The Budget

no it's not.

i know this is an ideological battle i'm unlikely to win on here, but ultimately standing around outside your office complainign about it will piss people off, waste your own time, damage the income of your employer and steel the management/shareholders against you and make it more likely that things will get worse/ you'll still get made redundant.

Problem is its the Bankers income, and the industries/shops etc etc they spend it in that has been keeping alot of people afloat.

Take the amount of shops that have shut in Fulham, primarily because they were dependant on bankers wives spending their partners cash. Them shutting has a knock on effect on all the service industries that supported them.

Thats the problem in the UK, we are all pretty much dependant on the trickle down from the finance industry. Until we diversify, and rebuild a strong manufacturing and skills base that isnt service industry related, we will always be dependant on the big boys making money, and spending it in the other sectors we work in.

Its not really...

Its about mortgage defaults in the sub prime market.

The banks aren't approving home loans to people with 10% deposits any more whereas a few years ago you could borrow 105% of your property value!

That's a different department within the bank - and they were happy to lend that at the time because of the rocketing property values against which they secured the loans. My point is the personal loan/credit people are still acting like unlicensed money lenders. Were I to borrow £70K on credit cards and my overdraft, I would struggle to repay it on the terms I accepted it. Yes, my fault and stupidity for taking the loan, but the fuckers should still display at least a mimimum of restaint in their lending.

Thats what caused it, but because we are so dependent on the banks that facilitated it, we all got fucked. If the UK economy was more diverse, rather than being solely geared to support and place the City above all else, we wouldn't have been so badly fucked.

I dont blame the bankers, they were only doing what the government had allowed them to do. If the government at the time hadnt left them so unregulated, they wouldnt have been able to dig as big a whole as they did.

no it's not.

i know this is an ideological battle i'm unlikely to win on here, but ultimately standing around outside your office complainign about it will piss people off, waste your own time, damage the income of your employer and steel the management/shareholders against you and make it more likely that things will get worse/ you'll still get made redundant.

Who cares if it pisses people off. If you're standing around protesting and sticking up for your own rights it's generally because you have been pissed off.

Its not really...

Its about mortgage defaults in the sub prime market.

Balki, do you ever feel like you're shouting and no one is listening?

The banks have been forced to pay £2 billion per year.. do pay attention..

Sorry dad.

Problem is its the Bankers income, and the industries/shops etc etc they spend it in that has been keeping alot of people afloat.

Take the amount of shops that have shut in Fulham, primarily because they were dependant on bankers wives spending their partners cash. Them shutting has a knock on effect on all the service industries that supported them.

Thats the problem in the UK, we are all pretty much dependant on the trickle down from the finance industry. Until we diversify, and rebuild a strong manufacturing and skills base that isnt service industry related, we will always be dependant on the big boys making money, and spending it in the other sectors we work in.

Agreed, technology, science and engineering is just not respected or encouraged in this in country. Now with a massive cut in the science budget too the number of new companies coming from this sector will drop even more. The great thing is that the science budget was raided to pay for the support of the car comanies package late year, resulting in the loss of funding of large ares of science, especially, nuclear physics, an area which the government want to use to help reduce green house emissions. Joined up thinking.

What gets me about all of this is that I've never borrowed anything I couldn't pay back (never had a credit card, never had a bank loan, always spent what I have). I try to be sensible with money and keep an eye on my spending. I pay my taxes etc. I've had a job since I was 13, with the only breaks being when I was at uni (still worked in the holidays).
I don't therefore feel I have contributed to this mess. Yet I am expected to swallow all this crap about "digging deep" etc and accept the measures in this budget. I daresay I'm not the only one in this sort of situation.

I also wonder how long these measures will stay in place. I daresay some will stay for a lot longer after the economy has recovered, simply because they serve the interests of the politicians.

Balki, do you ever feel like you're shouting and no one is listening?

Yeah, but I cant say I blame them.

Im bored of this topic anyway. Its all about the oil spill now.... and next week it will be about mobilisation of troops in North Korea or some other such storm in a teacup.

400 UK deaths in Afghanistan went past without too much hoo-ha.

...and Monster Munch IS fucking rubbish. Tastes like packing material

^^^^

+1

if you can't freaking afford it DON'T BUY IT

cash is king

That's a different department within the bank - and they were happy to lend that at the time because of the rocketing property values against which they secured the loans. My point is the personal loan/credit people are still acting like unlicensed money lenders. Were I to borrow £70K on credit cards and my overdraft, I would struggle to repay it on the terms I accepted it. Yes, my fault and stupidity for taking the loan, but the fuckers should still display at least a mimimum of restaint in their lending.

You'd think. I can't wait until I leave the UK with £200k unpaid credit cards.. :)

council tax frozen for 2 years

anybody hear anything about fags and booze ?

^^^^

+1

if you can't freaking afford it DON'T BUY IT

cash is king

[daily mail mode] every chav family i see on the telly smokes/drinks to excess and has a 40in plasma and sky tv, these are now seen as necessities rather than luxuries [daily mail mode]

There's an interesting piece along these lines in Orwell's Road To Wigan Pier.

What gets me about all of this is that I've never borrowed anything I couldn't pay back (never had a credit card, never had a bank loan, always spent what I have). I try to be sensible with money and keep an eye on my spending. I pay my taxes etc. I've had a job since I was 13, with the only breaks being when I was at uni (still worked in the holidays).
I don't therefore feel I have contributed to this mess. Yet I am expected to swallow all this crap about "digging deep" etc and accept the measures in this budget. I daresay I'm not the only one in this sort of situation.

I also wonder how long these measures will stay in place. I daresay some will stay for a lot longer after the economy has recovered, simply because they serve the interests of the politicians.

Don't get me wrong here, its great you don't have credit cards... but aren't the people who keep the banks afloat, those that use and rely on credit cards but cannot afford pay the full balance every month but do not default. That is after all how these MASSIVE corporations make money.

Zaccery.. no loans mean you're making other people no money except for the piddling amount of goods you buy which is fuck all compared to borrowing to buy a house or start a company. No money going to the banks means they then can't invest in shit that is supposed to make money. Which means your company or home buyer can't get the loan.

Yeah, but I cant say I blame them.

Im bored of this topic anyway. Its all about the oil spill now.... and next week it will be about mobilisation of troops in North Korea or some other such storm in a teacup.

400 UK deaths in Afghanistan went past without too much hoo-ha.

...and Monster Munch IS fucking rubbish. Tastes like packing material

we're all just dust. in the wind.

1000 dead in brazil or thereabouts. flash floods.

i know this is an ideological battle i'm unlikely to win

correct.

(but it has nothing to do with ideology)

but ultimately standing around outside your office complainign about it will piss people off, waste your own time, damage the income of your employer and steel the management/shareholders against you and make it more likely that things will get worse/ you'll still get made redundant.

Striking is the very very very last option (prior to killing your boss and burning down your workplace). No-one wants to strike. Ever. Not even "loony lefties" like me. It's horrible for you and everyone else. Everyone wants negotiation or other forms of action to succeed. All we want to do is perform decent work with dignity and fair treatment. However, sometimes striking is the only way to get a point across to management who won't listen and want to push their employees to the wire because they think they can get away with it.

Also, every single one of the things we take for granted (minimum wage, maternity/paternity pay, paid breaks, health and safety regs, equality in the workplace, anti-bullying/harassment regs, formal written contracts, protection for whistleblowers, abolition of child labour, i could go on and on and on and on...) were fought bitterly over and won by workers standing up for their and each other's rights. Although many have now become law through government, they were won by workers (usually unions) who demanded decent treatment at work. Often, these battles were won through strikes. Again, i'm sure no-one wanted to strike, but they felt that it was worth it.

Telling us that anyone who goes on strike for any reason should be sacked immediately is pissing on all the good things we take for granted at work. If you want to live in a hideous Dickensian dystopia where anyone who isn't lucky enough to be born into money is unlikely to live beyond 40 then be my guest, but don't impose it on the rest of us. Just move to Coventry instead ;)

wait. someone said corporations.
can someone merge this with the time travel thread. thanks.

precisely, the economy and government relies on us to be as big a consumer as possible. The entire economic model that we follow relies and requires limitless economic growth which required a growth in consumption which requires more money to exist which requires debt.

EDIT: meant to follow HIppy's post.

we're all just dust. in the wind.

1000 dead in brazil or thereabouts. flash floods.

I dont care. I have a 40 inch LCD.

precisely, the economy and government relies on us to be as big a consumer as possible. The entire economic model that we follow relies and requires limitless economic growth which required a growth in consumption which requires moe money to exist which requires debt.

looks like someone's been brushing up on his Marx. I'm not a Marxist but it's incredible to think that this guy was saying exactly the same things about limitless economic growth 150 years ago and it still rings true...

looks like someone's been brushing up on his Marx. I'm not a Marxist but it's incredible to think that this guy was saying exactly the same things about limitless economic growth 150 years ago and it still rings true...

Not at all, I've never read any Marx but just stuff I've some to conclude via reading about some economic theory and my own hypothesizing about "how it all works". I have not really read any satisfactory rebuttal of this idea, I'm not suggesting an alternative just how it seems to work.

Also it stems from ideas such as Kenneth Boulding Dismal Theorem which is well talked about by Al Bartlett

First Theorem: "The Dismal Theorem"- If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth.
Second Theorem: "The Utterly Dismal Theorem" - This theorem states that any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the [technical] improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of [technical] improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery.
Third Theorem: "The moderately cheerful form of the Dismal Theorem" - Fortunately, it is not too difficult to restate the Dismal Theorem in a moderately cheerful form, which states that if something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it can be stably prosperous.

which are aimed at population growth, which to be honest is where all of the problems stem back to, unrestricted population growth.