Hourly Averaging videos!

For years now I've wanted to create videos about my hourly averaging system, but never got around to it.

Well, the current coronavirus outbreak has spurred me on to get on with it.

I've made three to begin with but I might make more depending how things go. Making them has been a welcome distraction!

Do let me know what you think of them and let me know any ways I can explain it more effectively.

Translations
You Tube provides automatic subtitles, and these can be translated into other languages.

This would be particularly relevant for the third video in which I talk through illustrative examples. I underline various numbers in the tables as I talk about them, so this would accompany the

However, if anyone would like to have a copy of the slides in order to create versions in different languages do let me know!

How to fill an empty stadium with atmosphere

These are challenging times.

Sport has understandably been postponed as events with large crowds are discouraged if not outlawed.

Some have discussed continuing without spectators. This still risks transmission among the players and staff. However, perhaps it might be considered safe enough in a few months time.

Let’s say that behind-closed-doors sports are deemed safe but spectator crowds are not for some time. Here is my proposal:

Sports with Live Fan noise

Live music venues and support companies all around the world are struggling without any business.

Image “SCAPE” by Jaanism

There is lots of high quality PA equipment and technical experience going unused. Why not divert these to stadiums and pipe in the crowd noise to generate an atmosphere?

Where will the noise come from? The sound can come from the fans at home. Most viewing devices have microphones built-in or have a port into which to plug one.

Teams can offer their fans the option to pay for a high-quality premium feed. Those with the premium live feed could have their feedback sounds piped back into the stadium and played on the loudspeakers.

Fans could start up their old chants, cheer when their team does well and contribute to the experience as they used to. People at home might cheer much louder if they know the players and their fellow fans will hear them!

As well as additional loudspeakers placed throughout the stadium, it might be possible to hook up the existing speaker system to give an ever fuller sound.

The away teams could be given a less powerful array of speakers than the home team in order to ensure there is ‘home’ advantage.

Sports clubs would get revenue from the premium feed as well as revenue from broadcasting the games on TV or on the internet using a secondary feed.

Games could be played in a staggered way so that those without much to could watch games on the secondary feed quite a lot of the time if they are bored.

Potential downsides

There are a few things to work through.

One is the latency and delay in the feed. The whole thing would only work if the visuals and audio coming back were reasonably in synch. Too much of a delay and it be bizarre for players and fans alike. Certainly singing songs won't be possible if everyone is a few seconds out of synch from others. Hopefully by prioritising a paid premium connection getting this feed the ‘feedback’ sound would be quick enough. Maybe singing wouldn't work but cheering could. The secondary feed could of course be allowed lag without any problem.

Another is that it might be strange for the players. They will be ‘playing for the cameras and not the crowd. But who cares? Lots of football (soccer) players run to the cameras to pose for those watching when they score anyway!

A third concern is that some people might during quiet moments shout obscenities. This can happen at regular televised games of course, and hopefully the system can be designed to filter out unexpected noises (like someone new coming into a quiet living room and shouting).

Huge upsides

People miss the Camaraderie, belonging and just the distraction of sporting events. We could all do with something a bit ‘normal’ in our disrupted lives.

Watching sports teams play is much better when there is crowd noise.

I think it would be worth trialling at least, when it is possible to do so.

It would be particularly good for tennis; the crowd noise can be muted leading up to the serve!

Stay safe everyone and keep helping one another get through this!

Coronavirus response: Government secondment proposal

There is a lot of discussion about how to respond to the economic issues generated by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Governments have affirmed that they will make money available

In my previous blog I argued that a targeted job guarantee scheme would be an untargeted UBI.

Helping firms or helping the unemployed? 

A lot of firms, particularly those whose customers sit in close proximity, will be under pressure to survive an extensive period of social distancing and/or lockdown.

We will need these firms when things go back to 'normal' in the medium term. If they go bust this creates huge economic uncertainty. The people who lose their jobs will have short and long-term problems to add to their existing concerns.

Some think that bailing them out is just going to transfer money to reckless business owners and shareholders who took profits out for their own benefit but didn't plan for a rainy day. Isn't capitalism about letting the weak go to the wall?

Given the social and economic disruption we should probably help businesses, though not write them blank cheques.

Government Secondment

Building on my flexible job guarantee proposal I think government should also offer to 'second' staff from struggling firms in affected industries.

Government should pay the companies up front to take control of their temporarily unnecessary but still costly workers.

What could the seconded workers do?

There are loads of things!

• Stay home! Those with health conditions can be paid to isolate.
  Others can be paid to stay at home, perhaps being assigned a 'reserve' occupation and being taught skills in this occupation remotely 
• These reserve and part-time occupations (with full-time pay) can be: Cleaners of public spaces, hospital support staff, supermarket staff, warehousing, farming, logistics, take-away deliveries. 
• They can no only cover and assist government staff but also be provided at no cost to private employers which have a crucial role but which have lost many staff to sickness and precautionary self-isolation. Essentially, this means backfilling jobs in key industries (healthcare, food delivery) where staff there are sick or self-isolating.
• Look after children off school. Those with children could be paid to stay home with them. Given advice about what to do. Teaching children is hard. 

If the secondees show any symptoms they should be told to stay home on full pay.

This would give employers a break in proportion to the impact on their business. It will cover one of their main (almost certainly their main) ongoing cost.

However, it doesn't provide employers with a blank cheque or prop up failing or irresponsibly run businesses.

Virus response: Guaranteed jobs or Unconditional Income?

Advocates of two radical ways to improve lot of the working class will advocate their preferred solution as a solution to the current virus crisis.

They are particularly relevant because self-isolation (whether voluntary or unenforced) will have a huge impact on some industries; hospitality and tourism in particular. If these industries employ a lot of precarious workers then they will reduce their hours or let them go. Some precarious workers may find themselves without sick pay while they recover or self-isolate. 

Job Guarantee (JG) or Universal Basic Income (UBI)? 

I tend to be in the job guarantee camp, but I think a job scheme that guarantees income but not hours of work is the best option in this scenario. 

What jobs can be done? 

• Providing a food and goods delivery service for the needy and those self-isolating is one obvious possibility.
• Supporting medical staff. Hospital portering, helping to transfer samples for testing, transferring equipment etc.
• However, I think a really useful thing would be to clean public spaces. Having an army of people going around cleaning handrails in busy locations and public transport for short periods each day could be very useful. 

The response may be that during the virus outbreak, it is sensible for people to spend as little time in busy public areas as possible.  

This seems to push towards the UBI proposal but I think it actually pushes towards an alternative form of JG. 

I would suggest spreading this extra work around between the people who have lost their work rather than an indiscriminate UBI for all. 

Rather than hire a few extra people to do the above jobs full-time (or more likely no one at all), why not give lots of people a small patch to clean each day? Or a small role in the distribution network. 

Variable hours but full pay

The amount of time they spend working might vary (and they would have a lot of freedom over when to do the task--in fact they probably wouldn't be monitored). 

In effect, those in the scheme would be 'on retainer.' 

Each would be given a little to do and kept informed and prepared in case there are other things they need to do. Would it be better to have a few of the unemployed working full-time with the rest unemployed, or, a larger number in a scheme where they work as much as needed? 

I'm tempted to think that the latter would be better as spreading the work around would reduce the chance that each would get infected, and that an infected worker without symptoms would be spreading the virus around to many others. However, I'm willing to defer to the experts on that one. If I'm wrong then there shouldn't be a UBI - there should be a BI conditional on isolation! 

Obviously if participants had symptoms of the virus they would need to isolate themselves and should be given a generous compensation (if not quite the same amount as those who make themselves available for the project). 

  

In person or arms length?

Normally for a JG proposal I would suggest that anyone could show up at the employment office in the morning and wait to be assigned a task. 

With the current virus that would be a terrible idea. Therefore, the system would have to use technology - phone and, for the most part, internet-based training and instruction. 

For simple jobs, these can be done at arms length, meaning that the programme, if well planned wouldn't require people to gather in one place. Materials could be dropped at each person's location, or they could collect them from a safe point. 

Why not just hire more people and give others a UBI?

UBI advocates might argue that those who are isolating could buy services (thus creating work) and the otherwise unemployed with the UBI could organise themselves into charitable enterprises  

The problems with UBI are that 

• it isn't targeted on the most appropriate people (in this case the self-isolating would be better off with generous sick pay, the benefit payments should go to those who have lost their precarious work) 
• it doesn't encourage productive and organised use of people's time 
• it doesn't provide people with a feeling that they are contributing/doing something useful 

Because UBI payments go to everyone you would not be able to provide as much to the above group as you can with a targeted programme. It would be giving money to the person who was going to stay home anyway. And maybe to the person who is going to go out and spread the disease. 

Further problems with applying UBI, relying on private enterprises and public charity

Will businesses go around hiring new people in the future? They might not want to take the risk on a hiring process. 

We could give people a UBI and hope they will organise charitable activities. Some have already started to organise themselves in this way. Good for them. 

I tend to think a centralised scheme will be more effective as it will be more organised. But also it can call on all sorts of additional resources - the infrastructure of the state and the army of people who might be willing to help a) if they receive pay or b) if they receive direction.  

Advantages of creating an 'anti-virus army'

There are many advantages to creating a reserve army out of those who have lost their jobs as a result of the virus.  

One is that those engaged in the task will feel they have contributed. They will have a positive role to play in society, given that their previous role may be lost for the time-being. Morale could be a big problem if jobs are lost and the future seems bleak. A smaller UBI payment wouldn't improve morale in the same way. 

And they will be able to contribute. They can be taught about best practice to keep the virus at bay and can help to put that into practice, teaching others as they go. They will be a visible sign to others that there is an organised response. 

Conclusion

I think that governments need to organise a highly co-ordinated response to the virus. Private providers and charities might not be able to cope or organise themselves effectively. 

An arms-length job guarantee scheme is a positive response which provides income, knowledge and a chance to contribute to those who suffer most from the economic storm. Giving out money in other ways likely to bleed the benefits to all sorts of other groups who are less badly off. 

Generous payments to those who are isolating for heath reasons and generous payment to those who find themselves involuntarily unemployed and willing to join the anti-virus scheme is superior to providing a smaller amount of money to everyone whether they are in either of these categories or not. 

As I say - I think UBI advocates should really be advocating some kind of 'conditional isolation payment' if they are going to argue that the state should be paying people to stay at home. UBI might seem like a good idea in response to the virus but it might not actually be the best one.

Update on 15 March

Governments are organising a concerted effort to support the economy through interest rate drops (not that they could go much lower without going negative) and a Quantitative Easing programme.

Rather than support capital owners, the focus should be on helping the precariously employed who will lose their jobs.

Train companies are asking for a bailout as they have lost business. However, it seems that train companies take profits when things go well, why should the government fully underwrite their risks? Perhaps the govt. could pay them extra for train cleaning services but otherwise should consider nationalising the railway firms for the time being.

Deliveroo vs. Job scheme
There are lots of unconfirmed briefings about the future plans in the UK. One suggestion was that anyone over 70 would be asked to remain at home and would get food delivered by the likes of Deliveroo and Uber Eats. This is a terrible idea. These apps use precarious labour and the chance of spreading the disease would be much greater if deliveries are undertaken by people with poor employment terms and no sick pay.

Not to mention the fact that these firms don't operate outside big cities - they don't exist in my small town for instance.