economic situation is dire

[snowychap]

95,000 pensioners 'were overpaid'

An estimated 95,000 public sector pensioners have been overpaid £126m since 1978, the Cabinet Office says.

About 5% of civil servants, teachers, NHS workers, judicial and armed forces personnel were overpaid by an average of just over £200 a year each.

The money will not have to be repaid but many face pension cuts.

The Scottish government says it will not cut the pensions of former council, fire and police staff in Scotland, even if they were overpaid.

SNP work and pensions spokesman John Mason said they wanted to avoid pension cuts but the UK Treasury had refused consent to amend pension regulations for 6,000 retired teachers and NHS staff in Scotland.

'Bureaucratic bungle'

They, and retired armed services, judicial staff and civil servants in Scotland will see their pensions cut.

Mr Mason said the Treasury "must reconsider" adding: "It's time for common sense to prevail. No pensioner should have to suffer for this bureaucratic bungle."

Letters are being sent to pensioners across the UK explaining what has happened.

....more on link

The idea of claw-back is jolly bad form.

I don't care what colour government was responsible - it was an accident which has continued for too long to make the recipients pay.

It is a fraction of what we, as a country, intend to borrow (or any 'efficiency saving').

Let it lie.

[drat01]

The money will not have to be repaid but many face pension cuts.

The idea of claw-back is jolly bad form........it was an accident which has continued for too long to make the recipients pay.

[ianrobo1]

of course ni payback but they should no longer have the extra now it has been found out

[snowychap]

The money will not have to be repaid but many face pension cuts.

The idea of claw-back is jolly bad form........it was an accident which has continued for too long to make the recipients pay.

Perhaps it might have been a good idea to have read the rest of the article (and, perhaps, reread your own post) before jumping in solely to make some kind of point:

Mr Byrne said some pensioners would have their payments reduced while others would get below-inflation increases.

of course ni payback but they should no longer have the extra now it has been found out

Ian, if that is what is going to happen then I have no complaints at all.

If, however, people are going to have their pension payments reduced so as to compensate for the overpayments over three decades then that is thoroughly out of order.

[drat01]

Perhaps it might have been a good idea to have read the rest of the article (and, perhaps, reread your own post) before jumping in solely to make some kind of point:

Perhaps it would have been a good idea not to be so snotty again - I was clearly and civilly (unlike you again) making the point that within the article that you had posted it clearly said that the money will not have to be repaid. Maybe if you have seen a discrepancy in the story or the quote it would have been a good idea to at least quote that

[snowychap]

Perhaps it would have been a good idea not to be so snotty again - I was clearly and civilly (unlike you again) making the point that within the article that you had posted it clearly said that the money will not have to be repaid. Maybe if you have seen a discrepancy in the story or the quote it would have been a good idea to at least quote that.

Again? :shock: :shock:

The money will not have to be repaid but many face pension cuts

It clearly said that the money will not have to be repaid (i.e. directly as a specific payment in order to specifically repay the money as in a debt); it is also specifically said that people will face cuts to their pension payments and others would get below inflation increases. There is absolutely no guarantee (and there was none from Darling in the commons on Monday) that the overpayment would not be clawed back via a reduction in future payments (a specific point raised by Cable on Monday).

Might I suggest that if you wish to disagree or decry the substance of my posts (which is what I did with your riposte to mine) that you deal with their substance rather than fall back on personal challenges of 'snottiness' or 'civility', please.

Thank you in advance for the prospect of your future sweetness and reasonableness.

[drat01]

Whatever Snowy - Maybe if you start quoting the bits of the story that you are referring to it may help - by the way the tone of your reply indicates your stance perfectly

See ya !

[snowychap]

Whatever Snowy - Maybe if you start quoting the bits of the story that you are referring to it may help

Would that have prevented you from replying in the manner that you did in order to try and make some point or was the link not working? :?

by the way the tone of your reply indicates your stance perfectly

What, the idea that I was worried that people who might already be struggling, i.e pensioners (though I do accept that some of those receiving a pension might be well off) might have their fixed incomes reduced because of government (again - no hue relevant) or agency incompetence?

indicates your stance perfectly

Would you mind explaining the stance which is 'indicated', please? I doubt the explanation would be difficult as the indication appears to be 'perfect'....

See ya !

Cheery bye, my lovely.

[Gringo]

Short and shallow

Jobless figures expected to rise

The latest UK unemployment figures, due later, are expected to show that the slowing economy has taken its toll on the jobs market.

The number of people out of work hit 1.82 million in the three months to September and is likely to reach two million in the coming months.

People claiming Jobseeker's Allowance may have topped one million for the first time in eight years in November.

Back to 3m unemployed by the autumn

[Gringo]

We must be in trouble if jeremy clarkson can see it coming

End of Days

I was in Dublin last weekend, and had a very real sense I’d been invited to the last days of the Roman empire. As far as I could work out, everyone had a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a coat made from something that’s now extinct. And then there were the women. Wow. Not that long ago every girl on the Emerald Isle had a face the colour of straw and orange hair. Now it’s the other way around.

Everyone appeared to be drunk on naked hedonism. I’ve never seen so much jus being drizzled onto so many improbable things, none of which was potted herring. It was like Barcelona but with beer. And as I careered from bar to bar all I could think was: “Jesus. Can’t they see what’s coming?”

Ireland is tiny. Its population is smaller than New Zealand’s, so how could the Irish ever have generated the cash for so many trips to the hairdressers, so many lobsters and so many Rollers? And how, now, as they become the first country in Europe to go officially into recession, can they not see the financial meteorite coming? Why are they not all at home, singing mournful songs?

It’s the same story on this side of the Irish Sea, of course. We’re all still plunging hither and thither, guzzling wine and wondering what preposterously expensive electronic toys the children will want to smash on Christmas morning this year. We can’t see the meteorite coming either.

I think mainly this is because the government is not telling us the truth. It’s painting Gordon Brown as a global economic messiah and fiddling about with Vat, pretending that the coming recession will be bad. But that it can deal with it.

I don’t think it can. I have spoken to a couple of pretty senior bankers in the past couple of weeks and their story is rather different. They don’t refer to the looming problems as being like 1992 or even 1929. They talk about a total financial meltdown. They talk about the End of Days.

Already we are seeing household names disappearing from the high street and with them will go the suppliers whose names have only ever been visible behind the grime on motorway vans. The job losses will mount. And mount. And mount. And as they climb, the bad debt will put even more pressure on the banks until every single one of them stutters and fails.

The European banks took one hell of a battering when things went wrong in America. Imagine, then, how life will be when the crisis arrives on this side of the Atlantic. Small wonder one City figure of my acquaintance ordered three safes for his London house just last week.

Of course, you may imagine the government will simply step in and nationalise everything, but to do that, it will have to borrow. And when every government is doing the same thing, there simply won’t be enough cash in the global pot. You can forget Iceland. From what I gather, Spain has had it. Along with Italy, Ireland and very possibly the UK.

It is impossible for someone who scored a U in his economics A-level to grapple with the consequences of all this but I’m told that in simple terms money will cease to function as a meaningful commodity. The binary dots and dashes that fuel the entire system will flicker and die. And without money there will be no business. No means of selling goods. No means of transporting them. No means of making them in the first place even. That’s why another friend of mine has recently sold his London house and bought somewhere in the country . . . with a kitchen garden.

These, as I see them, are the facts. Planet Earth thought it had £10. But it turns out we had only £2. Which means everyone must lose 80% of their wealth. And that’s going to be a problem if you were living on the breadline beforehand.

Eventually, of course, the system will reboot itself, but for a while there will be absolute chaos: riots, lynchings, starvation. It’ll be a world without power or fuel, and with no fuel there’s no way the modern agricultural system can be maintained. Which means there will be no food either. You might like to stop and think about that for a while.

I have, and as a result I can see the day when I will have to shoot some of my neighbours - maybe even David Cameron - as we fight for the last bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight in the smoking ruin that was Chipping Norton’s post office.

I believe the government knows this is a distinct possibility and that it might happen next year, and there is absolutely nothing it can do to stop Cameron getting both barrels from my Beretta. But instead of telling us straight, it calls the crisis the “credit crunch” to make it sound like a breakfast cereal and asks Alistair Darling to smile and big up Gordon when he’s being interviewed.

I can’t say I blame it, really. If an enormous meteorite was heading our way and the authorities knew it couldn’t be stopped or diverted, why bother telling anyone? Best to let us soldier on in the dark until it all goes dark for real.

[villal]

Federal Reserve Characteristics of a Crime Syndicate Faces Lawsuits

The principal missing piece in the grand American mosaic of banking destruction, corrupt collusion, fraudulent bonds, Wall Street control, suppressed regulators, compromised ratings agencies is JUSTICE . Foreign entities are aghast as the lack of prosecution, remedy, and removal from positions of power, as policy continues to be set by the participants responsible for the structural failure and prevalent fraud. Their actions are reaching climax levels. The climax of the Wall Street strangehold is the confiscation of the TARP funds to date. However, whatever has not been nationalized is subject to lawsuits . The pattern of human behavior indicates that lawsuits can spawn additional lawsuits, and quickly control is lost. It is open season on Citigroup, Bank of America, and perhaps other lesser players.

Two major lawsuits have the potential to change the landscape. Curiously, neither receives much publicity. Then again, the press seems somewhere between subservient and compromised anyway. They have failed to shine many lights on much of any developments until after the damage is done. Odd court cases, missing people, factional politics, and border patrols seem more important on their agendas. Much of the US media & press seem a graduation of National Inquirer to television.

more here

[dundeevilla]

Clarkson's an utter bawbag. 'End of the world', aye right whatever. Can't believe people like him get paid good money to write this kind of bollux.

[ianrobo1]

TBF to him he is only putting forward the extreme view of total meltdown

think and I am shocked to type this he is right i some of the things

but to say the government are playig it down is wrong. Remember when AlisatiarDarling said this would be the worse situation for 60 years and got slated for it

he was right ...

the government have been telling us it would get bad for a while

the question is how long

[snowychap]

Opec agrees record oil output cut

The oil producers' cartel Opec has agreed to make a record cut in output, slashing 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from its current supply.

Opec has made two other cuts since September, meaning it has cut a total of 4.2 million bpd in four months.

In a news conference, Opec said that it hoped the record cut would boost prices but that it had no formal price target.

The cut means that the target for production for the 12 member states is now 24.845 million bpd.

Demand risks

The cut is effective from 1 January, but the big question with Opec production cuts is always whether the member states will actually make the cuts they have agreed to.

"Given the still-substantial risks to demand and ongoing scepticism on Opec compliance, it could take some time before prices recover materially above $50 to $55 per barrel," said Gordon Gray from Collins Stewart.

Oil prices fell following the agreement, because weekly US inventories figures provided further evidence that motorists were cutting back on their consumption.

Demand for petrol in the four weeks to 12 December was down 2.7% from the same period last year.

US light, sweet crude for January delivery fell $2.07 to $41.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

'Bigger problems'

There was some doubt among analysts about whether the cut would be enough to push prices higher, even if members did comply with it.

"Historically Opec has had to remove around five million barrels from the market in previous slumps, and they're facing bigger problems now than they have done before," said Michael Lewis, head of commodity research at Deutsche Bank.

Oil prices have fallen by more than $100 a barrel from the peak above $147 that they reached in July.

Prices have been falling amid concern about how much less oil will be used by countries experiencing recessions.

Falling consumption means that industrialised nations currently have stockpiles of oil equivalent to 57 days of consumption - supplies that would typically be about 52 days at this time of year.

[snowychap]

Jobless figures expected to rise

Unemployment increases by 137,000

The number of people out of work in the UK rose by 137,000 to 1.86 million in the three months to October - the highest level since 1997.

This took the unemployment rate up to 6% from 5.8% previously, the Office for National Statistics said

People claiming Jobseeker's Allowance in November rose 75,700 to 1.07 million - the largest rise since March 1991.

Several companies have announced big job cuts as the economic downturn begins to hit hard.

"It's obviously very, very weak. I think what's interesting is the scale of job losses this early in the cycle," said George Buckley, an economist at Deutsche Bank.

"Unemployment is normally a lagging indicator so to see so many job losses this early in the cycle is extremely worrying."

...more on link

Add in the 27,000 people about to lose out at Woolies.

[snowychap]

Pound falls on signs of rate cuts

Sterling has hit another record low against the euro following weak jobless figures and signs that the Bank of England is set to cut rates further.

The pound hit a low of 1.0756 euros before recovering to 1.0772 euros.

Meanwhile the dollar fell to a 13-and-a -half year low against the yen, of 87.79 yen, after the US Fed cut its key interest rate to an all-time low.

Many analysts had expected a cut to 0.5%, rather than the Fed's move to between zero and 0.25%.

The US interest rate is now the lowest among developed countries.

"This clearly hadn't been priced into markets with the dollar tumbling as a result," said James Hughes, a currency analyst at CMC Markets.

The dollar had fallen to $1.4330 against the euro.

'Very negative'

At the beginning of December the Bank of England reduced its key interest rate to 2% from 3%, and minutes from its rate-setting meeting showed it considered an even deeper cut.

Separately, latest figures showed that the number of people out of work in the UK had risen to the highest level since June 1999, while the number of those claiming unemployment benefit rose above one million.

"Sterling is coming under pressure after the claimant count figures were well above market expectations," Ian Stannard at BNP Paribas in London.

"It shows the UK is moving toward recession and this is very negative for sterling".

[tonyh29]

Add in the 27,000 people about to lose out at Woolies.

least brown kept his promise and they didn't loose their jobs before Christmas .. just a week after ..that will be a vote winner Gordon

[thetrees]

Unfortunately the misguided policy of lowering interest rates is shattering confidence in the pound. I know some have suggested that this doesn't matter but as a consumer led economy that relies on imported goods (and food!) we are facing major problems over the falling pound.

Sure, Jaguars are now cheaper in the USA, but car buying isn't uppermost in the thoughts of the average US citizen.

[ianrobo1]

problem is TT there are few options, monetary ad fiscal measures being used or do you suggest nothing as this is a 'price worth paying' ?

[thetrees]

problem is TT there are few options, monetary ad fiscal measures being used or do you suggest nothing as this is a 'price worth paying' ?

As far as I see it low interest rates got us in this position in the first place.

Low rates for the consumer are a bad thing, as they could encourage further recklessness.

Low rates for business are a good thing but unfortunately the banks and credit insurance companies, having had their own incompetence rumbled, are now running for cover and refusing to support business anyway.

So the net positive result of lowering interest rates is nothing.