and they also wanted to borrow massive amounts of money from the banks in order to build hospitals, pay policemen, buy nuclear missiles etc etc etc

FTFYT

it’s not just a simple case of some greedy people screwing the rest of us.

It certainly was a case of greedy people screwing the rest of us.

The current debt crisis was spelled out (forecast) in great detail by plenty of people, years ago – but no one in power wanted to listen. The banks didn’t care as they were raking in cash. Politicians, even if they knew what was coming didn’t want to act because this is NOT a zero sum game. Politicians have been involved in a game of chicken and we have ended up in a head on crash.

I can recommend this book:

The Coming First World Debt Crisis – by Ann Petifor – published in 2006!!!

It is written for the lay person and lays out her prediction of pretty much exactly what has happened over the last 3 years.

Now the money in he bank is subject to what is called the multiplier effect. If I have £100 and I put it in the bank, I still have £100, but so does the bank. The bank lends it to Jack so he has £100 as well. He wants it to buy a car, but can’t find one to buy straight away so he puts it in different bank. Then that bank lends it to Tom. Now there is only one lot of £100, but actually five people have it and can all spend it. So there is £500 out there boosting the economy.

BUT – ***the important bit that you fail to mention*** – FOUR lots of interest to be paid back when all the loans are repaid!!!!!!

Having all of that money out there sloshing about in the economy is only affordable if the economy is growing fast. Once the economy stops growing faster than the interest is mounting, then the more times that the money has been “multiplied” (in your terms) the worse mess you are in.

Your solutions are not possible – there isn’t enough wealth to pay down the debt – there will be defaults, but no one knows for sure where and to what extent.

Yes or no only, leave opinions at the door.

Yossarian was nearly right.

It’s not that people “spunked it up the wall”

It’s that every time someone borrows money, they agree to pay it back with interest.

The only way that interest can be paid on all the due loans is if the economy has grown sufficiently to pay them AND/OR the people (including Government, banks etc) borrow even more money to pay them off.

The current problems are essentially down to the fact that so much money was lent/borrowed that there really was no prospect of it ever being paid back, but because our financial system is so sodding complicated no one really knows who is holding the bad debt.

If like me you are also a realist rather than an economist, you might take the view that actually, one of the reasons that the economy is not growing fast enough to keep this giant Ponzi scheme on the road is that we actually live on a planet with finite resources and that there are in fact limits to growth, which we are currently bumping up against.

And if you do believe that, then it also follows that even if there is some short term fix to get the economy growing again it is only delaying the inevitable – which is that our entire economic system needs to be rebuilt differently, because what we’ve got no longer works.

If you’re looking for another role you’d be good at there will be plenty.

This is like something from Lewis Carroll.

craigxxl,

Was that everyone in each company, from the MD down?

THM,

Not (alas) a joke at all.

Private schools are full of relatively well behaved kids in small classes with few or no SEN kids + parents with high expectations of them.

Generally speaking that makes them a much easier bunch to teach than kids in your average state school – therefore it’s much easier for someone with less *experience* (i.e. someone coming in from another profession) to teach them because there are fewer behavioural issues.

edit: in other words even if the barriers to entry were the same, those teachers from outside of the education system would probably find it much tougher to move into the state system anyway.

So people who have wider experience in business can become teachers much faster in the independent sector.

Because they don’t have to learn all the crowd control (behaviour management) stuff – it really is as simple as that.

edit (and fewer policy hoops to jump through)

I enjoy chatting with the local Jehovas Witnesses – they come round about every 6 months – used to be a couple of youngish girls – I think I had started to instill a few doubts as I robustly defended my position as a virtuous pagan – and then the next time I got a couple of old biddies.

When did retiring become a good thing?

About the same time as we did away with the poor house?

But it’s not as if all of those public sector workers ARE going to be retiring on their current £6 k pensions as it stands is it?

This isn’t a question of whether public sector workers will be taking slightly shorter cruises in their retirement you know?

Personally I have no expectation of ever “retiring”, but it would be nice to have some choice about how one manages one’s decline.

My point is that people are saying they can’t leave their current profession because there is nothing in the private sector that they could transfer in to.

My point is “thank goodness for that” – otherwise we might be seeing people that we NEED disappearing in droves, because even with a vocation to particular work, at some point you can no longer afford to carry on.

IMHO all of this pensions strife isn’t really about money – it’s about security.

Lots of people who go into the public sector have done so, not expecting to get rich, and probably without great prospects or the option of transferring easily into another job should they feel like a change – but in return what they did expect and trust in was some security for later life.

This whole episode isn’t just about the Govt taking away money, it’s about taking away trust that they will do the right thing by public sector workers.

We have guys in our factory who do a very physical job, they are now having to retire at 68?

Not sure of the answer but having more pensioners isn’t the answer unless we find a way to fund them.

The current answer seems to be doing a few years in semi-retirement at Homebase once you’re too knackered to be of further use in your primary career.

LHS,

You have a particularly short sighted attitude.

Our health service and education systems benefit hugely from having time served, experienced staff who understand the system and can keep it running under the onslaught of new initiatives from central Govt.

These people are hard to replace because the system is complicated and relies on lots of personal interactions – knowledge and experience are often as important as “skills”

It’s much easier to replace one brickie with another as they don’t need so much to “fit in” with a large team.

So on balance, there is more support for the strike

About 60% then !?

Over the past couple of decades or so the private sector has seen it’s pensions massively eroded.

This started with a lot of businesses taking pensions “holidays” in the 1980’s.

Also the introduction of personal pensions by (guess who?) in 1988, which meant that lots of private sector companies could get away with closing their pension schemes.

**BTW, this was nothing to do with those companies “being squeezed” – it was entirely to do with them saving money and adding it to their bottom line (and in the process being “more profitable”, “more efficient” and “more productive” etc etc, and all of the other things that seem to be so widely admired (particulalrly amongst the very private sector workers that still work for them!)**

It got worse with scams / rip offs like the Mirror under (Sir Bob) Maxwell and more recently Equitable Life

I just find it amazing that the people who have acquiesced in letting their own pensions get chopped now seem only to be bothered about levelling down the rest.

Before you go on any more about how marvelously productive the private sector is, have a think about how some of that was achieved by doing away with your pensions!!!!

You can’t have it both ways. If the private sector is so bloody brilliant then it should be able to afford to give decent pay and conditions.

There really isn’t any good reason to live in the $hit you know.

Yes

I want to do the same thing. Have you come up with anything?

It’s not the local retailers who are shafting you, it’s Government and big business.

Try not to hand over your cash to Tesco/Asda if you can possibly help it. If you’ve got time, use a market for your veg and if you don’t do it already try to cook from scratch.

We go on pretty cheap holidays, bike touring/camping etc. – lots of fun. Next year we’re doing a 2 week house swap with some people in Germany, so zero accommodation costs for 2 weeks near Munich.

If you want to go a bit further we have a wood burner that burns wood that I scrounge and an allotment (tonight we had celeriac mash + roast jerusalem artichokes + some nice Taste the Difference chippolatas from Sainsburoids that were on offer – so for £2 I fed 4 of us with as much tasty food as we could eat)

Strangely (if you’ve got time to shop frequently) some of the more up market supermarkets do the best deals on stuff that is about to go out of date. Waitrose has been a particularly fruitful stop for buying enough half price meat to fill the freezer for 6 months at a time in the past.

We also do lots of shopping on ebay and also use it to get rid of anything we no longer want/need.

+ we only run one car (which doesn’t seem much of a hardship to me, but seems to be an incomprehensible inconvenience for some people), we don’t have a TV (although obviously we’ve got a computer and we watch stuff on iplayer) and we hardly ever buy music/movies – which turns out to be no hardship whatsoever as there seems to be already far more interesting stuff available for nothing than we have time to watch.

Also when we go on trips we always try to take a flask/sarnies etc. – can easily save you £20 on a day trip with the kids.

If you don’t like it bugger off but don’t hold the country to ransom.

You’d like 2 million of the people who run the education system, health care and other essential services to “bugger off”?

On the strike side – if changes need to be made then you have to accept them

Clearly not.

obviously most people wouldn’t have the money to keep it going particularly long, if its unpaid time?

Interesting question.

I wonder how long the country would keep going with all the schools shut?

So binners, what do you think teachers should accept as their pay cut? and what should the Government be doing to show them that “we are all in this together?”

Ah, that would be a £43,000 pension then.

Poor old sod if that’s all he’s going to have to live on in his retirement – but I bet it’s not.

Adults get funding

How much?

I’m not having a go BTW, sounds admirable, but what I’d like to check is whether there is a point at which the whole enterprise couldn’t work without the public sector?

A small part of the hypocrisy of the “public sector is a cost not a revenue stream” argument is that hardly anyone with kids would be in a position to work in the private sector at all if it weren’t for the fact that teachers took their kids off their hands all day.

And I’d also take a guess that your business couldn’t run like it does without a bunch of public sector employees giving support to those adults with learning difficulties that you mention?

I started/manage a bike shop six years ago that is owned by a charity, we employ 3 adults with learning difficulties on a full time basis and 5 more adults come and gain work experience throughout the week.

How is this charity funded?

My wife is striking, but is actually planning on going into school to sort out a few things whilst it is empty!

I on the other hand will be looking after our kids, whose school is shut + couple of our friends kids.

Francis Maude will receive a £731,000 pension.

That doesn’t sound right.

Given that 20% of the workforce are in the public sector maybe 60% overall support is possible?

Bear in mind that a lot of private sector people will either be married or otherwise closely related to someone in the public sector so will likely share their sense of grievance.

Also, the public sector cuts through a lot of class barriers (unlike coal mining for example) – there are a lot of very middle class / upper middle class female teachers in primary schools plus many doctors who will be affected and may well be explaining to their traditionally Tory mates that this is a step too far.

Also I think some of the increasingly histrionic rhetoric from the likes of Gove and Maude doesn’t play well and does a lot to remind people what a bunch of arrogant toffs the Tory high command are, and how very little “we are all in this together”.

Finally of course, there may well be a reaction to Osbourne’s statement tomorrow that may well make a difference to the way the strike plays out on Wednesday.

Maybe it’s about time this forum had a polling function added?

it’s all true

Perhaps if you could all come to a working agreement about what truth is, there could be some common ground?

The Appeal Court’s unwillingness to challenge the decision of the judge’s finding confirms each case will be decided upon its own facts.

If you are going to write to the driver you might be advised to put

“Without prejudice save as to costs”

at the top of the letter.

It means that you are writing to try to settle the situation amicably prior to getting legal and it won’t prejudice any legal case that you want to make later.

This is not professional advice BTW, just something you might want to be aware of. Maybe someone with legal training might want to comment further, or you can google the phrase to find out a bit more.

you are about ten years behind the curve, most people in the private sector don’t have a defined benefit pension and those that do probably have had the scheme ammended already, those on money purchase schemes are paying in considerably more than the public sector to get less and at risk.

And you didn’t actually bother to read what I wrote.

Where did I say pensions?

I specifically didn’t say that.

Try to see the bigger picture.

Whatever the Govt does manage to squeeze out of the public sector at the end of all this, you can bet your boots that ten minutes later it will be the justification that private sector companies are looking for to reduce their own employees’ pay and conditions.

And meanwhile those at the top will be congratulating themselves on how they have cut costs and increased productivity, will carry on awarding each other even higher bonuses for being so good at taking “tough decisions” and the circle will be complete and the whole cycle will start again.

Fear and surprise…

I’m an athiest, but my anger is just coincidental.

I think it is to do with being a 40 something male.

Tried to watch the video but got too bored at 1.15

I’ve got some nice Craft 3/4 tights, best I’ve found for tall/thin as they’re a little bit longer than others I’ve tried – they’re for running rather than biking but I wear them under my bike shorts when it’s cold. Works for me. Because they’re running tights they’re also way cheaper than bike tights – £15 online at Ultrasport (orienteering shop).

I’d also recommend Craft thermal vests too – again, brilliant value and the warmest/driest I’ve used.

Chutney13 is exactly right.

What I would try to do is ask in a non-sarcastic, non-threatening way “what’s the problem?” then let them rant for a bit until they have got is out of their system, then ask if they know what the “rules” are (bridleway use etc), then explain what might be polite and helpful (“even though you are walking if it is easier for you to move then couldn’t you just do that?”) – obviously this will have zero impact on them at that moment for fear of losing face, but it might make them act different in the future.

If I end up getting more confrontational in situations like that I almost always feel bad after, but if I try to stay calm/happy then I don’t.

It’s also quite fun to become more calm/reasonable in inverse proportion to their anger.

However, being pushed does cast a different light on things – tricky.

(edit: clearly all this also depends on how big and ugly they are. First rule – discretion is the better part of valour.)

Nope, can’t recall any.

During the riots.

(edit: not the bit about the police being crap and getting it all wrong though – obviously)

Astoundingly, someone on Any Answers made a very good point re’ the strike, which was that maybe some of those in the public sector might have been a bit more willing to “take one for the team”, had those dishing out the medicine been seen to have done anything themsleves to show that “we are all in this together”

Currently MPs get a pension based on 3/80ths of final salary per year’s service as opposed to 1/80th that most people get get + of course they get a ton of support when they are voted out (a nice golden handshake that perfectly demonstrates the “rewards for failure” culture). True they are currently having their salary and conditions “reviewed”, but maybe it would have been a good idea to have doen that first, before asking the teachers to do their bit. Maybe then there wouldn’t be quite so much resentment?

Also, @THM who said

There is an annoying habit in politics for Labour to blame the bankers

As per the MPs – it’s not just the anger at what the bankers did, but at the total lack of contrition since and the fact that to all intents and purposes they have gone back to “business as usual”.