I didn't mention deficit other than to acknowledge that it had to be cut. My first para was alluding to the fact that the National debt was lower under Labour, which it was. Brown did break his own rules but he wasn't expecting the perfect storm to gather along and as a result the deficit needed cutting which I again acknowledged. I acknowledge that Germany and UK are different economies but had we avoided the worst of the credit crunch through identifying the storm and acting we would have been at the forefront of the recovery as Germany are (for different reasons).
If you want to cintradict me- you can explain why and how the Tories would have handled things better pre and post crunch. Not what they should have done but what you think they would have done. And does it not make sense to have a plan B to deal with what is thrown at you - this Government doesn't have one and because of the position it has taken, can't have one.
it all seems to boil back to the de regulation of the financial services - somebody said that happened under labour - i'm sure it was under Thatcher wasn't it?
Thatcher started the deregulatory processes, Blair/Brown continued with Thatcherite policies as the Labour Govt was very determined to throw off its reputation for financial profoligacy, and thus ensure a second term in office, and this basically meant appeasing the right wing press and doing what the banks wanted. Brown has more recently admitted that he should have kept a closer eye on the banks, which leads me to wonder if anyone is actually doing it now?
it all seems to boil back to the de regulation of the financial services - somebody said that happened under labour - i'm sure it was under Thatcher wasn't it?
Financial deregulation was started by Maggie but continued thereafter - it wasn't a one hit. It amazes me that anybody can blame any of this on Maggie. She did was needed at the time with the banking sector as it was at that time. However the world changes. The failure was the authorities which included the bank's senior mangement, the FSA and the government all ignored the worls was changing and new banking products were being brought out. Laws right for today may well not be right for for 25 years time
it all seems to boil back to the de regulation of the financial services - somebody said that happened under labour - i'm sure it was under Thatcher wasn't it?
Started under Thatcher but continued under Labour when they took away bank regulation from the B of E and gave it the FSA, whose remit was "light touch".
I think its fair to say that nobody expected the credit crunch to bite as much as it did but I remember reading articles about the USA sub-prime issue at least 18 months before they hit. I also read articles relating to the trillions invested in Hedge Funds which could potential be catastrophic if they unravelled.
In truth the blame lies in many directions. Governments (especially ours) enriching their tax takes from the financial markets and spending it to improve their chances of getting re-elected. Our Government failing to require more rigorous regulation and systemic risk management. Casino banking sitting alongside conventional banking where those taking the risks were rewarded for taking upside risks without being penalised for any of the downsides. Ordinary people throwing borrowing caution to the wind, egged on by banking institutions which were allowed to grow too large.
I didn't mention deficit other than to acknowledge that it had to be cut. My first para was alluding to the fact that the National debt was lower under Labour, which it was. Brown did break his own rules but he wasn't expecting the perfect storm to gather along and as a result the deficit needed cutting which I again acknowledged. I acknowledge that Germany and UK are different economies but had we avoided the worst of the credit crunch through identifying the storm and acting we would have been at the forefront of the recovery as Germany are (for different reasons).
If you want to cintradict me- you can explain why and how the Tories would have handled things better pre and post crunch. Not what they should have done but what you think they would have done. And does it not make sense to have a plan B to deal with what is thrown at you - this Government doesn't have one and because of the position it has taken, can't have one.
Hey I'm no Tory. The Tories would have wanted to remove even more of the regulation so that we went from "light touch" to "no touch".
What everybody really needs to do is forget what happened - we can't change that. What we have to focus on is how the economy can be repaired. Some of that is based around ensuring we don't cut too fast too quickly and some is based around ensuring that we cut enough to ensure that the economy can recover in a better health than it was before we entered the credit crunch and that we avoid a sovereign debt crisis (like Ireland and Greece) and interest rates remain under control.
It is very hard to judge but I think probably despite all the political posturing, the Government has probably got it about right in total cut terms. And then the future for me is about
a) re-balancing away from over-dependence on the financial sector b) Banks being separated into casino banking and ordinary banking and proper risk management be a requirement for their banking licence. c) The big Four Banks being broken up/new banks being allowed to form, grow and compete, so that we have 30 major banks not four. That way they will cease to be too big to be allowed to fail and we will have real competition. d) Income tax thresholds increased taking more people on low incomes out of tax all-together. £10K is just the beginning e) House building need to be given a priority, both social and private housing to bring down the structural excess in demand over supply which has fuelled the housing price bubble f) We need to have as much focus on technical further education qualifications as we do on those doing Law, the humanities, business studies and medicine. A nation where science and engineering and people who can make things is valued much higher than it is at present.
g) Welfare does require reform broadly along the lines of what its being proposed
h) State pension arrangements need to be made more transparent so that everybody knows to what they are entitled, enabling people to make informed choices about other pension provisions they may need,
i) Public sector pensions will need to be organised so that the state can afford them in the medium to long term.
Apologies, dont wish to accuse you of something you are not - would like to add though some thought provoking counters:
a) Ireland shows how cutting Public Spending at the wrong time can do more damage. Massive cuts in spending and the public sector has impacted on the private sector and has increased unemployement there and sapped demand. Ireland is now considered more at risk of Soverign debt than before the cuts.
b) A big reason IMO to economic collapse is the global race to cut labour costs. The value of UK wages has fallen about 10% from the 70's to about 55% now, where as Corporate Profit has increased from 13% then to 21% now.
c) Tax avoidance and non collection. An additional £26 bilion is going uncollected -leaked treasury documents in 2006 estimated the tax gap to be between £97 and £150billion. To put this into context, Benefit Fraud is estimated to annualy represent 1% of this figure.
d) War - Trident - a weapon that has failed the moment it is used costs us 1.5 billion a year - Afghanistan costs us £2.6 billion and add to that the costs of Iraq and increasing costs in recent activities in Libya etc...
There are alternative ways to save money and not take so much from workers pockets which makes recovery more difficult.
Well if 1.2m union members who earn say 150 quid a day strike once a week for 2 months the government saves 1.4billion in wages which sounds good to me.
a) re-balancing away from over-dependence on the financial sector b) Banks being separated into casino banking and ordinary banking and proper risk management be a requirement for their banking licence. c) The big Four Banks being broken up/new banks being allowed to form, grow and compete, so that we have 30 major banks not four. That way they will cease to be too big to be allowed to fail and we will have real competition. d) Income tax thresholds increased taking more people on low incomes out of tax all-together. £10K is just the beginning e) House building need to be given a priority, both social and private housing to bring down the structural excess in demand over supply which has fuelled the housing price bubble f) We need to have as much focus on technical further education qualifications as we do on those doing Law, the humanities, business studies and medicine. A nation where science and engineering and people who can make things is valued much higher than it is at present.
g) Welfare does require reform broadly along the lines of what its being proposed
h) State pension arrangements need to be made more transparent so that everybody knows to what they are entitled, enabling people to make informed choices about other pension provisions they may need,
i) Public sector pensions will need to be organised so that the state can afford them in the medium to long term.
I agree with some of this but there are a few bits that I dont't:
a) The Financial Sector has been our saviour. If we really want to boost up our manufacturing base we need to be much, much more competative in Global terms. This thread gives a good example of the attiture to those that work in this country. There is little chance we will ever be able to compete with the likes of the Chinese and the Indians when their population will work hard for less than you can get on welfare in this country. We have public workers threatening to go on strike if their pensions are cut when they are, in effect, earning so much, compared to China, that at that price we couldn't make anything that would compete in the market place with the Chinese output.
d) As desirable as this is it will just require more cuts elsewhere. I can't see Bob Crow agreeing to have his menbers pensions recuced so that those on ow incomes can pay a little less tax.
e) This is where I have the biggest problem. Social housing is seen a a gift to those that are work shy, or unable to pay for private housing. This, again, means that cuts have to be made eklsewhere to allow housing to be provided below it's market value. To increase private housing there needs to be enough demand at the right price to sell (or rent) it. Why should any institution sell below market price? At the moment there is a shortage of building projects as the properties cannot be sold and the builders don't want to sell cheap when they can wait for the market to pick up and sell for more later. This is expecially true now that most of the builders have 'released' many of their costs of production and can re-hire them at a later date.
g) At the risk of sounding a little right wing, welfare needs to be a lot harder to qualify for. This needs to increase supply of labour in the workforce and make the salary expectations much more realistic. This is going to reduce the standard of living for many, but this needs to happen anyway if we, as a nation, are going to be competative in the Global market place. No Government wants to risk losing the votes of those that don't work and claim benefits, or those who's standards of living are being kept artificially high due to the lack of demand for jobs due to the welfare state, and those that are perfectly happy not to work. On that basis we have seen years of years of posturing about tackling the 'work shy' or the 'benefit scroungers' but there is no real desire to tackle it.
h) All people need to realise that the percentage of GDP that is being allocated to the costs of those that have retired is growing in just about every nation across the world. The growth is going to become unsustainable. The reason the public sector pensions are being tackled now is that they are the ones that are Governmebt backed. I.e. the tax payer guarentees them. In the private sector you choose when you retire and the benefits you receive are based on how much you have saved. You are forced to buy a pension. The market calcualtes how much you get each year based on the sum of money you have. This figure has been reducing year on year due to the lower interest rates and subsequently investment returns, but also based on the life expectancy. This is why the defined benefit schemes are now so out of kilt with the defined contribution schemes. This means that either the schemes are changed or they become a bigger burdon on those that are still working when we have all retired.
I don't really have a position on public sector pensions, but when you consider that the percentage of those retired is increasing as is the percentage of those on benefite, it becomes obvious that those that are woeking are not going to be able to raise enough tax to pay for both. Either this gets tackled now, or the unthinkable happens and those that are retired have their pensions cut after they have finished working. Surely it's better to make the change now so that these people can work a few years longer than they get to, say 70, and their pensions are cut then?
Well if 1.2m union members who earn say 150 quid a day strike once a week for 2 months the government saves 1.4billion in wages which sounds good to me.
£750 a week! If you think the average public sector worker is on £39,000 a year you're away with the fairies.
But they only "work" for three days a week Bournemouth, so the maths are fine.
:-O
*steps back, puts on tin hat!
:-p
Oh yeah, just to be clear I'm on leave today hence the reason I can post at 3:30pm. I assume everyone else is doing so on their own time and not the bosses then? Hmm......seems to me that there's a lot of posting goes on during the working day, including from those keen to stress the "public sector wastage" point of view.
I've read this thread with interest - there's a lot of good debate on it (and a lot of crap, of course). My take on it is that tehre are reasons on both 'sides' of the debate that could legitimately be considered as contributing to the economic shambles of recent years - loose (almost non-existent) regulation of the banking industry, no disconnect between 'high-street' banking and 'investment' banking, the stupidity of people working on the checkout in ASDA and having 250 grand mortgages on houses worth just over half that, decimation of the country's manufacturing sector and replacement with a single industry reliant on continuing success of the economy to underpin it, profligacy in public spending, non-acknowledgement of the insane disparity in incomes between the haves and have-nots, hand-wringing instead of clamping down on corporate tax evasion, sleepwalking into the eradication of the country's 'working' class and subsequent replacement with an 'under' class etc. etc. etc.
What it really all boils down to though is one word: Greed. Greed on the part of the arseholes at the top of the pile who aren't happy unless theyr'e fucking over the rest of us. Greed on the part of the idiot earning fuck all yet still having a two grand telly. Greed on the part of politicians with their snouts in the trough. Greed on the part of corporations who find ever-more ingenuous methods of shafting their employees and having them fear for their working existence lest their jobs be shipped out to a country where they'll work for pennies a day. Greed on the part of consumers who think paying a quid for a loaf of bread is expensive, but think nothing of spending four hundred quid on a phone they don't need. Greed on the part of privatised industries who think nothing of financially raping their customers because they know there's little alternative for them, and no financial penalty for doing so.
Saddest part of all is that there literally is no alternative. The Chicago School economic policies of free markets regulating themselves has utterly failed over the past fifty years - but there is nothing else to do other than wait for it all to come crashing down. It inevitably will at some stage, but what will replace it is anyone's guess.
But they only "work" for three days a week Bournemouth, so the maths are fine.
:-O
*steps back, puts on tin hat!
:-p
Oh yeah, just to be clear I'm on leave today hence the reason I can post at 3:30pm. I assume everyone else is doing so on their own time and not the bosses then? Hmm......seems to me that there's a lot of posting goes on during the working day, including from those keen to stress the "public sector wastage" point of view.
Still, what would this country do without people like Lord Hutton. The ex Labour MP earned an estimated £1m in public money for the 18 years in parliament, When he quit parliament he received a re-adjustment grant of just under £65,000. He will benefit from the £37,000 pa average MP's pension and he pocketed £4k a month for a 3 day week whilst working on the pension shake up for the government. He is a true saviour of the public purse - well in relation to poorly paid nurses that is, not himself.
And lastly, if you were in any doubt how we are all being stitched up by the establishment, did you know that the poorest fith of the population pay 39.9% of their earnings in tax, whilst the richest fith pay 35.1%.
I am left leaning, however I think the tax balance is about right in terms of percentage of income, at least for the large majority. A blend of paying your way and paying some more if you earn more. With regards the vastly better off that's a different story however I am not sure there is a practical way of getting more while competing with other countries. I agree with some of the above though that tax avoidance is a huge issue and should be addressed, the constrast with benefits is a good one.
It's a good point Razil - how do you compete with a country that exploits its people? How do you compete with countries that have young Kids working 16 hour shifts? Maybe you join up with like minded countries and stop trying to compete - Corporations would suffer, yes, but if you haven't got a poor 7 year old indian kid making your clothes, maybe more English people would start making them. Maybe we could rebuild our manufacturing industries - but would the corporations or powers that be let us- not without a fight, but whilst we have TVs and a roof over our heads, we'll probably let things carry on as they are and blame everything on the poor and feckless.
Still, what would this country do without people like Lord Hutton. The ex Labour MP earned an estimated £1m in public money for the 18 years in parliament, When he quit parliament he received a re-adjustment grant of just under £65,000. He will benefit from the £37,000 pa average MP's pension and he pocketed £4k a month for a 3 day week whilst working on the pension shake up for the government. He is a true saviour of the public purse - well in relation to poorly paid nurses that is, not himself.
Small beer for his non executive directorships that he will be offered from most Pension companies/banks etc.......
Not that Hutton is any better or worse!........
I am not particularly upset at people earning high salaries, providing they are successful!, and I do not mean flogging arms to people in third world countries, or sub prime mortgages!., evading tax by a stroke of a pen, by tax loophole advisors, and then come crying back to the public that the risk they took, backfired and expect to be underwritten by the tax payer!.
Some of us were burned by Maxwell!...... I had the sense to have a very short association with the man's business empire!, not because of any great inside knowlege....... just thought he was an unpleasant man, and in those day's I had a choice!. Trouble is these day's few of us have that...............
I can't help feeling the tories and friends are stoking this one up to cover up their own failings. The Average "gold plated" pension is £7k for a full time worker.
They are raising the state pension age to 68 if you are under 40 thats you
. Do you really think that you would like a 68 year old teaching 5 year old kids, or driving you in an ambulance, or trying to put out your house if it's on fire. Will they still be fit enough to empty dust bins etc.
The teachers agreed to pay more into their pension pot only 3 years ago but the goal posts are being moved again.
Meanwhile MP's still get their pension at 60. Ken Livingstone gets his £10,000 ex MP's one for 14 years service ( he said so on LBC)
One rule for them
Ps I'm not a public sector worker but I can see their point
Part of the problem of course is increasing life expectancy and the increasing %ge of population drawing a pension. Fewer workers paying for increasing numbers of dependants.
In Japan they have an even worse prospect as they have a quarter of their population as pensioners and rising combined with a far lower Birth Rate than ours and very low immigration. Of course they already have a 30 year plan in place for phased immigration. And 10% (3million or so) of Japanese pensioners choose to continue working.
If everybody - both in the public and private sector are going to be working until they are 68, is not life expectancy expected to fall? Would be surprised if it didn't myself.
It is a serious point about MPs pensions, maybe an ex public servant could be commisioned to review their's in line with Hutton. I'd say none of this increased rates because they are not MPs for long nonsense for starters -if they are not MPs they should do other jobs to get pension benefits not as Ken L says, get 10K a year for 14 years service..
The looming problem shown here in the CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html under 'people' is that the 16.5% of UK citizens who are over 65 is growing, though as I say, it is offset by our higher Birth Rate (12.2/1000/year) compared to Death Rate (9.3/100/year) plus net immigration (of 2.6/1000/year)
Japan has a much worse problem BR 7 and DR 10 and 0 net immigration - so a falling population with increasing elderly dependants.
Sadly we rank a miserable 44th in the world in terms of our expenditure on Education, which may bite us on the bottom in years to come.
Comments
There are a lot of very long posts on here, if you all got back to work, then the economy would spin back to black.
Work shy so and so's - The lot of yer...Grrrr... *Waves fist* ;o)
I didn't mention deficit other than to acknowledge that it had to be cut. My first para was alluding to the fact that the National debt was lower under Labour, which it was. Brown did break his own rules but he wasn't expecting the perfect storm to gather along and as a result the deficit needed cutting which I again acknowledged. I acknowledge that Germany and UK are different economies but had we avoided the worst of the credit crunch through identifying the storm and acting we would have been at the forefront of the recovery as Germany are (for different reasons).
If you want to cintradict me- you can explain why and how the Tories would have handled things better pre and post crunch. Not what they should have done but what you think they would have done. And does it not make sense to have a plan B to deal with what is thrown at you - this Government doesn't have one and because of the position it has taken, can't have one.
Financial deregulation was started by Maggie but continued thereafter - it wasn't a one hit. It amazes me that anybody can blame any of this on Maggie. She did was needed at the time with the banking sector as it was at that time. However the world changes. The failure was the authorities which included the bank's senior mangement, the FSA and the government all ignored the worls was changing and new banking products were being brought out. Laws right for today may well not be right for for 25 years time
Hey I'm no Tory. The Tories would have wanted to remove even more of the regulation so that we went from "light touch" to "no touch".
What everybody really needs to do is forget what happened - we can't change that. What we have to focus on is how the economy can be repaired. Some of that is based around ensuring we don't cut too fast too quickly and some is based around ensuring that we cut enough to ensure that the economy can recover in a better health than it was before we entered the credit crunch and that we avoid a sovereign debt crisis (like Ireland and Greece) and interest rates remain under control.
b) Banks being separated into casino banking and ordinary banking and proper risk management be a requirement for their banking licence.
c) The big Four Banks being broken up/new banks being allowed to form, grow and compete, so that we have 30 major banks not four. That way they will cease to be too big to be allowed to fail and we will have real competition.
d) Income tax thresholds increased taking more people on low incomes out of tax all-together. £10K is just the beginning
e) House building need to be given a priority, both social and private housing to bring down the structural excess in demand over supply which has fuelled the housing price bubble
f) We need to have as much focus on technical further education qualifications as we do on those doing Law, the humanities, business studies and medicine. A nation where science and engineering and people who can make things is valued much higher than it is at present.
Apologies, dont wish to accuse you of something you are not - would like to add though some thought provoking counters:
a) Ireland shows how cutting Public Spending at the wrong time can do more damage. Massive cuts in spending and the public sector has impacted on the private sector and has increased unemployement there and sapped demand. Ireland is now considered more at risk of Soverign debt than before the cuts.
b) A big reason IMO to economic collapse is the global race to cut labour costs. The value of UK wages has fallen about 10% from the 70's to about 55% now, where as Corporate Profit has increased from 13% then to 21% now.
c) Tax avoidance and non collection. An additional £26 bilion is going uncollected -leaked treasury documents in 2006 estimated the tax gap to be between £97 and £150billion. To put this into context, Benefit Fraud is estimated to annualy represent 1% of this figure.
d) War - Trident - a weapon that has failed the moment it is used costs us 1.5 billion a year - Afghanistan costs us £2.6 billion and add to that the costs of Iraq and increasing costs in recent activities in Libya etc...
There are alternative ways to save money and not take so much from workers pockets which makes recovery more difficult.
Well if 1.2m union members who earn say 150 quid a day strike once a week for 2 months the government saves 1.4billion in wages which sounds good to me.
b) Banks being separated into casino banking and ordinary banking and proper risk management be a requirement for their banking licence.
c) The big Four Banks being broken up/new banks being allowed to form, grow and compete, so that we have 30 major banks not four. That way they will cease to be too big to be allowed to fail and we will have real competition.
d) Income tax thresholds increased taking more people on low incomes out of tax all-together. £10K is just the beginning
e) House building need to be given a priority, both social and private housing to bring down the structural excess in demand over supply which has fuelled the housing price bubble
f) We need to have as much focus on technical further education qualifications as we do on those doing Law, the humanities, business studies and medicine. A nation where science and engineering and people who can make things is valued much higher than it is at present.
:-p
Oh yeah, just to be clear I'm on leave today hence the reason I can post at 3:30pm. I assume everyone else is doing so on their own time and not the bosses then? Hmm......seems to me that there's a lot of posting goes on during the working day, including from those keen to stress the "public sector wastage" point of view.
What it really all boils down to though is one word: Greed. Greed on the part of the arseholes at the top of the pile who aren't happy unless theyr'e fucking over the rest of us. Greed on the part of the idiot earning fuck all yet still having a two grand telly. Greed on the part of politicians with their snouts in the trough. Greed on the part of corporations who find ever-more ingenuous methods of shafting their employees and having them fear for their working existence lest their jobs be shipped out to a country where they'll work for pennies a day. Greed on the part of consumers who think paying a quid for a loaf of bread is expensive, but think nothing of spending four hundred quid on a phone they don't need. Greed on the part of privatised industries who think nothing of financially raping their customers because they know there's little alternative for them, and no financial penalty for doing so.
Saddest part of all is that there literally is no alternative. The Chicago School economic policies of free markets regulating themselves has utterly failed over the past fifty years - but there is nothing else to do other than wait for it all to come crashing down. It inevitably will at some stage, but what will replace it is anyone's guess.
Come on CL expecting to find transfer rumours and get a discussion on laferre curve.
Wouldnt get this on any other teams forums.
I can't help feeling the tories and friends are stoking this one up to cover up their own failings. The Average "gold plated" pension is £7k for a full time worker.
They are raising the state pension age to 68 if you are under 40 thats you
. Do you really think that you would like a 68 year old teaching 5 year old kids, or driving you in an ambulance, or trying to put out your house if it's on fire. Will they still be fit enough to empty dust bins etc.
The teachers agreed to pay more into their pension pot only 3 years ago but the goal posts are being moved again.
Meanwhile MP's still get their pension at 60. Ken Livingstone gets his £10,000 ex MP's one for 14 years service ( he said so on LBC)
One rule for them
Ps I'm not a public sector worker but I can see their point
Fewer workers paying for increasing numbers of dependants.
In Japan they have an even worse prospect as they have a quarter of their population as pensioners and rising combined with a far lower Birth Rate than ours and very low immigration.
Of course they already have a 30 year plan in place for phased immigration. And 10% (3million or so) of Japanese pensioners choose to continue working.
It is a serious point about MPs pensions, maybe an ex public servant could be commisioned to review their's in line with Hutton. I'd say none of this increased rates because they are not MPs for long nonsense for starters -if they are not MPs they should do other jobs to get pension benefits not as Ken L says, get 10K a year for 14 years service..
The looming problem shown here in the CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html under 'people' is that the 16.5% of UK citizens who are over 65 is growing, though as I say, it is offset by our higher Birth Rate (12.2/1000/year) compared to Death Rate (9.3/100/year) plus net immigration (of 2.6/1000/year)
Japan has a much worse problem BR 7 and DR 10 and 0 net immigration - so a falling population with increasing elderly dependants.
Sadly we rank a miserable 44th in the world in terms of our expenditure on Education, which may bite us on the bottom in years to come.
Just as well we are forcing students to pay up to £9k PA if they want to get degrees then.
But no worries, we "are all in this together", I know because I heard someone who's the heir to a substantial fortune tell me.