Bolitics The New Condem Government

[peterms]

On the point about how to wipe out the debt without wiping out the economy, the Telegraph is dabbling with some radical ideas (though they stop short of committing themselves to the idea).

[peterms]

I've read that 6191 NHS nursing jobs have been cut since the Tories took over.

No, it's 42,000.

Or at least it was a couple of months ago - there's a lag in reporting the figures.

And there are more happening all the time.

[villaajax]

So when can we expect the Poll Tax to return? I gather it's not too far away?

[tonyh29]

So when can we expect the Poll Tax to return? I gather it's not too far away?

We had this in 1377 so you can't claim it as another new Tory tax

[villaajax]

We had this in 1377 so you can't claim it as another new Tory tax

Well it wouldn't suprise me if the Tories brought back the Window Tax, only for council houses of course.

[drat01]

There is a quite disturbing bit of politics being played out by members of the Tory party at the moment re the BBC and Savile. Maria Miller is making some quite ridiculous comments about the BBC which really have little to do with the Savile enquiries and are more politically motivated opportunism to attack the BBC. It was interesting to see long time Tory but also head of the BBC trust Chris (here is Hong Kong) Patten basically telling her so. The clamour from leading Tories to have a quote about all of this especially implying that "THE BBC" is at fault here for Savile.

I wonder if they were so keen to report when Savile spent 11 New Years running with Thatcher? Or are they so keen to look at places like Broadmoor or Stoke Mandeville?

They are in serious danger here of basically sidetracking and serious investigation as to what happened and why it did so, in order that they can have a "pop" at the BBC.

[Eames]

Drat, you may want to sit down.

I completely agree with you. The attitude of most politicians to the BBC is pretty disgraceful. What we have in Britain, is a much loved, trusted and respected national, impartial broadcaster. I fear that the last adjective is the most problematic. Impartiality breeds a notion of mistrust and favouring the "others." I worry that the behaviour of some of its "talent" 40 years ago will be used as an excuse to further diminish the strength of our great national institution and further expand the power of Murdoch, who is everyones mate so long as they are in charge.

IMO there is very little wrong with the culture, ethics and standards at the BBC. I can understand why the Newsnight investigation was shelved - I don't agree, but I understand how and why it happened. A review into the BBC's "Child Protection" policies is a smokescreen. You can't used modern standards and proceedures to investigate an organisations behaviour nearly half a century ago - the results will ALWAYS be damning.

Governments of all colours and in particular Ms Miller at present need to but out and let the Beeb get on with it.

[colhint]

No, it's 42,000.

Or at least it was a couple of months ago - there's a lag in reporting the figures.

And there are more happening all the time.

I dont think that is true. I read the article which said the nhs stats are available in October. So I checked that out, sorry I cant give a link as its a download spreadsheet. That states that out of about 1.5m working for the NHS 11,000 have lost their jobs in the last 12 months. Now for every nurse their are 4 other people on the payroll. So it does seem a bit far fetched to suggest that everyone who lost their job was a nurse.

[peterms]

I dont think that is true. I read the article which said the nhs stats are available in October. So I checked that out, sorry I cant give a link as its a download spreadsheet. That states that out of about 1.5m working for the NHS 11,000 have lost their jobs in the last 12 months. Now for every nurse their are 4 other people on the payroll. So it does seem a bit far fetched to suggest that everyone who lost their job was a nurse.

Yes, you're right. Apologies.

[drat01]

I dont think that is true. I read the article which said the nhs stats are available in October. So I checked that out, sorry I cant give a link as its a download spreadsheet. That states that out of about 1.5m working for the NHS 11,000 have lost their jobs in the last 12 months. Now for every nurse their are 4 other people on the payroll. So it does seem a bit far fetched to suggest that everyone who lost their job was a nurse.

Wrong! - from the NHS Information it shows that 5000 fewer nurses are in the NHS from when the Tory party became Gvmt.

[villaajax]

My earlier point was that I'd read 6191 Nurses had lost their jobs, the report Peter has provided doesn't just show Nurses but includes all types of NHS jobs from cleaners to mental health works and so on.

[drat01]

The Grud were quoting

New workforce figures show that there are 276,608 qualified nurses or their full-time equivalent working in the health service – 4,823 fewer than when the coalition took office two years ago.

[drat01]

Drat, you may want to sit down.

I completely agree with you. The attitude of most politicians to the BBC is pretty disgraceful. What we have in Britain, is a much loved, trusted and respected national, impartial broadcaster. I fear that the last adjective is the most problematic. Impartiality breeds a notion of mistrust and favouring the "others." I worry that the behaviour of some of its "talent" 40 years ago will be used as an excuse to further diminish the strength of our great national institution and further expand the power of Murdoch, who is everyones mate so long as they are in charge.

IMO there is very little wrong with the culture, ethics and standards at the BBC. I can understand why the Newsnight investigation was shelved - I don't agree, but I understand how and why it happened. A review into the BBC's "Child Protection" policies is a smokescreen. You can't used modern standards and proceedures to investigate an organisations behaviour nearly half a century ago - the results will ALWAYS be damning.

Governments of all colours and in particular Ms Miller at present need to but out and let the Beeb get on with it.

And Eames likewise you may want to sit down because I agree with you :-)

Easpecially the last bit. This should not be a political matter, but it seems that some are keen to make it so and have now opened that particular pandora's box

[colhint]

The Grud were quoting

You are correct, but it wasn' t the 6000 or 42000 as earlier stated.

I also agree with your point on the way the politicians are behaving toward the BBC. However I do think this needs to be sorted, with prosecutions if necessary

[drat01]

You are correct, but it wasn' t the 6000 or 42000 as earlier stated.

I also agree with your point on the way the politicians are behaving toward the BBC. However I do think this needs to be sorted, with prosecutions if necessary

The point re the Nurses is that despite so many "false" promises made by the Gvmt the number of nurses has been decreased quite significantly during the term of the this Gvmt. That is an appalling figure much in the same way that fire, police, defence have all been hit. These are front line services, the ones that total and utter lies were made about in the run up to the last election.

As for prosecutions re Savile, I appreciate that is covered in another topic, the man is dead I am not sure you can retrospectively charge him? If the guy at the BBC is found "guilty" of incompetence by those looking into things, that is not a criminal act, if it was Cameron and Gideon would be eating porridge most mornings

[peterms]

You forgot "written down". It happens all the time, and has done through recorded history. People, firms, countries realise that debts they have issued are unable to be repaid, or won't be repaid, and take a view on what amount they might realistically be able to collect. It's different from default, which is a unilateral act by the debtor.

And if you're talking about government debt (and let's never forget that private debt is the problem, not government debt) the option exists of issuing new credit, purchasing the debt, and retiring it. So there are five options.

Michael Hudson has an interesting interview here which discusses how bank finance used to be about funding useful capital formation but is now about inflating asset bubbles and buying and selling wholly non-productive and parasitic rentier income streams. The point he keeps making, which is usually ignored and not addressed, is that debt which can't be repaid won't be; the question then is how it won't be: which takes us to the five options.

Further to this, Mervyn King has said that banks have to write down the debts they are currently pretending can be collected:

Warning that the next generation may have to live with the consequences of past excesses “for a long time to come”, he said Britain’s banks needed to drop the “pretence” that their debts will be repaid.

“I am not sure advanced economies in general will find it easy to get out of their current predicament without creditors acknowledging further likely losses, a significant writing down of asset values, and recapitalisation of their financial systems,” he said.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Nothing to do with the govt. as such but this is probably the best place to put it. Greg Smith (former VP at Goldman Sachs) 60 minutes interview. I've heard his name crop up on Bloomberg and read something in Forbes about him, naturally, those two institutions are on the Goldman pay roll so it's no surprise that they're trashing him. Interesting interview though. He does strike me as very naive about the effects and culture of the financial service industry, how he can be shocked about how Goldman employees sought to rip off their clients is beyond me. Meh maybe it figures that he was a derivatives trader. Most derivative traders (at least the complex variety) have no fecking idea about what it is they're actually doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrKKgF71Or8

[Ads]

On the point about how to wipe out the debt without wiping out the economy, the Telegraph is dabbling with some radical ideas (though they stop short of committing themselves to the idea).

That's a genuinely interesting idea.

Ome thing I didn't understand about the criticism of that view was that idea lending would be increasingly difficult. I was under the impression that access to credit for small to medium businesses was part of the cause for the slow recovery.

[peterms]

That's a genuinely interesting idea.

Ome thing I didn't understand about the criticism of that view was that idea lending would be increasingly difficult. I was under the impression that access to credit for small to medium businesses was part of the cause for the slow recovery.

Lending becomes difficult because it has to be backed by deposits, where at the moment loans are given on request (assuming the lender thinks it's a good risk) and the bank later gets its reserves increased by the central bank. It seems like slamming the brakes on credit creation. Now, clearly too much credit has been created by private banks for their own profit, but perhaps going to the opposite extreme is not a great response.

It's true that SMEs can't get credit, or not on acceptable terms anyway; banks are reportedly asking for unreasonable conditions, like pledging the first-born, or part of Saturn.

One thing about the Telegraph piece is that he's chucked in a lot of very historical stuff about debt and money in the ancient world, which on a quick glance doesn't come from the IMF paper. I think he's nicked it from David Graeber's "Debt - the first 5,000 years", and doesn't want to say so. Fancy a Torygraph writer referencing an anarchist and founder of Occupy Wall Street. But since he gets into that territory, debt jubilees and so on, it would make sense to discuss Steve Keen's "modern debt jubilee", which he also doesn't do.

[villaajax]

Cameron looked a bit feeble at Prime Minister's Questions today.