Well, pre-emptively, I'm suspecting that there won't be a straight answer to a simple question, so I think I'll just put my cards on the table and express my three primary concerns about the Bill Gates claim.

Firstly, it is far from apparent that Bill Gates influenced anyone, let alone everyone (or the UK specifically) into pandemic lockdown. Literally millions of important voices in public debates around the world played a role. Politicians and medical scientists foremost amongst them. The goals of so-called lockdown were largely to minimise the peak effect on public health and pressure on hospitals.

That brings me on to the second objection. Comparing what happened to an assumed baseline is necessarily counterfactual. We, by definition, do not know what would have happened if there had been no lockdowns. It's safe to assume a lot of people would have died as the disease ran rampant, but it is not safe to assume that the economy would have continued as normal when millions were sick and off work, crucial services had to shut down due to these staff shortages and people altered their behaviour to compensate for the risk. Never mind the effects of an overloaded and critically non-functioning hospital service.

The final major point of immediate concern is for the accuracy of the reporting of what Bill Gates did or did not say. Certainly there was a lot of misinformation floating about conspiracy theory circles:
https://www.reuters.com/article/factche ... SL1N2S7292

Fact Check-Bill Gates did not say COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective
...
Missing context. Bill Gates’ words have been taken out of context. He did not say COVID-19 vaccines are not working very well; rather, he said preparation for the next pandemic will likely include research on vaccines that stop virus transmission, something they do not do now.

Even putting aside Bill Gates's involvement any narrative which sees the Ukraine war as sufficiently unimportant so as to fail to be mentioned as a cause of current circumstances seems suspect. One that attributes all of the consequences of covid to policy responses and none to the direct effects of the disease doubly so, to me.

Thommo wrote:

jamest wrote:Bill Gates is a cunt. I hold him significantly responsible for the world's present financial meltdown for promoting worldwide panic at the onset of covid-19 with his vaccine rhetoric.

I'm asking about what exactly he said and how this remarkable intervention is more pressing in your narrative than a Ukraine war which led to sanctions on the country responsible for 30% of Europe's oil and 40% of its gas.

Notwithstanding the fact that the globe is much bigger than Europe and that Russia continues to sell oil/gas to anyone anyway, according to the NY Times Russia only produces about 10 percent of the world's oil requirements! So, even though I concede that the Ukraine war has exacerbated the global energy/economic crisis, you'd have to be a special kind of mug to believe the hype that it is the primary cause of it.

https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2022/03 ... ia-ukraine

As for Bill Gates, a man with great standing in the world, his association/investment with and promotion of vaccines (including covid-19), is well documented. He has contributed greatly to the fearmongering responsible for the outrageous overreaction to it by the world's leaders. I am not going to spend hours of my time seeking many direct quotes from him to support this claim, but here is just one such example, from October of 2021:

"We’re still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal,” the billionaire Microsoft co-founder and public health advocate told the Financial Times on Sunday. “It’s not likely, I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom, but it’s way above a 5% risk that this pandemic, we haven’t even seen the worst of it.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/02/why-bil ... ahead.html

The guy has been talking like this from the onset, scaring the masses to death with such rhetoric.

jamest wrote:

newolder wrote:
Your prediction of a peak of 50 to 150k (in unspecified currency units) did not happen. The Nov 2021 peak was 48k in your own currency, Pounds Sterling.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am speaking to people from all corners of the world, the price of bitcoin is universally stated in USD. I even stated (search if you don't believe me) that I initially bought bitcoin in February of 2019 when it was about 3.6K. Clearly, this was a USD price. Check the charts. If I were speaking GBP prices, I'd have stated that I initially bought bitcoin at about 2.7K.

As a matter of fact, you did not specify the currency unit in your post of Feb 2019. Any further wibble is irrelevant.

So, even though I concede that the Ukraine war has exacerbated the global energy/economic crisis, you'd have to be a special kind of mug to believe the hype that it is the primary cause of it.

Bored with this kind of bullshit jamest.

You do not establish or strengthen the truth of your point by poisoning the well.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.

jamest wrote:Notwithstanding the fact that the globe is much bigger than Europe and that Russia continues to sell oil/gas to anyone anyway, according to the NY Times Russia only produces about 10 percent of the world's oil requirements! So, even though I concede that the Ukraine war has exacerbated the global energy/economic crisis, you'd have to be a special kind of mug to believe the hype that it is the primary cause of it.

How does that follow? Economic sanctions, reduced trading volumes, supply issues. All of these are real. There's no connection between "only produces about 10 percent" and "cannot be sufficient to trigger significant price increases". Your denominator is not the same in the two cases.

jamest wrote: https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2022/03 ... ia-ukraine

Yes, that is an article and it does say things like this:

Why Russian Oil and Gas Matter to the Global Economy
...
Energy exports are the cornerstone of Russia’s economy. In recent years, Russia has sent large quantities of its natural gas and oil to Europe, the United States and elsewhere. Now the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens already-troubled global energy markets with more disruptions and rising prices. In the latest jolt, the U.S. banned imports of Russian energy and European nations pledged to gradually follow suit.
...
Can’t the world just produce more oil?

Yes, but not fast enough to offset the recent rise in gas prices.
...
After the invasion of Ukraine, the cost of oil started to soar. Oil markets often react negatively to geopolitical instability. Less than a week after Russia’s military incursion, OPEC Plus producers held a regularly scheduled meeting and decided to keep oil prices high by maintaining a modest increase in oil production. It’s worth noting that one of the co-chairs of the group is a Russian deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak.
...
Why are gas prices so high right now?

Gas prices are up as a result of companies raising prices as a part of a post-pandemic economic recovery plan as well as Russia’s involvement in Ukraine — both before the U.S. ban on Russian oil was in place.

Gas prices had been rising even before the invasion of Ukraine for a combination of reasons. After businesses started to recover from the pandemic, consumers began spending more. Companies increased prices of everything from doughnuts to hotel rooms. With more consumers traveling and spending in general, oil suppliers scrambled to keep up with the rising demand, leading to higher prices at the pump. But that wasn’t the only factor. The pandemic caused massive disruptions to global supply chains, increasing the cost of delivering goods such as oil.
...
But the Russian attack stoked outrage across the world and many businesses halted or curtailed their investments and operations in Russia altogether. That included the oil giants Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil. Russian oil and gas suddenly became toxic to many buyers, cutting into the global oil supply and leading to higher gas prices.

What it doesn't say is that this isn't the primary cause (of what, exactly, is not clear, incidentally), it doesn't suggest you'd be a "mug" to attribute large parts of the cost of living crisis to the Ukraine war, it doesn't even mention Bill Gates and it doesn't anywhere support the claim that the economic effects of the pandemic are purely confined to knock on effects of "lockdown", rather than being, at least in part, consequences of the disease itself.

jamest wrote:"We’re still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal,” the billionaire Microsoft co-founder and public health advocate told the Financial Times on Sunday. “It’s not likely, I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom, but it’s way above a 5% risk that this pandemic, we haven’t even seen the worst of it.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/02/why-bil ... ahead.html

The guy has been talking like this from the onset, scaring the masses to death with such rhetoric.

Ok, that's just silly. Bill Gates saying that there's a risk of a pandemic variant (which was, by the way true, and we did in fact see more transmissive strains emerge after that date, which itself came long after lockdown) did not scare "the masses to death". You even quote him saying "It's not likely". It was not the cause of lockdown, panic or any other such thing.

Even you must be able to see that.

Review the charts. The price of energy and inflation generally were surging well before the Ukraine conflict, due to problems/effects primarily instigated by the global reaction to covid. Indeed, oil had roughly quadrupled in price in the space of 18 months to over $80 a barrel by October of last year. In that same period of time US inflation rose from less than 0.5 to over 6 percent. Clearly, these trends were well established and the Ukraine war has merely exacerbated these problems. I don't even know why you wouldn't concede that point.

jamest wrote:"We’re still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal,” the billionaire Microsoft co-founder and public health advocate told the Financial Times on Sunday. “It’s not likely, I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom, but it’s way above a 5% risk that this pandemic, we haven’t even seen the worst of it.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/02/why-bil ... ahead.html

The guy has been talking like this from the onset, scaring the masses to death with such rhetoric.

Ok, that's just silly. Bill Gates saying that there's a risk of a pandemic variant (which was, by the way true, and we did in fact see more transmissive strains emerge after that date, which itself came long after lockdown) did not scare "the masses to death". You even quote him saying "It's not likely". It was not the cause of lockdown, panic or any other such thing.

Even you must be able to see that.

As I said, he's been talking constantly like this since the onset. And it's hardly silly to suggest that a man with such standing and influence, given his ability to command a world stage, said many such things publicly which induced fear amongst the masses. Fear of covid and therefore a general acceptance of the bullshit we've had to endure for the last 2 years or so.

Gawd knows what's going to happen this winter, but I'd say that more restrictions are on the cards with the added pressure on the hospitals. Though I think that the public has had its fill now, especially alongside all of these economic hardships. A tipping point will happen, I fear.

Exacerbate suggests just making an already existing problem worse.

The Ukraine crisis may have exacerbated existing problems, but it's also created a slew more that even by themselves would have dramatic economic impact on the world.

Even here in Thailand, we're starting to see the price of various imported consumer goods go up because of far-reaching disruptions to supply chains.

So Jamest is dismissive of covid now ...one more indication of poor assessment of reality.

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Thursday at the second U.S.-led virtual COVID summit, co-hosted by Belize, Germany, Indonesia and Senegal.

"So although reported cases and deaths are now decreasing globally, it is misguided to think this pandemic is over. The pandemic is not over anywhere until it’s over everywhere," Tedros said.

"In fact, cases are increasing in more than 70 countries. At the same time, testing rates globally are plummeting, making us blind to the evolution of the virus," the WHO chief said. "And almost one billion people in lower-income countries remain unvaccinated. We must continue to support all countries to reach 70% as soon as possible, with a focus on those most at risk."

May 13, 2022 7:29 AM

I'm far more concerned about covid now than at the beginning because it is insanely infectious and long covid and/or lingering health issues are too prevalent in those that contract it.
Re-infection and waning vaccine protection against severe outcomes are far too common to risk even in highly vaccinated populations.
Not as deadly as the original, now tho, one of most infectious diseases ever and no long term protection as yet.

newolder wrote:

jamest wrote:

newolder wrote:
Your prediction of a peak of 50 to 150k (in unspecified currency units) did not happen. The Nov 2021 peak was 48k in your own currency, Pounds Sterling.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am speaking to people from all corners of the world, the price of bitcoin is universally stated in USD. I even stated (search if you don't believe me) that I initially bought bitcoin in February of 2019 when it was about 3.6K. Clearly, this was a USD price. Check the charts. If I were speaking GBP prices, I'd have stated that I initially bought bitcoin at about 2.7K.

As a matter of fact, you did not specify the currency unit in your post of Feb 2019. Any further wibble is irrelevant.

Seriously? If no currency is given for a BTC price, it's a given that it's the USD price. James talks a lot of nonsense, so it really takes something special to doggedly take him on on a point where he's indisputably right.

jamest wrote:Review the charts. The price of energy and inflation generally were surging well before the Ukraine conflict, due to problems/effects primarily instigated by the global reaction to covid. Indeed, oil had roughly quadrupled in price in the space of 18 months to over $80 a barrel by October of last year. In that same period of time US inflation rose from less than 0.5 to over 6 percent. Clearly, these trends were well established and the Ukraine war has merely exacerbated these problems. I don't even know why you wouldn't concede that point.

Oil prices were never sustained at $20 a barrel for one. For two it's that the thing I disputed was that it was lockdown that is entirely responsible for the effects and not the pandemic itself (and that Bill Gates personally is substantially responsible for lockdown policies around the globe).

Oil prices were bouncing around from roughly $50 to $70 for years pre-pandemic. After the onset of the Ukraine crisis they spiked from about $90 to about $120 (sustained at more like $110). I won't necessarily attempt to chop up and apportion the excess cost from the different factors, but I will repeat that I am exceptionally unconvinced by the way in which you've attempted that task.

To state it explicitly: How much difficulty would the UK economy be in right now if we were only dealing with consequences of Brexit and Covid, instead of Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine? I don't know. I do know that all three of those factors, along with government policy on things like energy price hikes are commonly cited as the causes of present circumstances, including rising inflation.

jamest wrote:As I said, he's been talking constantly like this since the onset. And it's hardly silly to suggest that a man with such standing and influence, given his ability to command a world stage, said many such things publicly which induced fear amongst the masses. Fear of covid and therefore a general acceptance of the bullshit we've had to endure for the last 2 years or so.

Yes, it's incredibly silly (recalling, lest the goalposts shift that you're actually claiming to hold him "significantly responsible for the world's present financial meltdown for promoting worldwide panic at the onset of covid-19 with his vaccine rhetoric"). It's wildly disproportionate to what you quoted him saying, which was (a) true and (b) appropriately qualified. There's not one iota of a reason to think this panicked millions of people into changing government policies all around the world (not least because the one quote you sourced occurred a year after the events in question), or that those policies are the "primary" cause of the current situation (which you deem financial meltdown).

It is pointless to compare actual events to a 'business as usual' baseline that could not possibly have existed through the pandemic with or without government interventions. People were sick, off work and changing behaviour because of the disease, not because of coordinated responses to the disease. It may or may not be the case that lockdowns made the behavioural changes and consequent economic effects worse than they had to be, in exchange for saving lives. I would probably lean towards the view that it did, but I am sure that neither you nor I can justifiably claim to know how or by how much.

Macdoc wrote:So Jamest is dismissive of covid now ...one more indication of poor assessment of reality.

To be clear, I am not dismissive of covid. I recognise that it's a nasty virus that can/does kill a small minority of the population.

What I am annoyed about is the extreme global overreaction to it, as though it were the black death or suchlike, to the extent that the world's economy is on the brink of collapse and multitudes will starve/suffer as a consequence. That's starting to happen as we speak and it will be a much worse calamity than covid.

jamest wrote:...the world's economy is on the brink of collapse and multitudes will starve/suffer as a consequence.

You say this like it's fact.

ETA: Perhaps "economic collapse" means something different to you than it does to me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_ ... l_examples

Thommo wrote:

Oil prices were bouncing around from roughly $50 to $70 for years pre-pandemic.

Correct, but over $80 a barrel last October established a 7 year high - a trend upwards. Similarly, inflation.

What I don't understand is why - for a period of about 8 years 2006ish - 2014 - the price of oil was generally above $100 a barrel and peaked much higher, yet I don't recall having many if any of the problems this is causing us all now. This at a time when $100 a barrel was harder to stomach then due to the devaluing nature of fiat currency. And I've just checked the inflation data for that period of time and it was quite low throughout.

There must be more to this strife than the price of oil, don't you think?

Yes, it's incredibly silly (recalling, lest the goalposts shift that you're actually claiming to hold him "significantly responsible for the world's present financial meltdown for promoting worldwide panic at the onset of covid-19 with his vaccine rhetoric").

To be clear, I am of the opinion that fear of covid was responsible for the overreaction to it. Therefore, those responsible for promoting and perpetuating that fear must be deemed "significantly responsible" for said reaction. And he, more than anyone else I can think of right now on the world stage - other than perhaps Fauci - tops my list.

But there were numerous fearmongers out there, all collectively responsible for what happened. Even corporations such as the BBC scaring us to death every night for months on end.

Don't underestimate the value fear played in all of this.

OlivierK wrote:

newolder wrote:

jamest wrote:

newolder wrote:
Your prediction of a peak of 50 to 150k (in unspecified currency units) did not happen. The Nov 2021 peak was 48k in your own currency, Pounds Sterling.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am speaking to people from all corners of the world, the price of bitcoin is universally stated in USD. I even stated (search if you don't believe me) that I initially bought bitcoin in February of 2019 when it was about 3.6K. Clearly, this was a USD price. Check the charts. If I were speaking GBP prices, I'd have stated that I initially bought bitcoin at about 2.7K.

As a matter of fact, you did not specify the currency unit in your post of Feb 2019. Any further wibble is irrelevant.

Seriously? If no currency is given for a BTC price, it's a given that it's the USD price. James talks a lot of nonsense, so it really takes something special to doggedly take him on on a point where he's indisputably right.

It's a simple matter of fact that jamest didn't specify the currency in the referenced post and any further wibble is irrelevant. I don't usually make repeats but I've made an exception here. If you wish to argue against the fact, crack on...

newolder wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

newolder wrote:

jamest wrote:
Notwithstanding the fact that I am speaking to people from all corners of the world, the price of bitcoin is universally stated in USD. I even stated (search if you don't believe me) that I initially bought bitcoin in February of 2019 when it was about 3.6K. Clearly, this was a USD price. Check the charts. If I were speaking GBP prices, I'd have stated that I initially bought bitcoin at about 2.7K.

As a matter of fact, you did not specify the currency unit in your post of Feb 2019. Any further wibble is irrelevant.

Seriously? If no currency is given for a BTC price, it's a given that it's the USD price. James talks a lot of nonsense, so it really takes something special to doggedly take him on on a point where he's indisputably right.

It's a simple matter of fact that jamest didn't specify the currency in the referenced post and any further wibble is irrelevant. I don't usually make repeats but I've made an exception here. If you wish to argue against the fact, crack on...

I cannot be bothered checking my posts in 2019, but know for a fact that I declared buying bitcoin for about 3.6K in February 2019.
Clearly, this could not have been £ because the GBP price of bitcoin throughout February of that year was always below 3K.

Also, as stated, the bitcoin price is universally stated in USD - especially to an international audience.

Stop being a numpty.

Macdoc wrote:So Jamest is dismissive of covid now ...one more indication of poor assessment of reality.

When wasn't he?

I think for just a moment right at the outset he accidentally found himself on the side of reason, then promptly romped off into special me land, making sure to hold that 'alternative' opinion based on all the 'alternative facts' he makes up.

jamest wrote:To be clear, I am of the opinion that fear of covid was responsible for the overreaction to it. Therefore, those responsible for promoting and perpetuating that fear must be deemed "significantly responsible" for said reaction. And he, more than anyone else I can think of right now on the world stage - other than perhaps Fauci - tops my list.

And to be equally clear I think your assumptions that fearmongering caused lockdowns, that lockdowns constituted an overreaction and that lockdowns (to the exclusion of covid itself) are the cause of present economic issues are wild and inaccurate in varying combination.

jamest wrote:From the beginning here, back in early 2019, I informed you all that bitcoin rises and falls in 4-yearly cycles due to something called a 'halving event'.

That is just bullshit. The current slump sits two years and one month past the most recent (May 11, 2020) and approximately one year and eight months before the next expected (early 2024) halving events.

There is no discernible correlation between the ups and downs of bit coin values and any of the previous halving events (Nov. 28, 2012, July 9, 2016, and May 11, 2020) at all.

jamest wrote:The fact that 2022 was predicted to be the next big bear market year, just as 2021 was predicted to be the next big bull market year, is just 'a fact' that can be extrapolated from any reasonable analysis of the charts, even today.

It was not. See above.

Hermit wrote:

jamest wrote:From the beginning here, back in early 2019, I informed you all that bitcoin rises and falls in 4-yearly cycles due to something called a 'halving event'.

That is just bullshit. The current slump sits two years and one month past the most recent (May 11, 2020) and approximately one year and eight months before the next expected (early 2024) halving events.

There is no discernible correlation between the ups and downs of bit coin values and any of the previous halving events (Nov. 28, 2012, July 9, 2016, and May 11, 2020) at all.

jamest wrote:The fact that 2022 was predicted to be the next big bear market year, just as 2021 was predicted to be the next big bull market year, is just 'a fact' that can be extrapolated from any reasonable analysis of the charts, even today.

It was not. See above.

That (March 2020) was the covid crash, a black swan event which shocked assets across the board including stocks.
The bitcoin cycle has bull runs which produce all time highs the year after the halving. Hence 2013, 17 & 21. I.e., every 4ish years. Likewise, a bear market the year after the ATHs - 2014, 18 & 22 - every 4 years.