RE: Cars vs Covid | PH Footnote
Discussion
Piha said:
VanquishRider said:
Same as the Rich Company owners who are laying off their staff rather than paying them.
They reckon that Branson is worth £4.1 Billion and if he paid all Virgin staff £500 a week for 8 weeks would make him worth £4.064 billion. That's the equivalent of me being worth £20 and donating it costing me 17.6 pence to pay my staff for 8 weeks.
There will be a backlash for these billionaires.
I have no issue with capitalism. But there is a time when they should spend that money in a useful and beneficial way. That time is now...
Good post.They reckon that Branson is worth £4.1 Billion and if he paid all Virgin staff £500 a week for 8 weeks would make him worth £4.064 billion. That's the equivalent of me being worth £20 and donating it costing me 17.6 pence to pay my staff for 8 weeks.
There will be a backlash for these billionaires.
I have no issue with capitalism. But there is a time when they should spend that money in a useful and beneficial way. That time is now...
The guy's "worth" is also assets. What's he going to do, cut up chunks of Neckar island?
He owns A LOT of property. "They" also say he spends 80% of his time working for his charity, which uses money from which his companies generate revenue.
Have either of you given away as much as Richard Branson has?
Have you given jobs to 71,000+ people, not ballsy enough to start their own businesses?
You have absolutely no grasp of the details or, more importantly, the facts.
I don't think you have a grasp of the fact or the details either!
Branson is asking for a taxpayer bailout for Virgin Atlantic, which is 49% owned by Delta. So he's asking for the British taxpayer to bail out a lot of American shareholders, and a half American airline.
That's why people are unhappy.
Branson is asking for a taxpayer bailout for Virgin Atlantic, which is 49% owned by Delta. So he's asking for the British taxpayer to bail out a lot of American shareholders, and a half American airline.
That's why people are unhappy.
ducnick said:
I see that the government has awarded the ventilator contract to the tax exile Dyson company rather than any of these British based engineering companies or the Oxford Uni project.
Being built just up the road from me in some large aircraft hangers kitted out to build an electric car. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, is in Wiltshire, in the UK. They also had the (UK) staff ready to start on them immediately, and they are being supplied to the government at cost.There is some spectacular Daily Mail level nonsense in this thread, no wonder their website is so popular.
thelostboy said:
Piha said:
VanquishRider said:
Same as the Rich Company owners who are laying off their staff rather than paying them.
They reckon that Branson is worth £4.1 Billion and if he paid all Virgin staff £500 a week for 8 weeks would make him worth £4.064 billion. That's the equivalent of me being worth £20 and donating it costing me 17.6 pence to pay my staff for 8 weeks.
There will be a backlash for these billionaires.
I have no issue with capitalism. But there is a time when they should spend that money in a useful and beneficial way. That time is now...
Good post.They reckon that Branson is worth £4.1 Billion and if he paid all Virgin staff £500 a week for 8 weeks would make him worth £4.064 billion. That's the equivalent of me being worth £20 and donating it costing me 17.6 pence to pay my staff for 8 weeks.
There will be a backlash for these billionaires.
I have no issue with capitalism. But there is a time when they should spend that money in a useful and beneficial way. That time is now...
The guy's "worth" is also assets. What's he going to do, cut up chunks of Neckar island?
He owns A LOT of property. "They" also say he spends 80% of his time working for his charity, which uses money from which his companies generate revenue.
Have either of you given away as much as Richard Branson has?
Have you given jobs to 71,000+ people, not ballsy enough to start their own businesses?
You have absolutely no grasp of the details or, more importantly, the facts.
If he has 4.5 Billion, he must have some cash?
But you miss the point, I don't see him risking anything at this point, or offering the 20% top up.
Sports stars are offering a million £/$ etc out of their banks. Not seeing this kind of support from the business multi millionaires. As Swisstoni says. People will be looking around very carefully at the end of this.
As I say, I have no issue at all with capitalism, but their comes a point when they should actually try doing something sensible with it. Bill Gates is a prime example of somebody who does do something sensible with it.
If there was ever a time to do something with it, surely now is it?
I am one of those supposedly having to use some of those devices presumably to save people
Ventilators are highly specialised machines bringing them to the market takes years of research - I wouldn’t want to drive a Draeger ( Google it this is the benchmark) car marketed in a month either- I have seen the proposed specs of the dyson vent and it is clearly not we’re it needs to be
What we see is a haphazard response and or stunt of a government wanting to put peoples live at risk. Missing out a European purchasing request out of arrogance and chronic underfunding of the health service fit all too well
This is not to snub the willingness and enthusiasm of individuals and companies to help
Cpap is simpler and might work, but best progress could be made imo if licenses would be bought and the big boys use their 3 d printing ability Tonmaterial parts for established products
Sorry
Ventilators are highly specialised machines bringing them to the market takes years of research - I wouldn’t want to drive a Draeger ( Google it this is the benchmark) car marketed in a month either- I have seen the proposed specs of the dyson vent and it is clearly not we’re it needs to be
What we see is a haphazard response and or stunt of a government wanting to put peoples live at risk. Missing out a European purchasing request out of arrogance and chronic underfunding of the health service fit all too well
This is not to snub the willingness and enthusiasm of individuals and companies to help
Cpap is simpler and might work, but best progress could be made imo if licenses would be bought and the big boys use their 3 d printing ability Tonmaterial parts for established products
Sorry
cramorra said:
best progress could be made imo if licenses would be bought and the big boys use their 3 d printing ability Tonmaterial parts for established products
Interesting article in Fast Company on the rush to produce ventilators and similar items. https://www.fastcompany.com/90483109/inside-the-ma...
My initial guess (as someone who runs the engineering department of a tech manufacturing company) was that it's not going to be 3d printing which makes a difference here, or new designs. It's going to be un-jamming supply chains and optimising and scaling up final assembly lines and production test equipment. Both of which are smack in the skillset of the big automotive OEMS. Churning out plastic parts and PCBAs is easy to scale to some extent once you're tooled up, and relatively quick to scale much bigger if you throw money at it. Getting bits, and cloning the one-of-a-kind gear you use to make that specific product, is harder.
Scaling up production is going to require increased supply of things like medical grade plastics and electronic components, a lot of which are single sourced and on very long lead times under normal circumstances. Obviously demand will have dried up as other factories shut down so there's going to be more material available, but it's going to take a while before all of the suppliers - who are facing massive issues of their own right now - notice they need to be prioritising the small-potatoes (but critically important) medical device customers. It doesn't help a device manufacturer if only 99% of their suppliers come through with extra parts: one out-of-stock transistor and you're not building a ventilator. The Fords of this world putting their weight behind that could help a lot - I'd imagine if Ford's CEO Jim Hackett got on the phone, the CEO of ST Micro or Du Pont would pick up.
Unfortunately that sort of heavy lifting's not as press-friendly as parachuting in with a high tech solution....
fido said:
fatboy b said:
Can you imagine the fright when you’re laid in bed in hospital and they bring the ventilator. On the side it says ‘Made with pride by Land Rover’.
Yep most definitely don’t want to see ‘TD5’ ..CPAP machines have been in use a long time and typically areas designed for cpap use are high flow / high use oxygen such as ICU and specialist respiratory wards. The high flow rates they use generally require upsized pipework sizes and equipment, typically the oxygen mains to prevent starving other patients of oxygen and setting off low pressure alarms immediately. You can't put all patients on a standard design ward on cpap for that reason. It's an answer but not the answer and I suspect used as a feel good "we're fixing this" news article. The face fit masks required to force oxygen/air into patients have to be right or you'll also risk oxygen enrichment and a much better fire God forbid one starts up. (Google the hospital fire where a patient did just that and destroyed an entire ward)
It's great the big name companies are jumping in for the glory but if it were my nan on one I would hope it was an original ventilator or cpap in the right environment. That's the main killer from this outbreak, the lack of high flow intensive care bed spaces.
It's great the big name companies are jumping in for the glory but if it were my nan on one I would hope it was an original ventilator or cpap in the right environment. That's the main killer from this outbreak, the lack of high flow intensive care bed spaces.
Distraxi said:
cramorra said:
best progress could be made imo if licenses would be bought and the big boys use their 3 d printing ability Tonmaterial parts for established products
Interesting article in Fast Company on the rush to produce ventilators and similar items. https://www.fastcompany.com/90483109/inside-the-ma...
Funnily this „ But even the fastest review and building process won’t be quick enough for the surge in ventilator demand that’s coming in just a few weeks, says Fields. He’s cofounded a group called Rescue Ventilation that is planning for the ultimate low-tech contingency. They are training teams to manually run ambu-bags, in shifts, for perhaps days at a time per patient until they can get on a real mechanical ventilator. “There’s a shortage of ventilators but not a shortage of people,” Fields says, noting that medical students or people who work on now-cancelled elective surgeries could be recruited. “We don’t think this is ideal. This is a worst-case scenario,” he says.„
Is exactly what started of critical care medicine about 70 years ago on Copenhagen.....
The main issue with some of this us environmental contamination and risk to health care workers ( I am more worried about no of nurses running vents then vent numbers) and the article shows how some of these problems might be overcome... the main issue is how to keep staff safe so they can work
It takes six years to train an intensive care doctor, 3 for a master in critical care nursing we are stretching ourselves but anything which helps getting protective kit to frontline helps
Including fixing the supply chain and produce more stuff locally
Thanks
A lot of the press and individuals still fighting the Brexit result .With thousands dead and more to come they just can’t bring themselves to say anything positive .If you are unfortunate to be hooked up to a ventilator I don’t think you would give a F**k who made it as long as it works.Well done to all companies and individuals who have been involved are a credit to the industry.
VanquishRider said:
And yes he should sell his island before asking for a bailout.
To who exactly? Like anyone would be paying money for an island in this climate!
VanquishRider said:
If he has 4.5 Billion, he must have some cash?
No-one actually knows how much cash he has. Are you foolish enough to believe everything you read? Distraxi said:
My initial guess (as someone who runs the engineering department of a tech manufacturing company) was that it's not going to be 3d printing which makes a difference here, or new designs. It's going to be un-jamming supply chains and optimising and scaling up final assembly lines and production test equipment. Both of which are smack in the skillset of the big automotive OEMS. Churning out plastic parts and PCBAs is easy to scale to some extent once you're tooled up, and relatively quick to scale much bigger if you throw money at it. Getting bits, and cloning the one-of-a-kind gear you use to make that specific product, is harder.
Exactly this!!! 3D printing is not like Star Trek say "Ventilator part" and out one pops. The materials and structure of 3D printed parts are not approved for the applications required and you can knock out 50 parts on a CNC machine in the correct grade of approved material in the time it takes to 3D print one part. The problems we are facing is getting hold of the materials. The grades required are not off the shelf standard issue metallics or polymers they are the made to order materials with normally 12-16 week lead times (when factories are at 100% capacity) and none of them are made in the UK. We didn't need those type of industries on our shores did we
. The machine shops across the country have responded and have been amazing in order to get initial batches made and out for approval with people working 24/7 and all over Easter, but now we have used up all the materials on the shelf the volume production will now be a big problem to overcome. VanquishRider said:
Same as the Rich Company owners who are laying off their staff rather than paying them.
They reckon that Branson is worth £4.1 Billion and if he paid all Virgin staff £500 a week for 8 weeks would make him worth £4.064 billion. That's the equivalent of me being worth £20 and donating it costing me 17.6 pence to pay my staff for 8 weeks.
There will be a backlash for these billionaires.
I have no issue with capitalism. But there is a time when they should spend that money in a useful and beneficial way. That time is now...
I get the point about people with a lot of wealth being in a position to help, but Branson's wealth (and that of most other industrialists or extremely wealthy people) is tied into their ownership of companies (Bransons is in his ownership of a chunk of the Virgin business empire - specifically the airline and travel companies which is currently tanking in value as no planes are going anywhere!), dumping shares would be needed to access this as cash, and in that would undermine both the companies and the assessment of Bransons ' networkcurrent market Branson has probably 'lost' around £1Bn because of the dip in the share markets. They reckon that Branson is worth £4.1 Billion and if he paid all Virgin staff £500 a week for 8 weeks would make him worth £4.064 billion. That's the equivalent of me being worth £20 and donating it costing me 17.6 pence to pay my staff for 8 weeks.
There will be a backlash for these billionaires.
I have no issue with capitalism. But there is a time when they should spend that money in a useful and beneficial way. That time is now...
I think it's a bit naive to think this amount of money is held in cash somewhere and and can therefore be 'spent' in this way. I know it's possible to raise cash to spend using this as security and so on, so it's complex, but to suggest anyone would 'check their pockets' and pay for something is oversimplifying.
and this is a different point to whether that amount has been learnt by anyone or anything remotely political like that - I'm trying to make a practical point (before I get flamed too badly!)
VanquishRider said:
The point is more that they have cash, and they are not prepared to lose any of it. And yes he should sell his island before asking for a bailout.
and he has offered Necker as collateral to borrow money to keep the Virgin businesses afloat - but it's only worth about $4.5m so it's not a lot of help!VanquishRider said:
If he has 4.5 Billion, he must have some cash?
I doubt it - cash in the bank earns 0.1% interest, invested in companies will earn many times that. He will have it all invested and leveraged to show a return (whatever you think of him, he is a smart cookie and knows how this works!)VanquishRider said:
Sports stars are offering a million £/$ etc out of their banks. Not seeing this kind of support from the business multi millionaires. As Swisstoni says. People will be looking around very carefully at the end of this.
yes, and they are paid cash and are generally poor at investing it (look at the blinded out trucks they spend it on!), so it could well be sat in he bank! 
cramorra said:
I am one of those supposedly having to use some of those devices presumably to save people
Ventilators are highly specialised machines bringing them to the market takes years of research - I wouldn’t want to drive a Draeger ( Google it this is the benchmark) car marketed in a month either- I have seen the proposed specs of the dyson vent and it is clearly not we’re it needs to be
What we see is a haphazard response and or stunt of a government wanting to put peoples live at risk. Missing out a European purchasing request out of arrogance and chronic underfunding of the health service fit all too well
This is not to snub the willingness and enthusiasm of individuals and companies to help
Cpap is simpler and might work, but best progress could be made imo if licenses would be bought and the big boys use their 3 d printing ability Tonmaterial parts for established products
Sorry
Good post. For the government to ask companies with no prior experience to build these, without having the nous to think "hang on, these need to be approved" stinks of either utter incompetence or meaningless b*sVentilators are highly specialised machines bringing them to the market takes years of research - I wouldn’t want to drive a Draeger ( Google it this is the benchmark) car marketed in a month either- I have seen the proposed specs of the dyson vent and it is clearly not we’re it needs to be
What we see is a haphazard response and or stunt of a government wanting to put peoples live at risk. Missing out a European purchasing request out of arrogance and chronic underfunding of the health service fit all too well
This is not to snub the willingness and enthusiasm of individuals and companies to help
Cpap is simpler and might work, but best progress could be made imo if licenses would be bought and the big boys use their 3 d printing ability Tonmaterial parts for established products
Sorry
t to be seen to act. The government response has been a shambolic mess.
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