OT First decent coverage I've seen of Wednesday's protest

For Wessie, Auvache, Corfield etc. A little ray of sunshine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/spending-cuts-fightback-begins

 

Interesting headline:
"an 'out-of-touch' government with 18 millionaires in its cabinet"
Could just have easily applied to the last lot IMHO.

 

Patrick Kielty:

Note to Millbank Students - No petrol bombs. No balaclavas. No plastic
bullets. In Belfast that's a Rave not a Riot. See me after.

 

I expect that the copper than very nearly headed a fire extinguisher
give a toss!

Amen to that.

 

I'm sure Mr Clegg will soon suggest the army shoot rioters on sight. Job
done.

 

You should have watched the French TV channels

 

Nicely written and points out that the decision makers are insulated
from the cuts (but wasn't it always this way?)

There's the obligatory mention of bonus pools but since these are taxed
as income surely the 1.6Bn translates to 800M in tax, isn't this a good
thing? If 1.6 is a third of the education budget then surely the 800 is
a sixth of it. Wouldn't it be worse for the bonus pool to dry up
leaving a hole in the tax plans?

Personally I'm all for big bonuses being paid, surely these will lead to
more tax and less reason for cuts.

Overall, instinctively I think it's right that a country needs to
balance its books. We're in a crazy situation where the poor of China
seem to be subsidising the lifestyle of the west through using their
central government funds to buy western government gilts/loan
notes/whatever. I see figures so large that I can't really focus on
them suggesting that we have a mountain of debt built up over the last
decade or so to pay down and my gut reaction to this is to look at it as
household debt and start thinking... 'need to live within our means'. I
think we do need to cut costs, but we also need to look again at
taxation and try to get the balance better than it is at the moment. I
fear we're cutting too deeply and not taxing enough.

On the university funding, I do think it is badly wrong. A graduate tax
was kicked out (rightly in my opinion since if a degree leads to a
higher income then surely this is already taxed, progressively, through
the existing system). However what has been introduced looks awfully
like a graduate tax, by the back door that only applies to *NEW*
graduates:
- Load 'em up with debt, around 50k by the time they graduate.
- Charge interest on the principal sum
- Take payments as a fixed proportion of income (and discourage early
settlement FFS)
- Write off unpaid debt after 30 years.

So we will have a generation, many of whom will pay a 9% 'tax' on their
income until their early 50s. Looks awfully like mortgaging the future
with a back-door tax.

Surely much more honest to simply apply a tax of, what, 2%? to all
graduates past, present and future.

Anyway... not sure why I've typed this. Maybe guilt for voting
lib-dem... will this guilt be as bad (in the future) as having voted
Tory in the 80s? Have I really made the same mistake all over again?

 

Damn. In future I'll just let you do my posting for me.

 

Eh?

<rereads Steve's post>

Bugger - I read that as "Tony".

 

I think you should keep quiet at the back. If a very socialist govmint was
at the helm, urging the ship on with little heed of the Perfect Storm that
is heading our way, you might find that all of a sudden your pension
payments dry up.

It really is that bad. The figures are all there. The shift in world trade
is pretty obvious. Maybe the predicament of Greece today will make people
think.

There were folk on R4 today seriously suggesting that Ireland (Greece and
others) let it go. Default on the gilts and declare them void. "Let the big
bad financial institutions take the pain".

I suggest they consider all public servants working for Food Stamps and
choose the colours for the 100,000,000 Euro notes.

 

I will be candid and admit that I'd recently sold our 6 bedroom town house
in Iffley Road Hammersmith. Banked the proceeds and rented in Scottieland.
The bank interest alone was enough to live nicely.
OTOH getting a new company up and running was like wading in treacle.

 

Well yes, but I think such disparity of income within companies is a very
bad thing, there needs to be some limit and governance needs to be held by
personal rather than corporate shareholders IMHO.

It surprises me that folk don't cotton on the the Balance of Payments item.
Like the USA we accumulated vast national wealth post industrial revolution.
Since then we have spend a century mostly eating it up and raising debt to
cover shortfalls. Oh, and printing money, like that's a good idea. Oil has
helped some.

Despite what some people would like to believe, and would like other people
to believe, a country must trade at least at Par with the world over the
medium to long term. Which means selling your natural resources and/or
exporting manufactured goods. Our oil is running low, financial services
aint what they used to be and we lost a lot of our engineering and
manufacturing talents.

If you look back at the last 2.5 decades what has been the engine of the
internal UK economy. Construction. What is now mooted by many as the
recipe for recovery? Refloating the construction industry. An industry
that grew on rampant price inflation of land and finished product. Fed by
huge rises in personal and at times corporate debt. Much of the development
was speculative. Did it generate export trade revenue from the world, no.
Did it cause us to import equipment and raw materials, yes. So in fact it
was not only inflationary and misleading it was also stoking the fires of
national debt by making our trade imbalance larger.

Now everyone is spinning around in a tizzy pointing at everyone else
shouting "they should have to pay, not me". So dependant have people become
on cheap debt (one might not have to work to repay) and Welfare State
culture.

Well, I didn't join in the stupidity. I lived most of my life frugally
enough. I didn't take on any debt. I planned for comfortable retirement
insulated from any Equities insanity. Fucking sure I'm not giving it up for
cunts who did otherwise.

Having a 10y/o son and also having mostly paid for my own education I know
where you are coming for. However the other system mostly works in the
States and they are looking as us now with some incredulity.

 

Iffley Rd is nice. The Nuffield school is one of my regular customers.

 

Indeed. A jap bank bought it for one of it's Execs. My s/o had been teaching
him English at the Canning.