wealth.
The purpose of multiple streams of income is that a person has money coming in from several different sources where they do not necessarily have to work hard for. So should there ever be any problems, they’ve always got money coming in.
The difference between a wealthy person and an average person, is that the average person has a day job. They go to work and get paid for the work they do for the company and the time they spend there.
On average, a person spends between 4 to 8 hours a day at work, depending on whether it’s a part time or full time job.
They are exchanging their precious time for money. They have a job.
There is a saying that the word job, spelled J-O-B, means…
Just Over Broke.
Because if you work a day job, you will never be wealthy, you will always be just over broke.
There are very few jobs in this world where you will earn more money than you will need.
There are some high paying jobs, but on the whole, while working a job for an employer, you’re basically just earning enough money. And if that job was to suddenly end, if you were to become ill, or laid off for some reason, your income would stop. And that is a very scary place to be.
Wealthy people create multiple income streams so that should one income stream dry up, they are still earning money from the other income streams they have. It is a safety net as well as a proven wealth builder.
As an example, a person who owns a lot of property, which they rent out will have income streams coming in from those properties. 50 houses would be 50 different income streams.
Now property isn’t always the best business to get in because there’s always a large outlay at the beginning. And a lot of the rental income will be paying off any loans or mortgages that are taken out to buy the property. But on the whole there’s 50 income streams, which will eventually bring in a lot of money each month once any loans and mortgages are paid off.
So if one house became empty, the other 49 houses will still be bringing in money. If 5 houses became unoccupied, there would still be 45 houses bringing in money and 5 houses which are not. They are multiple income streams.
Think about J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, James Patterson, all these authors, who’ve written books. Those books are always selling. If you think of Roald Dahl, who is no longer with us, his estate is still earning money from his back catalogue of books. Every book becomes an income stream.
So for example, with J.K. Rowling, she has nine Harry Potter books. Those nine Harry Potter books are each selling copies each month. Should one book for some unknown reason not sell any copies in a month, there’s money coming in from the other eight. She has a lot of book sales.
She has published other books too and has roughly 12, possibly 14 books in total. They are different income streams. She has multiple income streams, which have helped her to become a billionaire.
There are many different businesses where you can set up different individual income streams and this is what wealthy people do. They set up a business and once that business is earning money they then move on to the next business. They set up multiple (semi) passive income streams.
I won’t use the phrase passive income because passive income is not necessarily correct.
You have to do the work upfront, and then there is a certain amount of work which will be needed to manage the income stream. So most income streams are semi-passive income.
Unless of course, you take on staff to manage those income streams. This is something else which most wealthy people do, they hire people to run and manage their businesses for them. Then and only then does a business or income stream become a fully passive income stream.
Once an income stream is set up and making money without much maintenance required, the wealthy person will move on to another business/product/income stream, set it up and get it earning then start on another.
It doesn’t need to be a completely new business. It could even just be one business where they have multiple contracts, premises or products. As an example, Bob Proctor became very wealthy cleaning offices. He started out cleaning offices on his own but when new contracts presented themselves, he hired people to do the work for him. He would leverage their time and he would pay them for it. That way he could take on more offices to clean.
When the number of contracts grew he would hire more stuff.
Every member of staff, and every office that his company cleaned became an income stream.
He had his office cleaning businesses in the USA, in Canada and in the UK. There were staff cleaning offices for him while he was back at home in Canada. The money filtered its way up to him, through all those different income streams.
The problem with office cleaning is that there is a large amount of expenditure. You have wages to pay, there are offices and stores to hire or buy, and cleaning equipment to buy.
With J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, for example, they only had to write the book once and then the book was printed. J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and a lot of other great authors go through publishing houses. The writer writes the book and the publishing house publishes the book. They basically do all the printing, the distribution and the marketing. The writers get paid a commission from the sales of the books. So in many ways it becomes a very passive income for them.
James Patterson, he had a more hands on approach, being in the marketing industry, the publishing company who took on his first book would not run any television advertisement for the book. So he decided to fund it himself and ran a TV advert. This launched his book into the stratosphere and kicked off his first bestseller. Since then, he’s not looked back. He has loads of books out there including many children’s books and each book is an income stream.
Books are great if you are able to sell a lot, otherwise they are not huge income streams. A book can generate just a few pounds. Self-published authors make a lot more as there is no publishing company taking a large cut of the profits.
Compare the selling of one book, which could be a couple of pounds in income with that of rental income. Rent can bring in anything between a few hundred to a few thousand pounds per month per property. But there are larger costs with buying property.
Writing books can be a lot cheaper business to get started with. A book can be published for a few pounds with Amazon, spend a couple of thousand to give it a better chance of selling and you could be earning a lot more than what property can give you for a lot less outgoings.
There are many types of businesses that will give you multiple income streams. One such business is information publishing.
Download your own copy of How To Run A 6 Figure Information Publishing Business From Home for free HERE:
Information publishing is very similar to being an author, you write and publish books, you can also create video tutorials and online courses. However, you are creating information that people need or want. This gives it a higher profit margin.
So for example here at Streetwise Publications, we have created several courses that teach people how to make money in different niches or different businesses. And we can sell them for more than you can buy a book or a DVD on Amazon. Because our products are not about mere enjoyment and titillation. It’s about learning.
This product is to do with writing sales letters. Sales letters can bring in a lot of money.
For example, one sales letter, which John Harrison wrote in 1989 has since gone on to make £5 million for him and the business. And it was a sales letter, which he wrote in one afternoon.
It’s not actually that hard to write sales letters. Anybody can write that particular style of sales letters. You do not need to be that great at English, you certainly do not need to be an English professor, lecturer or graduate. It just requires a little learning.
But once a person has learned the art of writing sales letters, they can build a portfolio of profitable sales letters generating them millions of pounds.
And so the value of the information in that One Letter From Retirement product is far greater than that of a Harry Potter book because Harry Potter is just an enjoyable fiction book, you can read it over and over again and enjoy the story.
But it won’t make you any money.
Whereas that One Letter From Retirement product has a higher price tag because if you study the information and write a sales letter such as John did in 1989, which goes on to make you £5 million over several years, then it is worth more than the actual ink and paper it’s printed on… making it’s worth far more than any Harry Potter book.
Publishing information books can be a very profitable industry to get into. A very profitable business indeed. And once you’ve created one information product and its accompanying sales letter, you can move on to the next one. And then move on to another one after that.
You build a portfolio of products which you can sell. Once those products are online you create multiple income streams in the same way that J.K. Rowling and James Patterson have created multiple income streams with their books.
Once they’re online and ready to sell, you use advertising to get them out in front of people on a regular basis. You maintain your income streams, making them semi-passive income streams.
Multiple streams of income is the secret tool of most multi-millionaires. Every wealthy business person that you know will have more than one business. They will have multiple sources of income coming in, so should one business dry up, they are still earning money from other sources.
They have freed themselves of the panic and worry most employed wage slaves face regularly.
Should their boiler break down, they have more than enough income to cover it as well as their living costs or if one business fails, there is nothing to fear because they still have money coming in and they are not relying on that one job, that one source of income.
They are not exchanging their time for money. They create systems and automate those systems so that they are constantly bringing in money from other sources without much effort on their part.
So if you need to find other ways to bring in extra income, then you need to begin to build multiple sources of income. It really is the only way.
There are 5 criteria which a person should think about when looking at creating multiple income streams…
The income stream requires very little upfront or ongoing expenditure unless you are leveraging money itself.
It doesn’t require too much upfront training and learning.
It requires very little work once the initial work is complete.
It needs to be automated and requires very little of your time after the income stream is established.
The returns are the highest possible.
Make it easy on yourself. You want to find a way to build a profitable income stream as fast as possible, with as little outlay and ongoing work as possible.
Think of those 5 things when building an income stream and you shouldn’t go wrong.
American public conversation about Covid-19 has become haunted by prominent voices who propose “sacrificing the old and weak at the altar of the global economy”. Republican officials, conservative economists, unqualified pundits and even the 73-year-old president of the United States (who has since changed his view) have suggested that the economic pain caused by lockdowns to protect the vulnerable might be too great.
However, positing this problem, anywhere in the world, as a trade-off between the economic interests of the young and the lifespan of the old is a terrible error. The global economic depression unleashed by the deaths of millions is beyond imagining. Trade would grind to a half because of mourning, fear of infection, society-wide trauma and social unrest. And, of course, even healthy children can die from Covid-19.
Saying that it is morally unacceptable to trade lives for GDP is missing the point. Setting aside the act that policymakers frequently do put a price on human life (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides which drugs and medical procedures to fund, says we should be spending no more than £30,000 to add one year of perfect health to one person), these high-sounding pronouncements ignore the fact that economic downturns cost lives.
The choice politicians are making is not between saving lives and economic growth, but between sacrificing lives now (visibly) and sacrificing them in the future (less visibly).
When economies shrink, poverty, violent crime and suicide rise and life expectancy declines. The Depression proved as much. Moreover, life expectancy among some deprived groups had, pre-pandemic, stalled in the UK, and gone backwards in America. If the UK’s GDP falls more than 6.4% per person as a result of the lockdown, more years of life will be lost than saved.
Currently, however, it looks more likely that we will get a deep, short recession, not a lengthy one and if businesses can struggle through, consumer demand and investment will rebound, without a significant impact on life expectancy. Possibly, but by some estimates GDP will be down 15% this quarter; the longer the lockdown – and the signs are that it could last until June – the deeper this slump could get. That’s why testing is key.
A team at Oxford University think that 50% of the UK population may already have been infected. If true, suppression measures could probably be safely relaxed. Data is crucial, because for now there are too many unknowns. But we will arrive at a time when the cost of containment measures, in terms of human welfare and even of fatalities, outweighs the cost of the virus. Refusing to face this grim calculation is not an act of high-mindedness, but of dereliction.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“A free lunch is only found in mousetraps.”
John Capuzzi
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“Ever since I started to get recognition I’ve picked out certain fans and reverse-stalked them.”
Jim Carey
The Great Toilet-Roll Shortage
We all know who’s to blame for the great toilet-roll shortage: irrational hoarders and greedy panic buyers. Or are they?
Actually, we don’t need to assume that most consumers are greedy or irrational to understand why shelves are emptying. It’s all to do with supply chains.
The toiletpaper industry is split into two, largely separate, markets: commercial and consumer. Consumers are not making more trips to the bathroom, but are doing so more often at home than elsewhere due to lockdowns.
That means the average household will use 40% more toilet paper than usual if all its members are staying at home. That’s a huge leap in demand for a product whose supply chain is predicated on the assumption that demand is essentially constant.
So if you’re wondering where all the toilet roll went, mystery solved – it’s at the office. Couldn’t industrial processes and supply chains change to solve the problem? Perhaps, but then we’ll face the same problem in reverse once people head back to work again. Knowing this, we can at least stop looking down on the “idiocy” of our fellow shoppers.
Even a modest, reasonable amount of stocking up by millions of people in preparation for staying at home would be enough to deplete many store shelves of everyday items.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL SENIOR HEALTH AND FITNESS DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Dear Streetwise Customer
I hope that you and your family are well.
I don’t have to tell you that the Coronavirus outbreak has changed everything, and nowhere more so than in the world of sports betting. With almost all our regular ‘go to’ profit makers like European football, horse racing and golf on hold, you might be excused for thinking that the opportunity to make a lucrative extra income from sports betting was gone – at least for now.
That’s what we thought until we heard from a guy called Craig Russell and how he was…
Making an extra £150-£250 a week exploiting the ‘invisible’ betting opportunities exposed by the Coronavirus mayhem.
You see Craig isn’t your typical sports bettor. Long before anyone had heard of coronavirus, he was shunning the sort of events most of us bet on in favour of little-known sports, events and fixtures taking place in obscure locations.
Why did he concentrate on those?
Because he figured that the less ‘pro’s’ there were looking at these obscure markets, and the more time he spent studying them, the greater edge he’d have over the competition.
Obvious when you think about it.
So why this message?
Because it seems like now is the perfect time to bring this to a wider audience…but not much wider!
You see, in conjunction with Craig we’ve put together a totally unique service which is tailor-made for the times we find ourselves in. But there will only be 100 places available. Ever.
For full details on what’s involved and why the limit, take a LOOK NOW.If an extra couple of hundred pounds tax-free income would be worthwhile to you right now, I’d urge you to get in touch without delay. These places are really going to go fast.
P.S Almost forgot…you can get started with this for just £9.95. I’m pretty sure that makes it our cheapest service ever. Why? Well take a look now and all will be revealed.
A deadly virus is spreading across the world at an accelerating rate. Shops, restaurants and pubs have closed down. No one is allowed out of their house and the economy is collapsing.
There are moments when it feels like the apocalypse. The world is ending and we are all doomed. Investors may feel the same way. Amid the carnage on the stockmarket one small category has done well – space stocks.
It is almost as if people have decided to give up on this planet and try a different one instead. Space exploration is a small sector, of course, but there are definite signs of life.
The only pure quoted space stock is Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which aims to offer the first tourist trips into space. True, its shares have been volatile. They tripled at the start of this year, then crashed even before any of us realised Covid-19 would spread beyond China.
In the last month however, they bounced by 50%. There are also a couple of space exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track a broad range of spacerelated companies. The aptly named Kensho Final Frontiers Fund is up from less than $160 to more than $185 at the time of writing. The Procure Space ETF – with the cute ticker UFO – is up by a similar amount.
Other private firms are forging ahead too. Blue Origin, controlled by Amazon founder Jeff ezos, has, slightly surprisingly, been designated an “essential” company by the US government and allowed to keep operating.
And of course there’s Tesla founder Elon Musk’s Space-X, which is pressing on with plans for a new rocket capable of going to both the Moon and Mars.There are two main reasons why space companies have soared above the carnage on the stockmarket and in the wider economy.
First of all, all the terrible news about collapsing demand, closed factories and rapidly rising unemployment doesn’t make any difference to them. They didn’t have much in the way of sales anyway.
They were devoting their resources to making products that might be fantastically valuable, but not for another five or six years. A six-month shutdown is not terribly relevant one way or another. And next, 50 years after men first landed on the Moon, a genuine “space economy” is starting to emerge with real revenues.
It includes tourism, communications, mining and transport. It is getting big enough to be included in US GDP calculations and in the numbers of many other countries as well. In the US, it is estimated at $158bn, making it by far the global leader.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
Andy Warhol
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“Electricity is really just organized lightning.”
George Carlin
For Canada it is estimated at $5.6bn and for Germany $3.1bn. The Space Foundation estimates the total value of extraterrestrial GDP at $419bn in 2019 with 79% of that in the private sector. In truth, given its size and rapid growth, it is surprising there is not a larger quoted sector and more interest from investors.
The few who are taking the plunge are probably right to do so. It is one of the most exciting new industries around. To infinity and beyond! Of course, it remains to be seen whether a genuine space industry emerges, whether it is profitable and whether the investors backing it now ever make a return on their money.
But there is a broader lesson here for investors. The economy may look absolutely terrible right now with uncertain prospects for recovery, but whole new industries are going to emerge.
That has been true even in the deepest depressions. After the crash of the 1870s, the railways forged ahead and new technologies based on electricity started to emerge. In the 1930s, following the Great Depression, industries such as television and electrical household appliances would later form the foundations of the post-war boom.
After the crash of 2008 the app economy was just getting going, with companies such as Uber and Airbnb raising capital. This is a good time to back emerging technologies because valuations are at rockbottom. And some of the prices are just too good to be missed.
Space may or may not turn out to be the industry of the future – but it is certain we will look back in ten years’ time and realise that something was, and it was very, very cheap in 2020…
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL STRWABERRIES AND CREAM DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Hello,
My name is Michael White, and what I’d like to share with you now is a total game-changer. With your permission, over the next few minutes I’ll explain a money-loophole that could be your ticket to the laziest and fastest retirement imaginable.
Please let me first put your mind at rest about a few things…
There’s no limit to the number of times you can use this under one person’s name. You could use this secret regularly…
. You DON’T need to already have a bank account with a particular bank or building society.
. You DON’T need to have been mis-sold a pension or investment.
. You DON’T need to buy shares of a specific company or bank.
. You DON’T have to pay this money back- it’s NOT a loan. It’s YOUR money, free and clear.
. You DON’T have to own a home, and you can use the money for ANYTHING you like.
. You DON’T need a credit rating or be at any particular earnings level or be on benefit.
. You DON’T need a computer or any technical know-how. You could even place a call instead of make a few clicks if you don’t have a computer.
NOBODY else knows this secret because I discovered it – through the application of an ancient code. I will share it with you HERE for legitimate reasons I’ll explain in a moment. And I guarantee you’ll be stunned at how this powerful secret could force the banking system into letting you retire early…
David Hockney, creator of Britain’s most expensive artwork by a living artist, is in lockdown. But he isn’t letting it get to him. From Normandy, where he is staying, the resourceful 82-year-old whipped out an iPad and “painted” a picture of bright yellow daffodils.
He called it Do Remember They Can’t Cancel The Spring. Sadly, Hockney’s latest two exhibitions in London, at the National Portrait Gallery and the Annely Juda Fine Art gallery, have not been able to escape the spread of the coronavirus. Both have been closed, as have galleries, museums and art fairs around the world.
Art Basel Hong Kong, the biggest art fair in Asia, had been due to open its doors last month. But it wasn’t cancelled entirely. Like Hockney, it and the galleries have instead embraced a convenient digital format.
Of the 242 galleries that were due to appear at Art Basel Hong Kong, 235 have taken up residence in its online viewing room instead. So many visitors piled into it in the first 20 minutes that the platform was temporarily paralysed.
But there’s no doubt the global disruption is hurting the art market, particularly the smaller players.That’s partly down to the market having expanded so quickly – from 140 international art fairs at the last financial crisis to 300 as of last year.
Exhibiting is also an expensive business. For the past few years, galleries operating below the stratospheric levels have been struggling to keep pace with the financial pressures of showing at fairs all over the world. Five-figure exhibiting fees, flights, shipping, hotels, dinners with clients and rent have led to what has become known as “fairtigue”.
The same is true of collectors. If there were fewer regional art fairs, but stronger online offerings, it could do everyone, and the environment, a favour.
While the international art fair phenomenon has become a travelling circus, there are serious collectors everywhere, particularly for contemporary art, and they do not always want to get on a plane to look at a work they may want to buy.
The majority of art fairs are for the people who live in the host city. The Dallas Art Fair and Art Brussels are two that cater to the local base of collectors. Whether they and others like them survive the shake-out remains to be seen.
But the current lockdown could also turn out to have been beneficial to the art market. An awful lot of people are, after all, sitting at home with little to do but log on. When you work from home, the state of your home takes on new importance. Not every member of this demographic will decide to fill the void with fine art, of course.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“There’s no limit to what a man might accomplish if he doesn’t mind who takes the credit.”
Ronald Reagan
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“People say ‘I’m taking it one day at a time’. You know what? So is everybody. That’s how time works.”
Hannibal Buress
Shares We’re Buying
Leading the fight for the COVID-19 cure is RedHill Biopharma Ltd, having been one of the first biotech companies to successfully treat patients in Israel.
A patient with respiratory problems related to COVID-19 has recently been dosed with opaganib at a leading hospital there. RedHill said the treatment was administered under the Israeli Ministry of Health’s compassionate use guidelines.
More patients in that country will likely be treated soon. The drug already has been tested on 131 subjects in the United States as part of Phase 1 and Phase 2 oncology clinical trials.
Clinical data to date have demonstrated its safety and tolerability in both healthy volunteers and cancer patients.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL JOKE DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Hello,
My name is Michael White, and what I’d like to share with you now is a total game-changer. With your permission, over the next few minutes I’ll explain a money-loophole that could be your ticket to the laziest and fastest retirement imaginable.
Please let me first put your mind at rest about a few things…
There’s no limit to the number of times you can use this under one person’s name. You could use this secret regularly…
. You DON’T need to already have a bank account with a particular bank or building society.
. You DON’T need to have been mis-sold a pension or investment.
. You DON’T need to buy shares of a specific company or bank.
. You DON’T have to pay this money back- it’s NOT a loan. It’s YOUR money, free and clear.
. You DON’T have to own a home, and you can use the money for ANYTHING you like.
. You DON’T need a credit rating or be at any particular earnings level or be on benefit.
. You DON’T need a computer or any technical know-how. You could even place a call instead of make a few clicks if you don’t have a computer.
NOBODY else knows this secret because I discovered it – through the application of an ancient code. I will share it with you HERE for legitimate reasons I’ll explain in a moment. And I guarantee you’ll be stunned at how this powerful secret could force the banking system into letting you retire early…
We look at a lot of unusual or off-beat ideas here but sometimes it’s easy to overlook something run-of-the-mill but lucrative.
There’s a seemingly endless market for cheap second hand cars, and a profit to be made by supplying them, particularly if you have some basic mechanical knowledge.
Often, the only difference between a car which can be bought for £500 and one that can be sold for £1,000 is a good clean/valet, and an improved advertisement and photographs.
Sell just a couple of cars each month like this and you could very easily make an extra £12,000 a year.
Not everyone is interested in cars of course, but if you are, this is a great way to combine business with pleasure.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.”
Abraham Maslow
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“I need cheering up. I lent my friend $8,000 for plastic surgery. Now I don’t know what he looks like.”
Emo Philips
Big Is Bountiful
The launch of a magazine for women that hit the news stands. Called ‘Just As Beautiful’, its aimed at curvy, plus sized women.
The rationale behind the launch is that the average dress size for women in the UK is 14 to 16 and yet there’s very little representation of larger women in the fashion media.
The aim of the magazine is to provide style and grooming information to ordinary women, without making them feel that they are outside of the norm.
I think they could on to something here. It seems crazy to market a product as only being applicable to a small minority of stick-thin women, whilst ignoring the majority. And yet that’s what seems to happen at the moment.
Both the fashion media and the designers they promote and support, tend to focus on a tiny (literally!), minority. With this new magazine, and even some top designers now dipping their toe into the plus size market, it looks like marketers are waking up.
There just have to be dozens of business opportunities hinging on a single thought. Instead of trying to make people thinner, what can we do to make them happier and more satisfied the way that they are?
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL SMILE POWER DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Hello,
My name is Michael White, and what I’d like to share with you now is a total game-changer. With your permission, over the next few minutes I’ll explain a money-loophole that could be your ticket to the laziest and fastest retirement imaginable.
Please let me first put your mind at rest about a few things…
There’s no limit to the number of times you can use this under one person’s name. You could use this secret regularly…
. You DON’T need to already have a bank account with a particular bank or building society.
. You DON’T need to have been mis-sold a pension or investment.
. You DON’T need to buy shares of a specific company or bank.
. You DON’T have to pay this money back- it’s NOT a loan. It’s YOUR money, free and clear.
. You DON’T have to own a home, and you can use the money for ANYTHING you like.
. You DON’T need a credit rating or be at any particular earnings level or be on benefit.
. You DON’T need a computer or any technical know-how. You could even place a call instead of make a few clicks if you don’t have a computer.
NOBODY else knows this secret because I discovered it – through the application of an ancient code. I will share it with you HERE for legitimate reasons I’ll explain in a moment. And I guarantee you’ll be stunned at how this powerful secret could force the banking system into letting you retire early…
The traditional way of running a retail business is that the seller names the price and then the customer decides whether he is prepared to pay it.
Thanks to the internet, some modern businesses are turning the model on its head. For example, Buystand enables extreme sports fans to name their own for products and accessories at the start of the season rather than waiting for the spring sale.
Customers create an account and then browse products for sale. When a bid is made, Buystand put it to their panel of retailers to see whether any are prepared to match the price.
If a taker is found, the customer is charged the bid price and the retailer ships the product. Both parties benefit; the customer gets a discounted price and the retailer makes a sale he would otherwise have missed at a price he’s happy to accept.
It seems to me that there’s room for a business operating this type of model in myriad markets. If there isn’t already one serving a market you’re familiar with, this could be worth investigating further?
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.”
Paul Tournier
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“A spa hotel? It’s like a normal hotel, only in reception there’s a picture of a pebble.”
Rhod Gilbert
Calculated Profits
It’s not unusual for groups of consumers to have quite transient needs, and when this happens, a business opportunity often opens up. Students are one such group.
They often study a subject for a short period, and are required to source quite expensive resources, which they will only need for a short period of time. Previously, we’ve talked about services set up to rent books to students, thereby negating the need for them to make an expensive purchase.
A Canadian company has spotted another need they can satisfy in a similar way-by renting out expensive graphic and financial calculators. Students often need these for just a couple of classes and can save 70% by renting rather than buying. When the rental period is complete, they simply mail them back to the company.
Today’s National Day
NATIONAL VISIT YOUR RELATIVES DAY!
PUBLISHERS NOTICE
Hello,
My name is Michael White, and what I’d like to share with you now is a total game-changer. With your permission, over the next few minutes I’ll explain a money-loophole that could be your ticket to the laziest and fastest retirement imaginable.
Please let me first put your mind at rest about a few things…
There’s no limit to the number of times you can use this under one person’s name. You could use this secret regularly…
. You DON’T need to already have a bank account with a particular bank or building society.
. You DON’T need to have been mis-sold a pension or investment.
. You DON’T need to buy shares of a specific company or bank.
. You DON’T have to pay this money back- it’s NOT a loan. It’s YOUR money, free and clear.
. You DON’T have to own a home, and you can use the money for ANYTHING you like.
. You DON’T need a credit rating or be at any particular earnings level or be on benefit.
. You DON’T need a computer or any technical know-how. You could even place a call instead of make a few clicks if you don’t have a computer.
NOBODY else knows this secret because I discovered it – through the application of an ancient code. I will share it with you HERE for legitimate reasons I’ll explain in a moment. And I guarantee you’ll be stunned at how this powerful secret could force the banking system into letting you retire early…
