economic situation is dire

[colhint]

I am getting well pissed off with the constant mantra of: "Well private sector pensions are worse, we pay for your big pensions with our taxes", etc.

OK, why doesn't everybody flock to be a nurse or a teacher instead of a financial analyst or a lawyer, then? The fact is that that argument is a total red herring.

I started my I.T. career in the private (insurance) sector. My pension plan wasn't as good as the one I have now as a university employee, true. But I did get very nice profit sharing bonuses that I don't get now - swings and roundabouts.

We all pay taxes for the services that public sector workers provide, not especially the pensions (which are arguably the only "perk" of the job). We don't "think we're worth more than others", but we do think we're worth what the employers (the government) agreed we are worth.

Stop trying to compare apples with oranges and stick to the matter in hand - the government are trying to claw back money that the bankers pissed up the wall by taking it off those who had nothing to do with the mess we are in. Once a Tory, always a Tory. They look after their mates. Well, given the very limited means to do so, so do we.

Just a point here there are roughly 1m more people working in the public sector now than in 1997. And presumably as the mantra of the day was

vote for labour and save our NHS or my top priorities are education education education, i guess most of those 1m people worked in NHS or education. So I suggest that more people have flocked to be a nurse or a teacher in the uk than any other profession, business or sector since the american goldrush in the 1850's

[tonyh29]

Would be interested to see what pension Mark Sereotka will be getting when he retires

[blandy]

But it is in part our fault; we are the electors of these governments?

And on what basis does the elctorate choose their MPs who then go on to have little say in the actual make up of the government and, often, little power to check (and even hold to account) the decisions of that government?

Do we expect them to stay true to their manifesto commitments or are these just 'aspirations'?

Perhaps the electorate's decision only actually be best viewed (even when it may take what has happened in to account) as a retrospective assessment of the performance of the incumbent (or the incumbent's position relative to the government of the day)?

It is 'our' fault if we continue to elect people labouring under the misapprehension that they will do as they claimed when they stood for election and will represent anything more than the vested interests and self-interest that counsel them once elected.

p.s. Francis Maude is.. slimey ... as ... Gerald Kaufman.

I agree with all of this. The system is broken, from top to bottom.

[colhint]

me too

[colhint]

I have a pal in the US who has a great outlook on politicians. He knows they work 24-7, its just that it means 24 hours a week for 7 months a year. He knows an honest politician is someone who, once they have been bought, stays bought

[snowychap]

He knows an honest politician is someone who, once they have been bought, stays bought

Nice.

[Xann]

I agree with all of this. The system is broken, from top to bottom.

Many reasonable people would agree.

I voted for Tony's first stint, but Green since. At least they intend leave the canvas intact.

Might as well try to break the system up softly now, rather than really messily (perhaps catastrophically) later.

[thetrees]

It's so easy. There is serious tax evasion on all levels. The only people who are going to drag us out of his recession are those on PAYE.

Re-introduce the 10p tax rate to help the low paid, and raise the basic rate of income tax.

But then neither Tory nor Labour would countenance raising income tax.....

[VILLAFC2000]

You simply cant compare the two as SCAMERON has been trying to. The reason why Pubilc sector pensions have traditionally been better than private sector pensions is because pay in the public sector is worse so to compensate this public sector workers have got a better pension.

Wrong. On average, public sector salaries are higher, and their pensions are a lot, lot higher.

LOL - no no.

It depends how you measure it.

Can you make hundreds of pounds in the public sector even thousands and tens of thousands of bonuses in the public sector as much as you can in the private sector?

Do you get as many company cars worth 10k plus in the public sector as much as you do in the private sector.

Do you get as much perks such as private health care in the public sector in the private sector.

If you believe all that all answers to the above are yes and you don't work in the public sector, then come across if you think its that good and you might see things in relative proportion.

Like I said if your taking the view that Public sector pensions are better than private sector pensions then that's a race to the bottom for all. We should be trying to give both sectors better pensions.

[peterms]

Wrong. On average, public sector salaries are higher, and their pensions are a lot, lot higher.

Presumably you're taking the headline figure announced by the ONS, and choosing not to look beyond that?

If you look a little further into this work, you would find that:

...It does not include some factors that could influence people's remuneration and standard of living, such as pension contributions, company cars and health insurance.

The timing of the research, related to April, meant that payments made in the bonus season of January to March were ignored - as were the earnings of the self-employed.

Key to the difference in pay was the higher proportion of higher-paid jobs in the public sector, the ONS said.

Over the past 10 years, the trend for low-skilled jobs to be outsourced to the private sector has continued, pushing up the average wage among public sector workers.

The public sector also employed a larger proportion of older workers, whose pay has increased over time.

In 2010, some 38% of workers had a degree or equivalent qualification in the public sector, compared with 23% in the private sector.

Comparing the pay of these graduates flips the pay gap around, with public sector workers earning 5.7% less than those in the private sector...

...Plus, they warn that most private sector bonuses and perks are not counted and nor are self-employed lawyers, businessmen and entrepreneurs...

You would also find that:

...The average pay deal for a FTSE 100 chief executive soared from £3.09m to £4.45m last year as business leaders were able to enjoy record windfalls from share-based incentive schemes, thanks to a sharp bounce in the stock market.

The commission, which was set up last November to run for a year, has singled out these highly complex and often opaque share-based reward programmes as the most controversial element of boardroom pay. They are of "staggering complexity" and there is "no clear evidence" they work, it claims.

Many economists have suggested the recovery in the value of shares in late 2009 and 2010 which boosted executive rewards had little to do with the underlying performance of businesses. Rather, it was in large part an indirect consequence of drastic policy measures taken by central banks around the world to drive down long-term interest rates in order to avert a global depression...

"The evidence exposes the myth that big bonuses and high salaries result in better company performances," said Deborah Hargreaves, chair of the commission. "There has been massive growth in what has been termed performance-related pay, yet no such corresponding leap forward in company performance."

She suggested the real acceleration in top executive pay had been hidden behind an array of bewilderingly complex schemes purportedly designed to peg share-based rewards to company performance.

"All we've seen is things getting much more complicated – in many ways masking the real value of what executives get paid," she said. "Corporate governance reforms attempting to link pay with performance appear to have done little more than add to the huge complexity of executive packages, reward schemes and bonuses that make up the pay of FTSE 100 directors."

The study of executive pay deals, carried out for the commission by Incomes Data Services, showed the average annual director's bonus rose by 187% in 10 years....

So the figures don't compare like with like; they don't include the elements of wider pay or "compensation" which have always been a bigger part of the package in the private sector than the public sector; they knowingly exclude many of the highest earners in the private but not the public sector.

On top of that, the pay packages of higher paid people in the private sector have been made deliberately more obscure in recent years. And to add insult to injury, they get extra bonuses when their companies' shares rose along with the market as a whole on the back of the bailouts we paid for, rather than because their companies had done better.

And in the face of this, you take the headline figure and announce it as an accurate representation. That's just not sensible, is it?

[peterms]

As for it being our fault that governments failed to take them in hand...[it isn't]

Well if it isn’t the government who should be setting the laws who is supposed to be? I am confused?

I think pms is saying it's not our fault, the public, that the Gov't didn't do what they should have done - i.e. it IS the Gov'ts fault. Isn't he?

Yes, referencing Paulo's bit which I didn't quote but should have,

whose fault was that? Previous governments both Labour and Conservative. And who elects the governments? The people. So who is responsible in the end?

which seems to suggest that if the governments we elect fail to act appropriately, then in the end it's our responsibility. In a situation where the parties have been so comprehensively co-opted and suborned that the only choice is no choice, I don't think that holds.

[PauloBarnesi]

As for it being our fault that governments failed to take them in hand...[it isn't]

Well if it isn’t the government who should be setting the laws who is supposed to be? I am confused?

I think pms is saying it's not our fault, the public, that the Gov't didn't do what they should have done - i.e. it IS the Gov'ts fault. Isn't he?

Yes, referencing Paulo's bit which I didn't quote but should have,

whose fault was that? Previous governments both Labour and Conservative. And who elects the governments? The people. So who is responsible in the end?

which seems to suggest that if the governments we elect fail to act appropriately, then in the end it's our responsibility. In a situation where the parties have been so comprehensively co-opted and suborned that the only choice is no choice, I don't think that holds.

Yes ultimately it is our responsibility if democracy is working. But as has been alluded the system is probably broken and as I ve long argued in this and other thread Britain is ĥcked. I blame Stanley Baldwin and Joseph Chamberlain

[Awol]

Britain has entered second credit crunch, confirms Downing Street

Britain has entered a second credit crunch, Downing Street said on Wednesday night, as America was forced to intervene to stop the eurozone crisis leading to a global financial collapse.

The US Federal Reserve spearheaded a scheme by central banks around the world, including the Bank of England, to lend money to ailing European banks that were struggling to borrow.

The emergency action to stop the international financial system from freezing up again was prompted by rumours that a European bank was facing difficulties and could not raise money. Panic started to spread through the German bond markets, which threatened to result in a credit freeze for European banks.

British banks have been warned by the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, that they must make preparations for the collapse of the single currency.

Downing Street sources insisted that the global economy was not facing a “Lehman’s moment”, in reference to the collapse of the American investment bank.

However, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “Clearly there is a very serious situation in the financial markets at this time.

“We are experiencing a credit crunch and that central bank action is about trying to mitigate the effects of that credit crunch. They are ensuring they have the capacity to take action.” The eurozone debt crisis has led to growing fears in financial markets about the stability of major European banks.

Investors, particularly US money-market funds, are increasingly worried that the European banks are exposed to huge losses on loans they have made in Greece, Italy and other indebted eurozone countries.

The intervention by central banks led to a sharp increase in stock markets around the world. The FTSE-100 closed up 3.2 per cent, and the American Dow Jones index rose by 400 points.

On Wednesday, before the New York stock market opened, regulators invoked special powers that would have enabled them to suspend trading if share prices were to begin swinging wildly. The Federal Reserve said it was intervening even though “US financial institutions currently do not face difficulty obtaining liquidity in short-term funding”, because of fears that the euro crisis could derail markets in America and Asia.

In a statement, the Bank of England said: “The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing co-ordinated actions to enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system.

“The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity.” In another day of turmoil in Brussels, European finance ministers also admitted that they had failed to raise enough funds for a rescue fund to prop up the single currency.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to assist in the bail-out plan – and a senior European official warned that there were now 10 days to save the euro.

Olli Rehn, the European Commission vice-president responsible for economic affairs, warned that a summit of Europe’s leaders on Friday Dec 9 was now crucial.

“We are now entering the critical period of 10 days to complete and conclude the crisis response of the EU,” he said.

Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s president, said that Europe’s governments needed to “confront” a looming catastrophe.

“The trouble has become systemic. We are witnessing a full-blown confidence crisis,” he said.

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, raised the stark prospect of a return to violent conflict on the continent.

“It is an existential crisis for Europe,” he said. “We have flattered ourselves for decades that we have eradicated the danger of conflict inside our continent, but let’s not be too sure.”

Following a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, details began to emerge of an ECB and International Monetary Fund deal to help rescue distressed euro countries such as Italy and Spain. The latest measures follow an admission that the eurozone’s bail-out fund would only be half as big as originally promised, €625 billion (£535 billion) rather than €1.2  trillion.

Wolfgang Schäeuble, the German finance minister, signalled that Germany was ready to relax opposition to European Central Bank involvement in protecting the euro via IMF interventions.

“We are prepared to increase the resources of the IMF through bilateral loans. Naturally, the details would have to be discussed. Naturally, it is the central banks in the end,” he said.

The combined eurozone and IMF bail-out funds, not involving Britain, will be up and running for the New Year, to be coupled with longer-term EU treaty changes to enforce closer fiscal union for single currency members.

Jacek Rostowski, the Polish finance minister who chaired the talks in Brussels, said it would be vital for the eurozone to have a “fully credible and powerful firewall” ready by the end of the year. “It will be extremely important to stabilise markets in an extremely forceful way,” he said.

“The very helpful action of the central banks is not in itself sufficient. The root cause and source of the problems is happening with sovereign debt,” he said.

The British authorities continued to develop detailed contingency plans to deal with the possible collapse of the euro. David Cameron is understood to have discussed the crisis with Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, earlier this week. The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City regulator, is also working with British banks to prepare for the “Armageddon” scenario.

Heads of government departments, who meet to prepare the agenda for the National Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, are expected to consider the fate of the eurozone and the security implications for Britain at their next meeting. The eurozone has previously been dealt with by specialist Cabinet committees outside the realm of the country’s main security policy body.

Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of Pimco, the world’s biggest bond fund, said: “These monetary institutions feel that, again, they have to move because other entities have continued to be too slow and too ineffective.”

Nigam Agora, an investment fund manager said: “It appears that a big European bank got close to failure. European banks, especially French banks, rely heavily on funding. The cavalry was called in and has come to the successful rescue.” [For now...]

So, 10 days to save the Euro...(slightly hysterical French) warnings of armed conflict within Europe...it's all looking quite grim.

The intervention of Central Banks has clearly pleased the markets for now, but that may be more a reflection of their desperation than anything else.

Fasten your seatbelts folks and if you've got any good ideas for 'Capitalism V3.0' please write them down.

V2.0 looks about ready to explode..

[mjmooney]

Life after the end of economic growth

A continually rising GDP is not necessarily possible – or even desirable. So why do policymakers obsess over it?

Richard Heinberg

The tide of economic growth that has flowed since the second world war may finally be ebbing. For politicians and most economists, this is like saying the sky is falling. Growth has become guidepost and grail, the sine qua non of economic existence. Growth is necessary to job creation and the health of businesses. Without growth the rolls of the homeless and jobless swell, requiring governments to shoulder more responsibility; yet at the same time tax revenues fall, making both new and existing government debt unbearable.

Stimulating growth has become job No 1 for policymakers. David Cameron insists that his nation must deregulate business and reform employment law in order to "go for growth". And at the conclusion of the recent G20 global economic summit, the US president, Barack Obama, reported that the discussions there had revolved around the question, "How do we achieve greater global growth?" Such statements raise nary an eyebrow; they are entirely expected.

Nonetheless, in recent years a few economists have advanced a contrary view. Tim Jackson in the UK, Herman Daly in the US, and Serge Latouche in France have argued that growth is not always good for the environment or for the real health of communities, and that GDP growth is impossible to sustain over the long run anyway because we live on a planet with limited natural resources. Their position has won few adherents in the mainstream. In the "real" worlds of politics and economics, questioning growth is like arguing against gasoline at a Formula One race.

But doubts about growth are no longer theoretical. We seem to have arrived at a moment when further economic expansion is hemmed in by financial as well as natural limits. As extraction industries chewed through the low-hanging fruit of the world's oil, coal, natural gas and other minerals, and turned to lower-grade and thus more expensive ores and fuels, managers of the economy tried to keep growth going by piling up debt in the mistaken belief that it is only money that makes the economy run, not energy and raw materials. Today, high oil prices are keeping a lid on commercial expansion in the older industrial nations as petroleum demand shifts to the hyperactive economies of Asia, which for now can afford steeper fuel prices. Meanwhile, we in the west seem to have maxed out government and consumer credit, and that realisation is sending financial markets into fibrillation. With energy resources and credit both stretched tight, that means more economic growth may simply not be possible in the US and Europe, regardless of our opinions about it.

If policymakers fail to recognise this and continue assuming that the current debt crisis is just another turning of the business cycle, then we may lose whatever opportunity still remains to avert a crash that could bring civilisation to its knees. Over the short run, this is scary business. Financial markets have a hair trigger, and fears about flagging growth could bring down governments and banks.

Still, over the longer term there will undoubtedly be life after growth, and it doesn't have to play out under miserable conditions. With less energy to fuel globalisation and mechanisation there should be increasing requirement for local production and manual labour. We could meet everyone's basic needs by prioritising jobs in manufacturing and agriculture while downsizing the financial industry and the military. We will also have to reduce economic inequality and corruption (as the rapidly spreading Occupy movement rightly insists).

As we do these things, we must reform economics to reflect ecological reality: nature is not, after all, just a pile of raw materials waiting to be transformed into products and then waste; rather, ecosystem integrity is a precondition for society's survival. Adaptive responses cannot only be left up to government officials and economists; for their part, households must rein in debt and overconsumption while contributing more to community resilience.

There's light at the end of the tunnel. If we focus on improving quality of life rather than boosting quantity of consumption, we could be happier even as our economy downsizes to fit nature's limits.

But a benign future is unlikely to transpire if we all continue living in a dream world where growth knows no bounds, where debt can be repaid with more debt, and where natural resources are assumed to be endless.

Alarm bells are ringing. Wake up to the post-growth economy.

Grauniad

[snowychap]

Daily Mash

Outrage over reaction to Clarkson reaction reactions

BRITAIN was trapped in a 'death spiral' of infinite complaints last night.

The vortex of indignation began just after 7pm when Jeremy Clarkson, the country's highest ranking oaf, presented, without a hint of irony, his detailed plan to shoot public sector workers in front of their families.

Within moments Tony Parsons, the official Left-Wing Clarkson, said people who criticise public sector workers were Nazis while, John Prescott, the former Lord High Oaf, said his successor was guilty of a 'hate crime'.

In turn Parsons was accused of outrageous anti-Semitism while Prescott was forced to deny being deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge during the 1970s.

Seconds later the country was straining at the limits of its 140 character allowance in a bid to react to the reaction reactions in a way that was guaranteed to provoke a reaction.

Bill McKay said: "People who compare strike critics to Nazis should be gassed and cremated as part of a huge, secret plan to wipe out Nazi-comparers."

Helen Archer said: "Anyone who thinks Nazi-comparers should be gassed is worse than Jeffrey Dahmer and should be raped in prison three times a day."

Nikki Hollis said: "People who say Nazi-comparers are worse than Jeffrey Dahmer want to rip my mother's heart out, eat it and puke it into a bucket which they...(new tweet) ...will then use to paint the front of my house."

Meanwhile Tom Logan, who suggested that Clarkson's original comment was, perhaps, an advert for a DVD, was accused of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Logan also suggested that instead of reacting to Clarkson reaction reactions we should, perhaps, come up with some stuff we can sell to foreigners before we all end up busking in front of each other.

His house was then burned to the ground.

Last night a spokesman for the United Nations said: "Britain needs to go **** itself in the face."

[kidlewis]

I have had sh*ts more controversial than what was obviously a satirical comment. Like he meant it.

I did post a video of Brasseye, Race and Crime video on my facebook saying "if you thought Clarksons' comment wasn't controversial enough then watch this"

[kidlewis]

and Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr will need to retire as well.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Clarkson saying something daft? Stop the press.

[snowychap]

I have had sh*ts more controversial than what was obviously a satirical comment. Like he meant it.

Satirical? I think that's being overly generous.

The kerfuffle that has followed is stupidly ludicrous (stupid - mainly because it is the kind of ludicrousness that Clarkson would have been looking for) but Clarkson is no ground-breaking comic genius or champion of satire. I believe he has a new DVD out.

[drat01]

You simply cant compare the two as SCAMERON has been trying to. The reason why Pubilc sector pensions have traditionally been better than private sector pensions is because pay in the public sector is worse so to compensate this public sector workers have got a better pension.

Wrong. On average, public sector salaries are higher, and their pensions are a lot, lot higher.

Wrong on so many counts.

Again you are making it as though there are two discrete entities like opposing football teams. As many have said a lot of people who are working in what some are calling the private sector do so with a lot of differing benefits to those who are working for this body you are calling the public one.

The jobs differ massively, the aims and objectives differ, the rules of the "game" differ, so what you are saying is that basketballs are differing in size to apples and all other fruit.

What jobs are exactly being talked about that you can compare?