The Unions are going to fight all spending cuts...

[Devil2575]

fido said:

Actaully, don't answer that.

I will anyway.

A 200k mortgage on 60k a year. That's a shade of 3 times so yes i'd be fine with that...

I get your point, it was just a poor analogy

My point was that in comparision to where we have been over the course of the last century our current position is not a disaster. Not good but not as bad as it has been.

Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 19th May 14:16

Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 19th May 14:17

[Dupont666]

Devil2575 said:

fido said:

Actaully, don't answer that.

I will anyway.

A 200k mortgage on 60k a year. That's a shade of 3 times so yes i'd be fine with that...

I get your point, it was just a poor analogy

My point was that in comparision to where we have been over the course of the last century our current position is not a disaster. Not good but not as bad as it has been.

Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 19th May 14:16

Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 19th May 14:17

Ooo Ooo, I know this one... pick me!!

Is it the last time labour was in charge the worst ever situation we (the UK) have been in?

[Devil2575]

You've seen the graph surely?

No. It was shortly after the end of the 2nd world war. 237% of GDP. Even I could have worked that one out without looking at the graph and as has already been established i'm not an economist...

Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 19th May 14:32

[Sticks.]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

You're right, interesting, not straightforward, but probably another thread. If I'm thinking of the same report, iirc it also said that public sector pay looked better compared to private sector because a) large private sector bonuses had stopped and b) lower paid jobs, eg cleaning, had been moved from public to private sector. Still, averages, medians, stat's.....

Anyway, is the term 'public sector' any more descriptive than 'private sector'? If I looked at the doubling of Vodafone's profits, say, and said 'the private sector seems to be doing ok', any small business owner would disagree. But all the public sector is lumped into one. Setting aside the NHS, local authroities are very different to the civil service, which again is different local vs head office.

And what's a 'non job' other than what you judge to be no use to you? Advertising in private sector is no use to me, so is that a non job? Please don't say the difference is I have a choice because if all the supermarkets or petrol companies do it, where's the choice?

Thanks for your thoughts, interetsting read.

[Devil2575]

Dupont666 said:

Ooo Ooo, I know this one... pick me!!

Is it the last time labour was in charge the worst ever situation we (the UK) have been in?

For your benefit:



Not the whole story by any stretch im sure. I still can'f find a decent graph of the deficit over the same period.

[Dupont666]

Devil2575 said:

Dupont666 said:

Ooo Ooo, I know this one... pick me!!

Is it the last time labour was in charge the worst ever situation we (the UK) have been in?

For your benefit:



Not the whole story by any stretch im sure. I still can'f find a decent graph of the deficit over the same period.

And who was in power then?



Will give you a clue it wasnt tories.

Why is it that when ever there has been a major war its always the lefties in charge and they are the ones that say they are wanting to help everyone?

Just a thought like....

[fido]

Devil2575 said:

I will anyway.

A 200k mortgage on 60k a year. That's a shade of 3 times so yes i'd be fine with that...

I get your point, it was just a poor analogy

Again, you missed the point .. income isn't constant (well unless you work in the cushy public sector). Ask any contractor on here .. in good times you save up and in bad times you rely on those savings. Brown didn't bother with the savings bit - he kept spending every little bit of revenue from the financial sector (with his fingerprints over the regulation) when interest rates were at a relative low. A total lack of prudence in any sense of the word.

Devil2575 said:

My point was that in comparision to where we have been over the course of the last century our current position is not a disaster. Not good but not as bad as it has been.

Some might say that it's not as bad as 1976 because we haven't yet gone to the IMF, but as Liam Byrne admitted to that his little note for his successor .. we haven't got any money left. Also the UK is no longer the economic powerhouse it was in 1946 - we don't make a third of the cars in the world anymore.

Edited by fido on Wednesday 19th May 15:08

[anonymous-user]

i just recieved this from an american colleague... un provoked i should add!!!

" http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/992470/group-manage... you guys are f****d, sell gbpusd"

Edited by fbrs on Wednesday 19th May 15:20

[Devil2575]

fido said:

income isn't constant

It isn't for contractor, I know. I've seen them come in during the good time and make twice what a staff member gets but in the bad times thye are cut lose.

However I'm currently staff and have a nice redundancy package so I do consider my income to be as constant as anyone in the public sector.

If I was a contractor then it might be different, but i'm not and I suspect the majority in the private sector aren't.

[anonymous-user]

OneDs said:

BA is now well managed,

£401 million loss last year.
Expected £600 - million to 1 billion loss this year before the losses associated with strikes and volcano etc.

[anonymous-user]

turbobloke said:

Dupont666 said:

yet they see it as the fault of the banks for lending it to them... seems they are still owed something by a society they dont support.

Sure - in this make-believe world of fiscal fantasy and social claptrap it's always somebody else's fault.

Since when was it good business to lend money to people who probably won't be able to pay it back, it's even worse to then buy and sell the bad debt on and be surprised at the end result. That's both fiscal fantasy and the banks fault.

[Dupont666]

el stovey said:

turbobloke said:

Dupont666 said:

yet they see it as the fault of the banks for lending it to them... seems they are still owed something by a society they dont support.

Sure - in this make-believe world of fiscal fantasy and social claptrap it's always somebody else's fault.

Since when was it good business to lend money to people who probably won't be able to pay it back, it's even worse to then buy and sell the bad debt on and be surprised at the end result. That's both fiscal fantasy and the banks fault.

You are forgiven for either not wanting to read the whole thread or you just couldnt be arsed and are making assumptions.

The Governments in the UK and US promoted equality in mortgage lending that meant subprime mortgages were created and forced upon the banks so that they both looked good in front of their respective voters... This has back fired in subprime mortgages blowing up when they decided the couldnt pay it back and defaulting...

So its the banks fault that they give credit cards out to the dumb people... Yes!!

So its the banks fault they are not giving credit cards out... yes!!

I wish you people would make your mind up... when you have it and fk it up its the banks fault, when the bank takes it away to stop you, its against you human rights and you should be allowed it, so its the banks fault again!!

[fido]

Devil2575 said:

However I'm currently staff and have a nice redundancy package so I do consider my income to be as constant as anyone in the public sector.

If I was a contractor then it might be different, but i'm not and I suspect the majority in the private sector aren't.

Well unfortunately governments don't get 'redundancy' packages from the IMF and their incomes are very dependent on economic cycles, as well as their constituent makeup! And back to my original point, Winky should not have geared up public spending to tax revenue, knowing full well that we were not going to sustain that level of growth - or at least taking some sort of precautionary measures in case the boom wasn't just down to low interest rates or the issuance of debt from the east.

[F i F]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks for your positive comments.

I have since found the figures I was thinking of, not from my own post but from the second of the TUC blogs linked above in an earlier post.

Reading that shows that my memory was not far off with the graduate level job, but my memory was way off on the unskilled semi skilled levels, where public sector is only up to 6% ahead of private not the 13-16% that I remembered. oops, sorry!

What is a non job, is a really good question. People quote all sorts of examples, often in jest. I have no idea about the numbers or proportions of jobs that would be considered as of questionable value. Plus what is a non-job differs from person to person.

For example I'd regard a "footpath co-ordinator 34k plus bonus (as genuinely advertised local to me) to be a non-job or at minimum questionable. Yet whilst I enjoy walking and cycling along trails I wouldn't class myself as a rambler, but I'm sure ramblers and their ilk would consider such a co-ordinator to be a vital part of the jigsaw.

How many more such real examples there are I don't know frankly, but the local Govt jobs page always used to make an enlightening read.

In a way, I liken the scenario we (UK) are now in much in the same way that these people who get onto Spendaholics, Alvin Hall, Bank of Mum and Dad and similar shows.

The recipe for them is always, cut spending, realise what assets they can, and increase income. They always have lots of spending that at the outset they think are absolutely vital, but when the crunch comes realise that the morning Starbucks and muffin, lunch everyday at Pret, designer clothes filling every room and minimum 4 nights a week out on the lash just aren't that necessary.

I see the non jobs as the same, things that are nice when you can afford it, but when it's a daily Wappawoccachoccafrappa or helping to keep the roof over your head, then a drink of water does the job nicely.

Sorry for rambling, I must need my path co-ordinating.

[don4l]

Devil2575 said:

don4l said:

This also led to over supply of low cost homes. The only way that the developers could sell the homes was to make mortgages available for people who couldn't afford them. So the developers negotiated special deals with some of the lenders (who in turn "securitised" the debts).

So you are saying there was at some point the the recent past an oversupply of houses in London?

Also are you saying the the only people with bad mortgages are those that were negotiated by developers?

I've never heard of developers negotiating mortgage deals on behalf of buyers before but I stand to be corrected.

I have no idea what went on in London, but given that so much of it is already buggered, I would doubt that it figured very high on Prescott's list of places to screw over.

No, I am not saying that the only people with "bad"(??) mortgages are those that were negotiated by developers. If I had wanted to say that, then I would have said it. I didn't want to say that, so I didn't say it. I hope that this clears up that bit of confusion. There are many things I do think that I didn't include in my last post, but this wasn't one of them.

I wasn't saying that developers negotiated deals for individual buyers. They had all sorts of incentive schemes in place to ensure that "sub-prime" buyers could get their homes. Some involved dodgy mortgages, others involved equity sharing and others involved interest deferral. All involved the financial institutions putting up the money.


It has been explained to you several times that the banks are not the main cause of our forthcoming difficulties. You appear to want to disbelieve these explanations for some strange reasons. However, the facts are the facts.

Don
--


Don
--

[Swilly]

Frankly I'd like to see the gov take a knife to the unions.

There are talks of cutting the banks up as they are too large and have too much capacity to affect the economy as we have seen.

Similarly i think the unions have merged too far. There are too many super-unions which achieves nothing for the individual member but does consolidate power in the hands of a few.

I'd also like so see Bob Crow get "$%£^&& "*((" )(&£)&^q)&£^("*)&£)

(I couldnt type exactly what i thought for fear of legal reprisals)

[anonymous-user]

Dupont666 said:

el stovey said:

turbobloke said:

Dupont666 said:

yet they see it as the fault of the banks for lending it to them... seems they are still owed something by a society they dont support.

Sure - in this make-believe world of fiscal fantasy and social claptrap it's always somebody else's fault.

Since when was it good business to lend money to people who probably won't be able to pay it back, it's even worse to then buy and sell the bad debt on and be surprised at the end result. That's both fiscal fantasy and the banks fault.

You are forgiven for either not wanting to read the whole thread or you just couldnt be arsed and are making assumptions.

The Governments in the UK and US promoted equality in mortgage lending that meant subprime mortgages were created and forced upon the banks so that they both looked good in front of their respective voters... This has back fired in subprime mortgages blowing up when they decided the couldnt pay it back and defaulting...

So its the banks fault that they give credit cards out to the dumb people... Yes!!

So its the banks fault they are not giving credit cards out... yes!!

I wish you people would make your mind up... when you have it and fk it up its the banks fault, when the bank takes it away to stop you, its against you human rights and you should be allowed it, so its the banks fault again!!

Sorry, I was clearly mistaken, I thought the financial crisis was to do with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions involvement in credit default swaps but I see from your post that the it was actually caused by the US and UK Government forcing the banks to act against their shareholders' interests and lend to people they wouldn't normally.

Thanks though for taking the time to explain it all and also thanks for your generous forgiveness.

Edited by el stovey on Wednesday 19th May 17:52

[don4l]

el stovey said:

Sorry, I was clearly mistaken, I thought the financial crisis was to do with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions involvement in credit default swaps but I see from your post that the it was actually caused by the US and UK Government forcing the banks to act against their shareholders' interests and lend to people they wouldn't normally.

Thanks though for taking the time to explain it all and also thanks for your generous forgiveness.

Edited by el stovey on Wednesday 19th May 17:52

Previous posters(myself included) have tried to explain, in detail, how Governments contributed to the crisis.

Under the circumstances, any forgiveness for your inability to understand is very generous indeed.


Lehman Brothers were stupid, but their acts of stupidity came about in an environment that was created by politicians. The politicians passed laws that forced the construction of houses for the sub-prime market.

Bradford & Bingley, HBOS and Northern Rock also acted stupidly, but they acted in an environment that was created by the Labour government. The government got it wrong, and the financial institutions that placed their faith in the government got a good kicking.



Don
--

[Devil2575]

don4l said:

It has been explained to you several times that the banks are not the main cause of our forthcoming difficulties. You appear to want to disbelieve these explanations for some strange reasons. However, the facts are the facts.

I've had several explanations from peopole who I don't know as to why everything is labour's fault, but not all of it makes perfect sense. Also it's not like this site doesn't have a political bias is it.

With respect to the rest of your post, I misunderstood what you said. Easily done on forums where you cant see the person you talking too.

edit:

No, I am not saying that the only people with "bad"(??) mortgages are those that were negotiated by developers.

The reason I thought this was because you started off saying that the problem in the UK was caused by John Prescott etc etc
The inferece from that being that banks like northern rock failed due to labour's desire to have more low cost housing which in tern was purchased by sub prime people due to finance deals arranged by the developers.

Edited by Devil2575 on Thursday 20th May 09:34

[Dupont666]

Big bad ConDems... have started:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/art...

Whos going to mess with Cable?