droctopus

So basically doctors should have terms imposed on them at anytime by a deranged employer because they are highly paid. Sounds a bit extremist to me and reduces credibility to the extent of making the discussion pointless. And by the way, the doctors earning the top whack amounts decribed by the biased media are all senior and would have worked the 100+ hour weeks for an hourly rate less than the hospital cleaner for 10yrs before making consultant. These changes are designed to shaft the younger generations of doctors who have all had to pay £50k+ in debt to train. Anyway, one can put all of this aside and ask why should doctors have to pay 20% a year into a pension pot while then huge mass od rank and file beauracrats in the government, civil servants for example, still only have to pay 3% or thereabouts?

GP partners are paid their own employers contribution. Therefore, if the average GP partner is paid 115k, then subtract 20-25k because they pay their own employers and employees contribution. Now consider that 10 years ago there was such a crisis in general practice that HMG had to offer 10k tax free golden handshakes to attract gps into becoming partners. Now also consider that right now there is a critical shortage of doctors wanting to take on the unlimited workload (yes folks, the contract partners have with HMG is a fixed sum for an infinite amount of work) and as a contractor an non-partner GP can earn as much as the average partner without breaking a sweat. Cue headlines in 2-4 years re acute shortage if gps something must be done as is so predictable in the constant cycle of public mismanagement. By the way in 2003 HMG didn't understand the huge amount of work partners do and that is why the pay rise was so spectacular - same with consultants who were paid for the amount fo work that they were doing. Presumably this was a pre requisite for greater private involvement in healthcare, the biggest proponent of which - the USA - pays the most amount of tax take for healthcare in the world. If your employer suddenly changed the terms of your employment contract overnight, without consulting you, after you had agreed to a big change 4 years ago, how would you feel? It may be futile, but if your employer was willing to do this to you on a whim, what else would your employers be prepared to do? I know there is a lot of ideology on here about the free Market and tax if theft etc but consider that this is happening at the same time as the biggest restructuring of the nhs ( on the worlds. Biggest employers) since 1940s and during a time where HMG are relying on GP partners to take on 50% of hospital work for no contracted extra pay.

I like it here, there's a great quality of life and it's off the radar which means less obsession with greasy pole climbing and more focus on how quickly you can get to the rising boat on a Friday afternoon. It's a shame about the airport, I used it two or three times a year, but I find I need to travel up country less and less. Friends and family come to us nowadays and a few have moved down after seeing what sort of life one can have in a place with low house prices and world class environmental draws (plymouth hoe, dartmoor, Rame peninsula, south hams) within a few mins drive. Like I said, my wife started a business here 5 years (that's years) ago and all of her clients are firms in mainland europe. This is through using Skype, VoIP and an international flight once or twice a year. I predict as more people realise what tech can do in terms of remote working then places like devon and Cornwall will see an even faster rate of population increase at the expense of crowded, polluted and socially challenged urban centres.

Yep, at the end of that road is the wrigleys factory, TwoFour (a large tv production company), several other large and middle sized firms Including robotics and tech businesses.

I blew in to Plymouth 6 years ago after living in London for 10 hrs and working in Australia. I travel to work in Cornwall, takes 30mins from central plymouth, wife runs a business here dealing with mainly scandinavian companies, just got back from lunch by the beach, moor, sea and sand within mins drive. And house prices are low. Both my job and her business are 100% portable and we ain't moving anywhere.

Journey time on peak time trains to paddington 3hrs, 40 mins ish drive to exeter airport, hour and a half to bristol airport. Plymouth University has the most successful 'new wave' medical school along with a dental school. It specialises in marine biology for which it is an international leader. TwoFour is based there which is with endomol the biggest independent tv company, they have main centre in plymouth with a London office which works for them. My wife runs a business here, clients are mainly scandinavian companies, email and telephone is a wonderful thing and we are minutes from the Marina, beach or moor. I go to work on a boat which is a more enjoyable commute than than the northern line I can tell you.

The asian dude is conning his Mum out of cash because he has lost everything investing in property at the end of a mega boom. I know cos my wife watches it . . . .

We could invade iceland and corner the market in Reindeer pizza.

If bricks and mortar are a good hedge because bread will cost £10, how will people afford the higher rents? Without wage inflation your buy-to-let aint gonna provide this hedge.

The standard salary for a medical doctor in the UK is around 40-45k. The extra money and higher salaries are paid because there is an overall saving to the state by having that experience there. If you bothered to look at any studies on the subject then you'll find that large amounts of money get wasted by unnecessary and expensive investigations, call-backs and prescribing when a non-doctor does the same task. I worked in a plastic surgery department in an NHS hospital, and as a whole, the department brought in £1million a month in 'profit' in the internal market from the PCT that commissions the work on behalf of the patients. That's £1mill divided by 6 consultants (most of which were salaried and therefore only on 60-70k) so that's over £150,000 a month profit per head from those guys. They are all planning to leave the NHS and set up themselves, one or two already have, after getting fed up with operating using the wrong instruments - improvisation they call it - because all these managers can't even ensure the right tools arrive at the right operating theatre, and it happens day in day out. The solution is to allow the professionals to do what they do, and get the managment to facilitate them. That went out the window starting with Thatcher and has progressed ever onwards since then. They think you need private sector management styles in the public sector no matter what the figures show, like a religion. Supporters of the Daily Mail I suspect have a vested interest in getting their hands on that profit margin which for UK healthcare as a whole would be staggering. However, the management problems stem from the holy belief in private sector management styles above all else, a self-perpetuating f#ck up

When the NHS was created, the hospital doctors became employees of the state, the GP's refused to become employees and remained independent contractors to the NHS. It could be argued that this aberration explains the persistence of a free at the point of entry service. It is the GPs that organised the 1 million + petition in response to the recent governement attempts at stealth privatisation for example, and it is GPs that save the NHS billions by dealing with tha vast majority of medical care. The sad fact is that doctors will be needed in whatever service, but doctors can see that the highest standard and most 'common sense' healthcare is delivered by a national standardised system based on clinical need. The governent and free market lobby just want to carve it up, and the privatisation of healthcare in all its ugly glory will be some party if you can get a seat on the bandwagon. Makes you proud.

Maybe you should have updated your skills rather than staying in your rut gathering moss in front of the monitor, having a pop at useful people who didn't have much to do with their pay deals - by all means have a go at the medical 'leadership' and new labour who consistently try to f#ck up medical standards and the health service for their own personal gain. I earn twice the average salary and have been a doctor for 7 years, so 13 years since going to med school. I'm not complaining, but get a bit sick and tired of people regurgitating whatever they read in the waily telegraph or bbc website.

If there's too much of something then it's value decreases, ie you need more of it to achieve the same value.. Huge inflationary forces have been unleashed, it's time to sit back and see if the plan has worked.

Do he mean infalte them away by 20-30% ?

The post quoted by the OP I find very interesting and from a respectable source apparently. Let's assume that the next step for developed economies is to instigate global debt default through inflationary measures - let's say for example 0% interest rates, quantitative easing, trillions of dollars of stimulation funds. What practical things can HPC readers do to adequately protect themselves from this inflation tsunami that is almost inevitably coming. Not including buying the G-word.

I'm not convinced by the argument for slashing public sector pensions. How many of these people actually live for long after retiring anyway? Male life expectancy in most parts of the UK is only about 75, lower in many regions. Considering these people have paid in for 30-40 years, sounds fair enough that they should get a decent pension. Military pensions aside. Just because the private sector have shafted their loyal staff for a few extra quid, doesn't mean the same rules should apply in all sectors. This thread has been full of opinion and pretty short on facts and figures. And a very high troll count - something I should get used to perhaps!

Hello plymouth HPCers, Interesting thread, I moved to plymouth three years ago and actually quite like it here! I've lived in London, Sydney and a few more regular places over the years and I must admit Plymouth has grown on me. There's a lot of ignorance down here but that can be seen as an opportunity. Also, I did some demographics research before buying down here and found that the population is pretty much average in terms of occupation and pay. There are more skilled manual workers here (by about 2%) and more motorbike riders, but apart from that, the population is pretty much bang in the middle of mr joe average brit. I think the long term outlook for Plymouth is good if the city can grow by ?50,000 residents over the next few years - that would mean a large program of city expansion / construction which I think has been on the cards for a while - then things look bright. There is an image problem that needs to be tackled however.. Is there still a shortage of student accommodation at the moment?

Up until the bust, banking and hedge-ing became the new career of choice for the ambitious middle class male, IMO. Is it back to law and medicine for the well heeled first borns?

Hello HPC I've been a very occasional lurker on this site since 2004/5 when I expected the inevitable crash in the property market. the last 2 or 3 years have been very strange to say the least, and now it seems the true story behind the spin begins to crystallise. I've now been lurking much more than once or twice a year, so seemed fair to register and add my rapidly devaluating 2p.