The gathering storm ...

[Saintslass]

Why is it left wing propaganda to question why services and benefits aimed at the poorer half of society are cut repeatedly under "austerity" while those in the top 10% of society have seen the benefits of six years of tax cuts?

ckn, over the last five years I have been in and out of work, trying to find permanent employment after an apparently disasterous decision I made to retrain as a primary school teacher has failed to provide me with a new career in spite of earning a Level 2 upon graduation and in spite of their being a teacher shortage apparently.  Anyway, although I do receive benefits for the short periods I am out of work between jobs, when I am in work I am generally low paid.  At present I am earning the massive sum of £7.24 an hour and I am not entitled to a lunch break and so am working 40 hours a week (five straight eight hour days). 

 

I am earning too much to be eligible for in work benefits but too little to live in anything other than a room in a multiple occupancy house.  Yet I am receiving more of my wages now than I would have done under Labour because I am benefiting from six years of tax cuts.

[Bearman]

ckn, over the last five years I have been in and out of work, trying to find permanent employment after an apparently disasterous decision I made to retrain as a primary school teacher has failed to provide me with a new career in spite of earning a Level 2 upon graduation and in spite of their being a teacher shortage apparently.  Anyway, although I do receive benefits for the short periods I am out of work between jobs, when I am in work I am generally low paid.  At present I am earning the massive sum of £7.24 an hour and I am not entitled to a lunch break and so am working 40 hours a week (five straight eight hour days). 

 

I am earning too much to be eligible for in work benefits but too little to live in anything other than a room in a multiple occupancy house.  Yet I am receiving more of my wages now than I would have done under Labour because I am benefiting from six years of tax cuts.

I was going to pick you up on your "their" for "there" in the teacher shortage sentence. I stopped myself because my spillchucker is always sliding things in when I don't notice! I also know that your grammar is better than that.

It's a shame you can't get a break into teaching. Don't give up, keep applying and good luck.

[Phil]

ckn, over the last five years I have been in and out of work, trying to find permanent employment after an apparently disasterous decision I made to retrain as a primary school teacher has failed to provide me with a new career in spite of earning a Level 2 upon graduation and in spite of their being a teacher shortage apparently. Anyway, although I do receive benefits for the short periods I am out of work between jobs, when I am in work I am generally low paid. At present I am earning the massive sum of £7.24 an hour and I am not entitled to a lunch break and so am working 40 hours a week (five straight eight hour days).

I am earning too much to be eligible for in work benefits but too little to live in anything other than a room in a multiple occupancy house. Yet I am receiving more of my wages now than I would have done under Labour because I am benefiting from six years of tax cuts.

But according to you this is paradise!!!, just enjoy it while you can because your darling tories will try to take it all off you

A succession of temporary, low paid jobs, this is what you voted for, for yourself and others.

[Bob8]

But according to you this is paradise!!!, just enjoy it while you can because your darling tories will try to take it all off you

A succession of temporary, low paid jobs, this is what you voted for, for yourself and others.

Can you confirm that there would be a high paying and secure teaching job for her if Milliband was PM?  If not, her reasoning makes sense.  I would say she voted against her best interest, but I cannot be absolutely certain of that and we tend to vote for what we believe in rather than narrow self interest anyway.

[frank]

So everything looks great then.How  many of these firms are British owned and how much profit stays in the country?

[Phil]

BMA Union hijacked, political strike, misrepresenting the new contract.

Firemen and women resisting change and efficiency improvements as usual.

I'll just take these two

1, hijacked by who?

2, is it more efficient to fight fires with fewer tenders, stations and personnel?

[bowes]

But according to you this is paradise!!!, just enjoy it while you can because your darling tories will try to take it all off you

A succession of temporary, low paid jobs, this is what you voted for, for yourself and others.

That's all that was available when I graduated under a Labour government. Now jobs ate much easier to come by and they will all pay well under £9 an hour minimum wage

[JohnM]

So everything looks great then.How  many of these firms are British owned and how much profit stays in the country?

You want everything to be British owned? Fuel might be hard to come by. Might affect those overseas companies that are British owned.

Define ownership. Indeed, you might already be a part-owner of VAG in you are making pension contributions.

Most Bentleys are sold overseas, so that is income into the UK

In the UK, Bentleys, Land Rovers, Jaguars, Hondas, Nissans, Toyotas, Aston Martins, Vauxhalls etc are sold though garages. Garages ahve to be designed, constructed, insured, staffed and maintained. They pay buisness rates,NI, Coropration tax etc

Local content manufacturers do the same.

Bentley itself does the same, as well as Nissan - who incedentally employ a alrge number of higly-qualified engineers at the Cranfiled-based Eutopean Technical Centre - mor construction, maintenance, NI, wages, jobs, tax etc.

So out of the total economic value of these organisations, what is "profit" and where does it go?

Then there is the UK caravan industry. Its worth £6 billion to the UK economy.

and then....etc etc.

[Bedford Roughyed]

Everything is rosy...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35321087

 

On the currency markets, the pound hit fresh five-and-a-half-year lows against the dollar after the release of weak UK construction data.

 

Official figures showed construction output in November fell by 0.5% compared with the month before, and was down 1.1% from a year earlier.

 

Sterling had already weakened earlier this week after industrial production figures showed a fall in output.

 

The pound slid to $1.4296, a new five and a half year low. Against the euro, sterling fell by more than one euro cent to €1.3057.

 

 

[Saintslass]

 

Everything is rosy...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35321087

 

 

 

Good for exports, which have been hit by the strong pound (as well as the slow down in China, etc).

[Trojan]

My posts are carefully matched to the readership. There is no "gathering storm". 

He sneers at everyone equally Then puts his fingers in his ears and goes "la la la"

[ckn]

My posts are carefully matched to the readership. There is no "gathering storm". 

Just saving that one for posterity.

 

On 20th January 2005, the FTSE 100 index closed at 5672, it's currently at 5692.  That's down from a high of 7103 just before the general election last year.

[Wolford6]

Yes, but there's an elastic band manufacturer in Lincolnshire that's just taken on a new apprentice.

[DoubleD]

I thought I'd venture back on this forum, not sure why now. All the usual sniping doom and gloom from the left wing, things would be much better if labour were in power and nationalised everything. I wonder if those in the left wing are manic depressants by nature?

[Wolford6]

 I wonder if those in the left wing are manic depressants by nature?

 

No, mainly by practice.

 

Somehow, I've ended up a right wing socialist.

[Bearman]

No, mainly by practice.

 

Somehow, I've ended up a right wing socialist.

Agh, but are you on the left of the right wing or the right of the right wing of the socialists? Be honest now. Mind you, whichever you own up to there will be someone on here to have a go at you for your moderate/radical standpoint.

[gingerjon]

Moaning left-wingers

[DoubleD]

Moaning left-wingers

 

Oh no the world is going to fall apart.............

[gingerjon]

Oh no the world is going to fall apart.............

 

No, we'll be fine because we've invested away from the financial industry and personal debt since 2008.

[DoubleD]

No, we'll be fine because we've invested away from the financial industry and personal debt since 2008.

Not sure how you invest away from personal debt but hey ho.

And the financial industry is fine and contributes £127 billion in tax to the Treasury each year which helps pay for our NHS, schools etc

[ckn]

Not sure how you invest away from personal debt but hey ho.

Easy.  Stop granting consumer credit licenses to people who charge more interest than gang-led loan sharks.  This isn't a party-political point as both Labour and the Tories have really not grasped the nettle of it regardless of the spin they put out.  I remember someone posting a thread on here about a decade ago with a screenshot of a Prudential advert showing about 190% APR (or similar) on a short-term loan and being rightly outraged at the size of the interest charge.  190% is at the lower end of the sub-prime short-term debt market now and wouldn't get any outrage at all.

[DoubleD]

Easy. Stop granting consumer credit licenses to people who charge more interest than gang-led loan sharks. This isn't a party-political point as both Labour and the Tories have really not grasped the nettle of it regardless of the spin they put out. I remember someone posting a thread on here about a decade ago with a screenshot of a Prudential advert showing about 190% APR (or similar) on a short-term loan and being rightly outraged at the size of the interest charge. 190% is at the lower end of the sub-prime short-term debt market now and wouldn't get any outrage at all.

Surely people have to take responsibility themselves for managing their own finances? If they're incompetent or too thick to understand this and decide to take out a high interest loan than that's their fault.

Too much of blaming others in society these days and people think they are owed something and not enough taking responsibility and willing to work hard to improve ones life

[ckn]

Surely people have to take responsibility themselves for managing their own finances? If they're incompetent or too thick to understand this and decide to take out a high interest loan than that's their fault.

Too much of blaming others in society these days and people think they are owed something and not enough taking responsibility and willing to work hard to improve ones life

One example: you can be sanctioned from benefits with no notice but an appeal will take a minimum of two weeks and even genuinely admitted mistakes will take that long to rectify. So, you're without money for an absolute minimum of two weeks and you have no guarantee that it will be that short a time. Banks won't lend you money, you are left with the loan shark log-book loans and payday loans companies where you're losing money you don't have on interest that you won't get back from DWP if they've made a mistake.

There was one case where the DWP got it wrong, sanctioned someone and wouldn't fix it for over two months leaving a family on food banks and payday loans for heating costs. Was that their fault that they defaulted on the payday loan or the DWP who sent the wrong information and sanctioned based on it?

[DoubleD]

One example: you can be sanctioned from benefits with no notice but an appeal will take a minimum of two weeks and even genuinely admitted mistakes will take that long to rectify. So, you're without money for an absolute minimum of two weeks and you have no guarantee that it will be that short a time. Banks won't lend you money, you are left with the loan shark log-book loans and payday loans companies where you're losing money you don't have on interest that you won't get back from DWP if they've made a mistake.

There was one case where the DWP got it wrong, sanctioned someone and wouldn't fix it for over two months leaving a family on food banks and payday loans for heating costs. Was that their fault that they defaulted on the payday loan or the DWP who sent the wrong information and sanctioned based on it?

One obscure example to support your argument . I wonder how much this family has actually contributed in taxation in their time to support the state handouts?

[Trojan]

Surely people have to take responsibility themselves for managing their own finances? If they're incompetent or too thick to understand this and decide to take out a high interest loan than that's their fault.

Too much of blaming others in society these days and people think they are owed something and not enough taking responsibility and willing to work hard to improve ones life

Isn't that what government is for? To protect people from doing stuff that is actually against their own better interests?  Like dipping into their pension pots say, oh, no I forgot, that's now ok.