nickb1

not very convincing to carp about one member of a list. Lots of our people live over there, does it show it's better for business over there?

Logic and facts are no match for cherished ideological beliefs. Are you the guy posting as "libertas"? The fewer resources there are to produce X the less will be produced. Like a bakery cannot produce more bread with less flour. We've been starving the public sector of resources. Privatisation - for public goods? Economics 101 - it doesn't work because of the free-rider problem and other sources of market failure. Where in the world does your fully privatised economy exist with good public services?

White supremacists go around proclaiming white supremacy. Did Chavez go around proclaiming "terrorism"? Unions can't be divorced from what their membership want, and members tend to be politically engaged. There is disquiet, for example, if the Union does not make statements about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Hence the several motions to boycott Israeli universities at UCU congresses. Just an example.

It's an association not a deduction. Do you think countries that pay more tax generally get worse public services? For example? France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands?! How are we to get more and better services paying less? Look around you - after austerity our public services are shambolic and collapsing.

Don't know enough about Chavez and Colombia to say whether this is a sensible comparison sorry. Clearly the unions do not issue statements supporting terrorism, so to that extent, it isn't. But I do know there was a CIA coup to unseat him. Anyways, its not really possible for unions to stay out of politics.

How does it compare to the EU median then? Even before we bring in Scandinavia. I'm guessing significantly less. Why bring taxation in? Countries that pay more tax get benefits from that tax in better public services. Also your source is way outdated (2007). Unis just had a large pay rise then not quite making up for years of below inflation pay rises. After that guess what, pay was always behind inflation, a 20% cut since 2008. How much severance pay is "obscene" if your health has been shot by the job? Certainly not obscene by CEO standards. And look at that terraced house (640k is

Whether or not one agrees with them (we can also question the role of the USA in bringing about these outcomes; I know Venezuelans over here who do), these statements have little effect compared to the core union activities. And sadly those have not been effective in the big picture policy arena.

They do both. The latter because successive governments of both stripes forced marketisation on the sector, opposed by the lecturer's union, if anyone else wants to have a go at union bashing.

I agree it sucks for them. But the unis don't have much choice to go down the route set by govt.. They get not to live with Mum and Dad for a year and concentrate on their studies. There is not yet a lockdown and I suppose there will be switches between lockdown and partial easing. For the moment there are face to face tutorials. Students can still meet and socialise it's just not the party scene it was.

Not necessarily if they can't work again because of stress-induced illness induced by the job, no. University lecturers earn a hell of a lot less in the UK than they do elsewhere in Europe if that makes you happy. E.g. senior lecturer in Ireland would get around £90,000. And again you are playing around with figures I think. The DM figure seems to combine her salary in the last year and the severance package to make it look obscene. How much does the owner of the daily mail earn? How much is his f*ing house worth? Oh, they haven't published that, speaking of hypocrisy.

See above. Plus I think you can find lots of examples of disastrously performing executives in the private sector paid this and more who lead their organisations into failure. Robert Maxwell anyone? Phil Green? Union work is hard and typically unrecognised and under paid compared to comparable private sector positions. Sally Hunt lead a deeply divided organisation quite successfully over many years, a stressful and difficult job requiring nuanced negotiation skills, inside out knowledge of the education system and more, despite a history of ill health. She made one mistake in the pensions

Typical uninformed or more likely deliberately misleading DM crap. Sally Hunt's payment wasn't a salary at all, unlike the VCs but includes a one off settlement for leaving the job early. How much do VCs get if they are forced out early as a golden handshake, plus their frequently ill-gotten salary?

thing is, how are you going to get that job now? students are at Uni in normal numbers because they don't have this outside option. The alternative is a year at home with Mum and Dad helping out around the home (not).

It's unsurprising that there were large numbers of transactions when the COVID restrictions were lifted - but are transactions over the entire year up or down? I think the predictable short term upturn in transactions is being spinned, in combination with the SDLT bung which to some extent will counteract lower availability of high LTV mortgages. The overall picture of the current "temperature" of the market is necessarily unclear because of the delay to LR data. The spin, benefitting a powerful consortium of aligned vested interests across government, finance, landowners and developers, is t

not round here anyway... my gf has just this minute stormed out for no apparent reason ... ! that's one big if... whose job is safe now?