On Friday, I argued that 2022 was a normal year for mortality in England and Wales – contrary to some recent headlines. My two main points were that 2022’s age-standardised mortality rate was the third lowest ever, and age-adjusted excess mortality was negative (fewer people died than normal, after taking account of ageing).
The article attracted some criticism. One objection was that absolute number of deaths is a better measure than the age-standardised mortality rate, and the former shows substantial excess mortality in 2022. Another objection was that the second half of the year saw substantial excess mortality, even if the first half of the year did not.
I disagree with the first objection: the ASMR is a very widely-used statistic, which is closely related to life expectancy. So if you’re sceptical of the ASMR, you ought to be sceptical of life expectancy as well.
It’s also an odd objection coming from sceptics. When lockdown proponents were citing the absolute number of deaths in 2020 as evidence for the necessity of lockdown, it was sceptics who pointed out that the ASMR wasn’t that unusual. The chart below, taken from a BMJ article, was widely shared by sceptics on social media (and rightly so):
If you say the absolute number of deaths is the right measure to use, you have to accept the mainstream narrative that 2020 was a very unusual year. In fact, 2020 wasn’t a very unusual year. But we only know that from looking at the ASMR.
The second objection is slightly stronger. The latter half of 2022 did see non-trivial excess mortality: the ASMR was about 5% higher than the five-year average. If this trend continues, it will make sense to talk about unusually high mortality.
On the other hand, the first half of the year saw negative excess mortality: the ASMR was about 6% lower than the five-year average. This means the positive excess mortality in the second half of the year could be due to ‘dry tinder’: fewer people died in the first half, so there were more at risk of dying in the second.
Last time, I plotted the annual ASMRs in England and Wales. But we can also look at them by the month. Here’s the monthly ASMR in England, going back to January of 2001:
The black line is a third-degree polynomial (a cube term) fit to the data from 2001 to 2019. It gives a prediction of what the monthly ASMR would have been if the pre-pandemic trend had continued.
Looking at the most recent months, the data (in grey) are not too far from the black line – indicating that mortality is not particularly unusual. An important caveat is that mortality typically peaks in January, and the latest datapoint is from December. So the grey line will probably rise substantially next month.
However, notice that the mortality peaks in 2015 and 2018 were both very far above the black line, even though there was no pandemic or crisis in the NHS. Just because mortality comes in higher than expected for a few months, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong.
It’s possible that a serious crisis is developing in the NHS, and mortality will remain elevated for some time. However, we’ll only know that once we have the data. At the moment, there’s no reason to panic.
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I have stated more than once on DS that as far as I am concerned once cash goes it is game over. I see no evidence suggesting I am wrong.
I agree with you HP. We are few though and they are many. Unless we have an Ace up our sleeve, we’re goonered. I continue to use cash when I can and luckily most places down where I live take it but go to London and you might as well be handing them flapjacks. The arguments against cash continue to proliferate and the main thrust of these arguments seems to be about the bother of cash, the inconvenience of it in some sort of Orwellian double-take because if the internet is down or the card machine not connecting then cash is the only convenient exchange for goods etc!! Although stamps now appear with Chuckles on them, I haven’t seen any coins with his head on them – this should tell us all we need to know!
Thanks Aethelred. I must admit that I have heard that Chuckles does not have his head on our coinage so that tells a tale.
(I know where I’d like to see his head.)
I always use cash. Fortunately, up here amongst the dark, satanic mills nobody is currently refusing cash. That I know of.
Good to know that cash is still alive out in the sticks.
The less I see Chuckles’ head the better I think! Better not think too much about his head actually, especially in view of his ancestral namesake!
Sorry to disabuse you both – King Chuck’s head is now on coinage, I got some from the post office the other day. Although both the PO chap & me said that after so many decades of Queenie, somehow it was just wrong….
Chuckles on a coin with a WEF background!
100% agree that it’s massively important.
“ask whether a libertarian approach could help”
I’ve got strong libertarian tendencies, but expecting a large powerful state to have such tendencies is pie in the sky and historically hasn’t been the case. Recent events suggest to me that liberty is most effectively preserved by making tyrannical measures logistically hard to enforce, and by the mass of citizens simply refusing to comply.
I think we’re well aware here on this forum, because we are not stupid (which “anonymous IT reporter” seems to think we are), that cash facilitates crime. Lots of things that make liberty safer also make criminals life easier, but I am more worried about the government committing crimes than I am about small increases in crime. Perhaps improving detection and much longer, punitive prison sentences might be a better approach.
My view on cash crimes, which after all tend to centre on tax avoidance, have certainly become more liberalised shall we say, these last four years.
Crimes with biggest financial impact all done by corporates and governments without cash.
Facilitates crime is a red herring. All so-called human or basic rights limit what government is allowed to do. As they’re universal, this necessarily means all criminals have them, too. And because they’re criminals, they might end up using them for criminal purposes. But since nobody, including the government, has a priori knowledge of which people are criminals and which actions will turn out to be criminal, this simply can’t be helped. Either people have rights. Then, criminals will have them, too. Or people have no rights. Then, everything becomes a lot easier for government, including dealing with criminals. Says the government, at least. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Minority Report!
What is your evidence you are right?
CBDC’s will be part one of…
‘You will own nothing…’
Once the kinks and bumps are ironed out slavery is inevitable. It doesn’t take any intellectual prowess to work that out.
Yes the removal of cash per se doesn’t perhaps lead to disaster – it’s what comes after which is the replacement of money handled by private banks with a CDBC where all transactions go through (eventually) World Government. It’s another “utopian” solution that will lead to the opposite of utopia. I’m rather afraid that “Anonymous IT Reporter” is a closet utopianist who still has some misplaced faith in human nature.
Maybe we will end up trading in other items, out of ‘the system’ if you like. I am just being optimistic, it is Friday after all.
Yup check out Redacted on Rumble, look for the WEF video where they interview Whitney Webb on CBDCs for the latest on their push to eliminate cash. Whitney is a proper journalist, you wouldn’t get Peston or any BBC journalist asking the real questions that she does.
Thanks Ron.
Thanks for the link, Ron. I’ve watched it now & it is truly disturbing. We are certainly heading for the precipice like lemmings but we are being kept in the dark by the MSM except for forums like this.
Completely pointless article.
As I wrote in a past comment, most so-called ‘crimes’ involving cash transactions are more properly described as financial transactions the government doesn’t agree with, either because of tax evasion or because of violations of government rules on trades of goods, eg, buying illegal drugs. The government has an obvious interest in making such transactions impossible by assuming that every transaction is principally meant to violate some law unless proven otherwise, ie, forcing all economical transactions under blanket government surveillance and enabling the government to deny those it doesn’t like.
When everybody has the right and the ability to engage in economic activity without prior government approval, ‘criminals’ will obviously have it, too. But that’s similar to approaching people in the street: Absent Corona rules, that’s usually allowed. Hence, criminals can do it, too. Corona measures must thus urgently be reintroduced to fight crime. Says an anonymous IT reporter. And the answer is “Get stuffed!”. Emphatically.
Brilliant demolition of nonsense arguments.
I think the people who can get a bank account but don’t want one, should get together with those who can’t and want one.
Maybe betwixt the two groups something can be worked out?
The problem in Britain – and it is a problem – is thanks to welfare statism, many believe services are free. But every activity has a cost and that includes banking.
The banks made a rod for their own backs by offering free banking, the concept being the cash-float the bank would have in current accounts could be invested, cover operating costs and yield a return.
As so many expenses have increased over the years, this model doesn’t work anymore. Instead of introducing bank charges – the way it used to be – they have reduced services.
The answer is to introduce charges, so non-profitable accounts aren’t a loss, and those who prefer cash, which is expensive to handle, can pay an extra fee for this with banks and retailers.
There is plenty of shoplifting going on and it ain’t just cash. food, jewellery etc. I bought a car for cash yesterday, just over 2k….The first I’ve ever had delivered before viewing because Billy no mates has nobody to drive him to the garage! Because I don’t do online banking and the trader didn’t have a card machine, I just said I’d pay extra for the delivery providing the car is the condition that was claimed. So I had to drive 20 miles to my nearest Bank branch and because I know the girl who counted my money she asked “buying anything nice”….So I told her. Come to think of it, I wonder if she was obliged to ask because you hear a lot of stories of Banks asking what you’re doing with your own money.
CASH IS KING USE IT OR LOSE IT!
When I first started working I was paid weekly in cash. It was only since the 1980s that employers started insisting employees have bank accounts. And of course there’s been no non cash financial crime committed since that happened has there!
I am Treasurer of a small Not For Profit which, for very old legal reasons which we can’t change, is a Limited Company.
I recently tried to switch our bank account to Lloyds for various very legitimate reasons but without success. The application can only be made online and if you cannot comply with their requirements/enter data TO THE LETTER the application will be automatically rejected.
We can’t comply TO THE LETTER – not least because they require exactly 100% of Shares to be allocated and the Shareholder identified – and we have 19 Shares. 19 into 100 works out at 5.26 and about 8 other decimal places% each …… and they only permit 2 decimal places ….. so we will never be able to honestly comply with their requirements!
Another problem which couldn’t be overcome was their requirement for every Shareholder’s email address and mobile phone number to be entered. A number of Shareholders are very elderly and have neither …. so they couldn’t be entered.
Despite several conversations with several “the-computer-says-no” so-called customer service personnel the impasse could not be overcome.
In my personal life, I am using cash as much as I possibly can. I am part of the “awkward squad” which is doing its level best to prevent the imposition of CBDCs and a social credit system. I ditched my Nectar card several years ago, the only store card I’ve ever had: my data is not for sale for a penny or two off my shopping.