In the news

Really going after the high priorities for reducing road deaths. Good job.

https://twitter.com/tjmoore/status/1555678002452783107

A major disaster is unfolding in Cuba

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article264246116.html

A lightning strike during a thunderstorm last night set off an explosion and fire around 7 pm in a half-full 50,000 cubic-meter crude oil storage tank in the port, which in turn subsequently detonated a second tank.

17 firefighters are missing. 77 people were receiving medical treatment as of this afternoon. Crucial firefighting equipment was also lost in the flames.

With six other storage supertanks in the immediate vicinity, the fire continues out of control.

Matanzas is engulfed in toxic smoke, which is also clouding the skies of Havana. The people are already worn out from shortages, repeated long blackouts, and a dengue epidemic on top of the COVID pandemic.

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Terrible. Not only are there deaths and scores of injured, but many more will have adverse effects from the smoke, and the country will feel the economic hit of losing the fuel and having to shut down the facility.

Cuba - even with equipment and personnel from Mexico and Venezuela, and also with the cooperation of the United States, they haven't been able to put the fire out. Still very little coverage of this disaster in the mainstream press.

Matanzas has not been evacuated. The wind direction has been favorable (away from the full tank), and they're cooling the tank off with water.

Fingers crossed.

Colombia- new president sworn in

https://www.ft.com/content/fc938caf-307d-41c3-9e72-fc9ccf957484

and possessed

https://youtu.be/LUmV_AEbGxs

Also a piece in the Guardian about a 23-year-old fashion designer dressing Colombia’s first black female vice-president

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/06/the-23-year-old-fashion-designer-dressing-colombias-first-black-female-vice-president

People in China are told by the government that they're not ready for freedom of expression, "china is a developing country" and it's safer this way. Also told that it IS a democracy with multiple parties, which is sort of true except all the other parties are approved by the CCP and don't really get a say, and the elections are a total joke.

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/20607638.builder-hit-bottle-pee-dropped-crane-worthing/

“Somebody in the crane did something they’re not supposed to,” the witness said.

"... about 5.30pm on Friday..."

Yeah, whatevs

Matanzas. Eyewitnesses say the third tank is "burning like a giant torch". This was unrefined high-sulfur oil, highly toxic. The wind is currently favorable, blowing the heavy black smoke away from the city, but there's a big cloud over Havana.

There's also a Washington Post update with video.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/08/cuba-fire-oil-blackout/

and possessed

More accurately, taking possession (of a public office).

Interesting angle on one of the causes of inflation in the UK right now

Economic inactivity post-COVID is a real puzzle that the BBC has been tracking for a while (e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60039923). I haven't seen any good data on how to balance the various explanations:

1. Long COVID so can't work
   
2. No childcare so can't work (not available / not breaking even on wages)
   
3. Too rich to work (from crypto / property / PPE / CBILS fraud)
   
4. Real wages too low to bother (a variant of 2&3)
   
5. Decided to stay in education / go into education
   
6. Lost job / furloughed during COVID then became discouraged (seems unlikely given economic imperatives)
   
   

'7. Dead

Not to be pedantic, but you can't be both economically inactive and dead. Unless you are the slacking undead.

@Soul is thinking of Hotblack Desiato, who spent a year dead for tax reasons (to stop HMRC coming after his dodgy £50k CBILS loan)

Fair point.

Just found it interesting that the BBC article posted doesn't mention 190k+ dead people. Although many were already elderly / retired, a significant portion of those were either frontline workers or over 50s workers.

According to Gov data, between Jan 2020 and July this year, there were 39,561 excess deaths in the 50-64 category. That's a lot of people who don't have jobs any more.

:D

Stepping back a bit, the whole situation strikes me as quite bad;

• stay in your job, make less and less money
  
• move job, get paid more, fuel inflation
  
  

You know what people are going to do, right?

I think you might be missing the real number seven:

1. On an NHS waiting list for a chronic condition that prevents working in available roles
   

For reasons of it's own the forum changed "7" to "1".

Yeah - auto list is annoying. That's why I put a ' in front of mine

On an NHS waiting list for a chronic condition that prevents working in available roles

Yes, very good point. The raw data is basically 2M extra people waiting, but hard to know how that nets down to this issue. Had a quick Google to see how this affects the working age vs OAP population but couldn't see anything.

move job, get paid more, fuel inflation

It's one of many reasons why (IMHO) treating the labour market as "just another market" that can be trusted to clear on its own and produce equitable outcomes through the magic of Adam Smith's invisible hand is such a nonsense.

If only there was some kind of organisation that workers could join that could negotiate on their behalf (bargain collectively?) with employers to bring wages up to market levels.

Long COVID has no treatment that works for everyone ATM, it's not clear how many people cannot work.

With over a million long COVID cases, could it be 10s of thousands?

It won't just be OAP that suffer from this.