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[Loud Whispers]

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/05/nhs-faces-brexit-staffing-crisis-unless-visa-caps-lifted-report

What I find weird about these articles (re: NHS staffing crisis) is how vastly they overestimate foreign interest in working for the NHS and dramatically underestimate how unappealing the overall situation is for someone wanting to move in.  I've gotten messages from four different recruiters concerning positions in the UK, but the way things are going  there is little incentive to bother going through the hoops when the rewars at the end is neither certain nor as appealing as people think.

As usual, the intent is to create an immigrant caste instead of making the career viable; no thought is put into whether even medicine students have a threshold for bullshit tolerance

Also in spicy political dickings

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spicy bois at money war. No point trying to run a democracy if you don't control your money lol

[ChairmanPoo]

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/05/nhs-faces-brexit-staffing-crisis-unless-visa-caps-lifted-report

What I find weird about these articles (re: NHS staffing crisis) is how vastly they overestimate foreign interest in working for the NHS and dramatically underestimate how unappealing the overall situation is for someone wanting to move in.  I've gotten messages from four different recruiters concerning positions in the UK, but the way things are going  there is little incentive to bother going through the hoops when the rewars at the end is neither certain nor as appealing as people think.

As usual, the intent is to create an immigrant caste instead of making the career viable; no thought is put into whether even medicine students have a threshold for bullshit tolerance

*shrug*
In my particular case I can tell you the two main problems are that the registration process is cumbersome (and expensive) and that, given the current political situation in the UK, there are no guarantees whatsoever about stability, and legal problems .  Plus the offers themselves aren't really that mindblowing, you know. They are not terrible, mind you, just kind of average, but "kind of average"  is not really something that makes me willing to jump through regulatory hoops and risk being eventually thrown to the Channel depending on how terrible the outcome of Brexit ends up being. I'm not saying I wouldn't under any circumstance, but overall the balance is in favor of "eeh, I'm not risking it".

Regarding castes and opportunities: I do get the feeling that medical careers in both the UK and Ireland are stiffled because it's really hard for junior doctors to, well, stop being junior doctors, particularily foreigners, and I feel this is by design rather than chance. This is not directly relevant to my situation as I was already a hospital consultant before leaving my home (and I refused positions as anything else), but I know people both in the UK and the ROI that are very frustrated by the lack of permeability in the system. Odds are that this frustration will grow in the coming months as many of them end up in no man's land....

[smjjames]

Boris the blabber strikes again. British Foriegn Minister Boris Johnson was speaking to a closed door gathering and said, among other things, that Pompeo wanted British expertise in dismantling a NK missile (whether one that was already acqiured or one that they planned to acquire, no idea). I hope he doesn't screw up the summit because Pompeo asking for British expertise in dismantling a missile sounds like it'd be seriously confidential information, if not top secret, as it doesn't sound like something he should have talked about outside of a government office.

[Sheb]

Apparently what happened was that the ECB had a big chunk of German debt maturing so had to buy a large amount of German bonds. This drove the German share of bond purchase up, and the share of all other countries down, even though the actual amount of Italian bonds purchased in the same period didn't go down.

Edit, I made a graph from ECB data because I'm bored.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You can clearly see that bond purchase are largely in line with the previous months (that big fall is when the ECB switched its purchasing target to 30 billions a month), except for Germany's. So yeah, that image macro is BS.

[Loud Whispers]

Boris the blabber strikes again. British Foriegn Minister Boris Johnson was speaking to a closed door gathering and said, among other things, that Pompeo wanted British expertise in dismantling a NK missile (whether one that was already acqiured or one that they planned to acquire, no idea). I hope he doesn't screw up the summit because Pompeo asking for British expertise in dismantling a missile sounds like it'd be seriously confidential information, if not top secret, as it doesn't sound like something he should have talked about outside of a government office.

Dunno, UK is a neutral (or more accurately, distant) party in the US-China-Japan-two Koreas stuff, asking for UK nuclear expertise seems like information you can tell the public pretty easily/uncontroversially. Also seems suspicious as to how buzzfeed got a hold of the leaks, and in particular I find it odd that the leaks speak nothing ill of Boris at all - if Boris didn't leak it himself, I'd be surprised. The whole thing sounds like Boris's campaign points against May in the waiting, especially since Boris has been """""subtly""""" making it clear to May that if she bungles Brexit he's going to contest her leadership.

You can clearly see that bond purchase are largely in line with the previous months (that big fall is when the ECB switched its purchasing target to 30 billions a month), except for Germany's. So yeah, that image macro is BS.

Yeah nah fam there's not a soul alive who can't see where there's wrecked rectums there's political dickings

There it is: The asset purchase program has flexible terms for coping with redemptions that permit deviations for reasons of liquidity concerns. And there was a serious one in the case of Germany; the bank’s purchases drove 10-year yields down by 40 basis points in late May to a new low for the year. The ECB should have known that the tiny German free float meant their overbuying would have sucked up liquidity.

Equally, it should have known that pulling back its normal pace of purchases on Italy would have had a pronounced effect on yields, given the political turmoil. The bank already owns 345 billion euros ($402.5 billion) of Italian government debt. By reducing support for the market during a period of acute difficulty it has trashed the value of its own investment while simultaneously showing that it won’t necessarily do whatever it takes to achieve financial stability.

The bank has previously strayed from the capital key during times of political strife. Italy’s referendum on electoral reform in December 2016 was a tumultuous affair – a loss would have meant an end to Matteo Renzi's premiership, and that’s what happened. But thanks in part to ECB overbuying, yields sailed along with hardly a blip. Similarly, France’s presidential election in 2017 raised the prospect of victory by far-right populists unfriendly to the euro. French bonds deteriorated, but the selloff wasn’t as bad as it might have been, and this is in part because the ECB did its bit.

The ECB has for many months overbought Italy and underbought Germany, and hasn’t gone out of its way to explain this. So it’s odd that May 2018 is the month that it decides to get religion and strictly adhere to its rules for purchases. The argument that it had to soak up German redemptions doesn’t quite cut it – Italy also had substantial redemptions in April and May, and the ECB’s purchases of Italian bonds actually fell, while rising by nearly 50 percent for Germany.

So it's hard to completely shake the feeling that Italian politics informed the ECB's buying decisions in May. ECB spokesman Michael Steen says that its buying decisions are “never about politics.” But this inflexible interpretation of its script forgets the supreme flexibility it has shown in the past. If it had adhered instead to "if warranted by market liquidity conditions," it may have trodden more lightly.
Bloomberg noos

The EU is in an unenviable situation. Treating Italy like Greece though... Seems like a poor life choice. Italy actually has power

Regarding castes and opportunities: I do get the feeling that medical careers in both the UK and Ireland are stiffled because it's really hard for junior doctors to, well, stop being junior doctors, particularily foreigners, and I feel this is by design rather than chance. This is not directly relevant to my situation as I was already a hospital consultant before leaving my home (and I refused positions as anything else), but I know people both in the UK and the ROI that are very frustrated by the lack of permeability in the system. Odds are that this frustration will grow in the coming months as many of them end up in no man's land....

This is something I hear a lot. Loads of desire to exploit as much work with as little cost as possible... It's bloody inhuman how we completely shaft medical workers (nurses especially good Lord), going from paying them to train, to having them pay for the level of work they're doing. Seems in the contest between having a porous border or public services, private services is to be the future. I do sometimes wonder what the hell they teach our future leaders at Oxbridge. Government seems hell bent on cutting costs by eliminating overtime pay, whilst increasing work demands on junior medical workers. Chances are it is by design, cos the health department knows it holds a near monopoly on the career progression junior doctors use to become consultants. We're seeing a bloody mass exodus of junior doctors to private or foreign medical service, who would've though we'd see the day when more than half of graduate med students chose anything but the NHS?

[Sheb]

A) Your link is to an article about the Singapore summit.
B) Italian bonds purchase didn't fall. There is some month-to-month variation, and the purchase for May were a bit less than in April, but higher than in March.
C) The amount of Italians bonds purchased closely tracked that of French and Spanish bonds purchases in May (See my graph). If the ECB's goal was to put pressure on Italian bonds, you'd expect them to buy less Italians, not just buy a bunch more of German ones.
D) Corollary to C, it's quite telling that your original post focused on Italian share of the total purchase to make it look like there was a big fall in purchasing, rather than look directly at purchasing number. I'm not saying you're dishonest, but the guy that originally made that macro or chose those indicators certainly is.
E) The pattern of buying (purchase for May slower than April, but higher than March) is the same for pretty much every country bar Germany. If it's the ECB that caused a rise in rates rather than the political situation, you'd see the same rise in rate for all other countries in May.  Spoiler alert, you don't.

[smjjames]

Um, the only link in his entire post is mine linking to a buzzfeed article talking about the leaked Boris Johnson recordings. It was just me talking specifically about the NK thing Boris Johnson leaked.

@LW: Since it’s straight from Boris’s mouth, why would he say anything ill of himself? Not like he was doing a stand up comedy routine. Even if the U.K. is a neutral or distant party, it’s still somewhat embarrassing to the US to mention it in public, especially of hinting at acquiring a NK missile and recruiting the British to study it. Although, why the heck would we need the Britishes help in studying an acquired NK missile? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless it’s the intel sharing partnership thing.

[Sheb]

Um, the only link in his entire post is mine linking to a buzzfeed article talking about the leaked Boris Johnson recordings. It was just me talking specifically about the NK thing Boris Johnson leaked.

Nah, there is the one to "Bloomberg noos" at the end of that big quote about the ECB in LW's post.

[smjjames]

Oh whoops, and yeah that one is about the summit.

[Ametsala]

Although, why the heck would we need the Britishes help in studying an acquired NK missile?

Perhaps the US is worried that a NK missile is prone to explode with the smallest nudge, and want someone else to poke it. Britain wants to be buddies with the US, so they are unlikely to turn down this awesome offer of blowing up friendship.

Come to think of it, if they want a third party to look at a NK missile, there may not be that many countries with the missile expertise to ask. Britain is a more neutral option compared to Russia (too good buddies with NK) or Israel (too good buddies with US). France might be an alternative. Not that I'm an expert on nations specializing in missile warfare. (Looking at cruise missile's wikipedia article, other (semi-)neutral options seem to be India, Pakistan, Sweden and Germany. And I don't think the US would ask India or Pakistan. One would get quite upset if the other gets to poke at a foreign missile design.)

[Sheb]

Is the Brexit thread dead?

In any case, the EC's new science plan now let non-member countries joins into the new Horizon program. Given the amount of cooperation we do with British universities, I really hope that Britain signs up.

[martinuzz]

It has come to light that major Brexit campaign funder Arron 'Piggy' Banks had multiple meetings with the Russian ambassador in London, and made a trip to Moscow during the Brexit campaign.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/brexit-geldschieter-arron-banks-had-nauwe-banden-met-het-kremlin~b1e80b90/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-brexit-backer-arron-bankss-golden-kremlin-connection-7nbwc7m58

[Dorsidwarf]

It has come to light that major Brexit campaign funder Arron 'Piggy' Banks had multiple meetings with the Russian ambassador in London, and made a trip to Moscow during the Brexit campaign.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/brexit-geldschieter-arron-banks-had-nauwe-banden-met-het-kremlin~b1e80b90/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-brexit-backer-arron-bankss-golden-kremlin-connection-7nbwc7m58

Russia was in favour of brexit because it weapons the EU as an economic bloc, news at 11

[Sheb]

It has come to light that major Brexit campaign funder Arron 'Piggy' Banks had multiple meetings with the Russian ambassador in London, and made a trip to Moscow during the Brexit campaign.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/brexit-geldschieter-arron-banks-had-nauwe-banden-met-het-kremlin~b1e80b90/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-brexit-backer-arron-bankss-golden-kremlin-connection-7nbwc7m58

Russia was in favour of brexit because it weapons the EU as an economic bloc, news at 11

Russia favouring an outcome doesn't mean they tried to influence the outcome, so in this sense it could be news.

[smjjames]

It has come to light that major Brexit campaign funder Arron 'Piggy' Banks had multiple meetings with the Russian ambassador in London, and made a trip to Moscow during the Brexit campaign.
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/brexit-geldschieter-arron-banks-had-nauwe-banden-met-het-kremlin~b1e80b90/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-brexit-backer-arron-bankss-golden-kremlin-connection-7nbwc7m58

Russia was in favour of brexit because it weapons the EU as an economic bloc, news at 11

Russia favouring an outcome doesn't mean they tried to influence the outcome, so in this sense it could be news.

Uh, did you forget what they tried to do with the US? It still looks suspicious however you slice it because of how Russia acts.