Saturday, Nov 22, 2008
The downturn spirals out of control
Times: 25,000 jobs go in a week, and those are only the ones we know about
After many years of being overlooked in favour of more glamorous statistics such as GDP or inflation, unemployment is back in the headlines. A fortnight ago 20,000 jobs were lost at well-known companies. It is chilling to realise that these job losses are only the ones that we know about, because they have all taken place at publicly listed companies. One of the biggest challenges facing Alistair Darling in his PreBudget Report is how to create an environment in which employers feel comfortable about keeping staff. However, the Chancellor is far more likely to concentrate on initiatives such as rises in tax credits for poorer families, child benefits and winter fuel payments.
Posted by mytimeisnigh @ 09:23 AM (594 views) Add Comment
14 Comments
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1. planning4acrash said...
This is because all of government's statistics are totally distorted propaganda tools. GDP has little to do with useful productivity, CPI has little to do with inflation and financial stability, blah, di blah, so, yet another tool of government becoming irrelevant, washed away with the tide. Maybe S2R was right afterall?!
2. planning4acrash said...
Oh, My God: Daily Mail: Met Police officers to be 'microchipped' by top brass in Big Brother style tracking scheme
3. whostolemyendowment said...
But that's only to check that they not going to BNP rallies.....
Who would have thought 1984 = 2008 {well the Thought Police for one}...
4. down wave said...
Headlines: Western Morning News 21 November 2008. >>Job Centres at Breaking Point 36% Jump in West Jobless Brings System to its Knees.
Some days back, I mentioned that my Sea-Side Town is becomming like a Wild West Ghost Town, with business going bankrupt and closing down. Tragic and desolate. From Boom to Bust. From Bliss to Grief.
The Job Centre's staff are traind to use draconian intimidation to mamnipulate the jobless into compliance - Bull Market tatics. Now, we entering uncontrollabel deflation as no one living has ever experienced. The computorised questionairs that the Job Centre staff use as they process the jobless are now no longer any use. The outcome of this will be public protest and marches,. Hunger stimulates anger and the hunting instincs, big troubles lay ahead.
Although I have been preparing for this by being careful and frugal since 2003, and I am in a very good position, I am feeling deep pain and despair. If I am feeling like this, then how must those families that are in debt and staring into the Abyss feeling. Tony Blair and his complicit chancelor Gordon Brown, together with their Ministers have to be brought to account for their arrogance and mismanagement.
Analysis and Accountability must be done and published, so that this lesson can be learnt and understood.
I and all of my colleagues know that we do not know everything, we know that we are largely ignorant, hence we know that we are on a learning curve and we know that we will never drop off the end. The curve is, for the superior man, in place for life. Whereas, the arrogance of government ministers, precludes them from this, the think they know it All and spin themselves up. For them there is no learning curve, never mind dropping off the end.
My heart goes out to all that are and will be suffering, but one cannot eat compassion, it will not keep you warm, it will not satisfy the banks.
5. mark wadsworth said...
One of the biggest challenges facing Alistair Darling in his PreBudget Report is how to create an environment in which employers feel comfortable about keeping staff
Oh, that's easy. You just scrap Employer's National Insurance, which currently adds 12.8% to the wage bill.
My magic fag packet says that the overall revenue loss from this would be negligible, once you factor in all the other gains.
6. Maihem said...
You've got to reduce the difference in the cost of employing 1 person for 40 hours and 2 people for 20 hours each until it is close to nothing. Then each person will simply go from being 76% unemployed to 88% unemployed instead of having 50% of people go from 76% unemployed to 100% unemployed.
7. last_days_of_disco said...
@p4c
The police thing. Looks like an upgrade to an existing system. However its turning into a public relations disaster for the police. The police in this country need to be brought down to earth with a bump the sooner their budget is slashed the sooner they will have to rely on less whizzy gizmos and more good old fashioned policing. We need more police and now there are going to be plenty more Englishmen, only to happy to take those jobs. Houses will be more affordable and the government will have plenty of council stock.
The location finding thing should be optional, it looks quite useful. Police should opt in and use it when they need it.. Sounds quite useful in certain situations. Need to get rid of these Utopian nut jobs that are trying to turn this country into 1984, its so yesterday ;-).
@mark wadsworth
Absolutely! NI is a ridiculous rip off like paying for CRB which has been completely warped out of its original intention, it needs to be removed completely so that the grotesque morphing can stop and we can have taxes that make sense. The incremental approach to tax legislation has to stop. Its making the country unworkable. Simplify the tax code its impossibly huge and hence very wasteful.
8. planning4acrash said...
Last Days, the Police's mobile communication devices already track them. A tag will be to track them at home, to see what they do, how long they spend in the bedroom, pub, political meeting, etc.
9. down wave said...
Up from Earth's Centre I rose, through the Seven Gates,
Many a Knot unravelled on the road, but not the Master Knot of human fate.
Fate will take care of NU Labour, as it will all of us.
The fate that faces Gordon Brown, his Uria Heap like ministers - behaving like charity collection
box rattlers out side a supermarket; And his apathetic back benchers - like alcoholics sleeping
rough on Camden High Street, is annihilation.
If it were me, I would rather do the honourable, fall on my Sword, than face the inevitable
humiliation.
At least they will know what it is like to be Jobless.
By the way, Physics and Mathmatics are pure science. Medicine and Money are not, these are intergrated with the unpredictable Human Factor.
10. alan said...
Back to the 25,000 jobs...Yesterdy at 4.00pm, I walked past someone I knew in the corridor with their coat on heading for the way out. As I waved, they blanked me.
I mentioned to my co-workers that the person didn't look happy and they replied that the person was "contract" and this was their last day. They had 24 hours notice - one of many!
Lots of thoughts and emotions on just this situation......which will probably NOT make the 9 o'clock news.
11. doom&gloom said...
Alan. That's the contracting world for you - dog eat dog, and contractors are first out the door. Easier step than redundancies of permies, which will inevitably follow once all the contractors are gone.
Higher risk and higher reward working on contract.
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