Uk's Miracle Economy Is Falling Apart At The Seams

[1632656]

Fudged inflation figures is finally starting to catch up with GB...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6798163,00.html

"The retail price index is currently running at 4.4% so a 2.5% rise is already well below the level of inflation. Staging it has reduced its value still further. Our health workers deserve better and need more just to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Time is running out, no longer can he continue to trick the British people.

Edited July 23, 2007 by studdymx

[THE BALD MAN]

Fudged inflation figures are finally starting to catch up with GB...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6798163,00.html

Time is running out, no longer can he continue to trick the British people.

It must mean the Tories are really bad if they can not do well at the recent elections with all the bad news around. Bring back Willaim Hague!!

[Minos]

It must mean the Tories are really bad if they can not do well at the recent elections with all the bad news around. Bring back Willaim Hague!!

I don't think a bald man will make it as a prime minister, but I have to agree. Or Ken Clarke - forgetting that he's a Bilderberger.

[insidetrack]

The vast majority of government workers have no industrial muscle. The few that do are well looked after.

If they strike they lose money and end up not being able to pay their bills/mortgages. Anyways the government is skint. The PSBR, even allowing for trick accounting, is huge and growing.

Looks like the vast army of public employees are going to have to take some wage erosion.

[The Ayatollah Buggeri]

It must mean the Tories are really bad if they can not do well at the recent elections with all the bad news around. Bring back Willaim Hague!!

The two recent elections were both in Labour strongholds, and the candidate in one of them defected to the Tories after he was about to be thrown out of Labour, because he fiddled his taxes. Even so, Labour's majority was significantly reduced in both constituencies.

The vast majority of government workers have no industrial muscle. The few that do are well looked after.

The GPs, most of whom are on over £100k a year, for example.

If they strike they lose money and end up not being able to pay their bills/mortgages.

Plus their unions are incompetent, and run by people who couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag: hence the reason we (university lecturers) threw in the towel just before the government would have been on their knees, and accepted a real-terms pay cut for the next three years.

[nowthenagain]

Looks like the vast army of public employees are going to have to take some wage erosion.

sounds fair to me. the rest of us will simply get made redundant.

[Warwick-Watcher]

Fudged inflation figures is finally starting to catch up with GB...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6798163,00.html

Time is running out, no longer can he continue to trick the British people.

Of course the good old Barnet Formula ensures that the Celtic fringe nations can afford to pay the full 2.5% immediately. So GB is only sticking it to nurses etc. in England. Why the hell won't the Tories make more of this issue. England should get fair treatment for health as much as the fringes.

[NoIdea]

I don't think a bald man will make it as a prime minister, but I have to agree. Or Ken Clarke - forgetting that he's a Bilderberger.

Winston Churchill?

Marget Thatcher was a women also....okay not bald but certainly a woman.

[crashmonitor]

Public sector workers are being remarkably restrained over these two percent in real terms pay cuts.I honestly think there is unwitting collusion on the part of the 75% or so who own property.You can strike and have 4% and we will increase interest rates and sink your property equity or you can take a 2% cut and we will add £20 000 to your MEW fund because restaint equals 10% HPI.The choice is yours 4% and property collapse or restraint and 10% HPI?20K on the MEW fund please.

Edited July 23, 2007 by crashmonitor

[munimula]

Fudged inflation figures is finally starting to catch up with GB...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6798163,00.html

Time is running out, no longer can he continue to trick the British people.

My gf is a nurse and from first hand experience I can tell you that nurses are the most hard done by out of all the public sector workers.

Grossly overworked and underpaid.

Firemen get paid £30K and don't need to go to uni. They sleep half their shifts and work second jobs. They probably claim it's danger money.

Well frontline nursing staff face far greater danger, attacks from patients, needles etc. My gf got hit by a patient recently.

They have to work nights and then their day off is the day following nights!!!! This effectively means that she only gets on average 1 day off per week which is sh*t. She can't get 2 days off in a row. If she did she would end up working 9-11 days in a row without a break because the day off after nights doesn't count as a day off, she has to sleep most of it!

To get 3 days off last week to visit parents she has had to do 3 early-late shifts. Starting at 7am and finishing at 9pm! Just to get 3 days off in a row.

And nurses never strike because they put their patients first.

I really don't know how they do it, I couldn't. She is constantly shattered, it is such a physical and mentally demanding job.

Quality nursing staff just don't stay in these demanding frontline hospital jobs. Why would you? And the insult of a pay cut is just incredible.

Yes, GPs have done very well out of new government contracts but my girlfriend is highly trained, has to work unsociable hours including nights, gets the equivalent of 1 day off work per week and she is paid less than the UK average.

It's sick.

Edited July 23, 2007 by munimula

[THE BALD MAN]

I don't think a bald man will make it as a prime minister, but I have to agree. Or Ken Clarke - forgetting that he's a Bilderberger.

What is wrong with being bald?? It is a known fact bald men have a high sex appeal to women.

[THE BALD MAN]

The vast majority of government workers have no industrial muscle. The few that do are well looked after.

If they strike they lose money and end up not being able to pay their bills/mortgages. Anyways the government is skint. The PSBR, even allowing for trick accounting, is huge and growing.

Looks like the vast army of public employees are going to have to take some wage erosion.

The governement has massive liabilitie under its PFI iniative (otherwise known as Enron for the public sector). Just look at Metronet.

[Guest Popalot]

Public sector workers are being remarkably restrained over these two percent in real terms pay cuts.I honestly think there is unwitting collusion on the part of the 75% or so who own property.You can strike and have 4% and we will increase interest rates and sink your property equity or you can take a 2% cut and we will add £20 000 to your MEW fund because restaint equals 10% HPI.The choice is yours 4% and property collapse or restraint and 10% HPI?20K on the MEW fund please.

I think MEW is definitely in the equation, but in an unconscious way. Basically most of the country have been duped into below inflation salary rises for several years because they have the House ATM. What they have not really clicked about is that not only are they paying repayment interest on the MEW, so they are losing what is rightfully theirs in slaary increases and to add insult to injury then paying interest on a loan against their house to make up the difference. For some, they have just been using it like a drawdown (Woolwich product) when end of month is tight. For most IMHO they have been splurging a la our celebrity wannabe culture and will soon face financial armageddon. You can't re-sell a holiday in Dubai, Posh Spice accoutrements, and the second hand price of 4WDs is greened to plummet.

[crashmonitor]

My gf is a nurse and from first hand experience I can tell you that nurses are the most hard done by out of all the public sector workers.

Grossly overworked and underpaid.

Firemen get paid £30K and don't need to go to uni. They sleep half their shifts and work second jobs. They probably claim it's danger money.

Well frontline nursing staff face far greater danger, attacks from patients, needles etc. My gf got hit by a patient recently.

They have to work nights and then their day off is the day following nights!!!! This effectively means that she only gets on average 1 day off per week which is sh*t. She can't get 2 days off in a row. If she did she would end up working 9-11 days in a row without a break because the day off after nights doesn't count as a day off, she has to sleep most of it!

To get 3 days off last week to visit parents she has had to do 3 early-late shifts. Starting at 7am and finishing at 9pm! Just to get 3 days off in a row.

And nurses never strike because they put their patients first.

I really don't know how they do it, I couldn't. She is constantly shattered, it is such a physical and mentally demanding job.

Got to agree with this.How come Fireman get 30K when there are 100 applicants for every job and nurses get 25K and we can't fill the posts so ship them in from Thailand.Why is it that the laws of supply are turned on their head in pricing labour in the public sector.

[munimula]

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We continue to discuss with the unions potential solutions to the 2007/08 pay award. The pay award for health professionals in England is a fair award reflecting the balance between the right level of pay and the need to be vigilant against the threats of inflation."

Should underpaid health workers be made to accept pay cuts to help control inflation?

That was the job of the BoE - to raise interest rates

It is not the job of health workers to control inflation by accepting pay cuts.

They should be getting 6% pay rises to reward them for keeping the health service on its legs because it is only the staff that is keeping it going...just

[snap_crackle_and_pop]

Should underpaid health workers be made to accept pay cuts to help control inflation?

That was the job of the BoE - to raise interest rates

It is not the job of health workers to control inflation by accepting pay cuts.

This is absolute genius - why hasn't anyone put this question forward to the politiciansand BOE!?

[munimula]

This is absolute genius - why hasn't anyone put this question forward to the politiciansand BOE!?

Well it is ridiculous.

The BoE hasn't done it's job and now instead of using interest rates to control inflation they want everybody to get poorer in terms of their real incomes to control in inflation instead.

If the Tories can't pick up on this then they may aswell all go and join the Monster Raving Looney party.

[Far Out Bear]

This is absolute genius - why hasn't anyone put this question forward to the politiciansand BOE!?

The problem is too much consumption by government. The government has finite capacity to extract purchasing power from the tax payer (inflation comes to an end one day - they have gotten good at dragging the process out!)

Either the government must pay less to those people it employs, or it must employ less people. Neither of these are acceptable to the public in general and to those unions in particular. The government is always a prisoner of its budget, indeed of its own past.

[sign_of_the_times]

This is absolute genius - why hasn't anyone put this question forward to the politiciansand BOE!?

come on Laurejon - get your mate Dave to make this his first question to GB at next PMQ's !

[meow]

Public sector workers are being remarkably restrained over these two percent in real terms pay cuts.I honestly think there is unwitting collusion on the part of the 75% or so who own property.You can strike and have 4% and we will increase interest rates and sink your property equity or you can take a 2% cut and we will add £20 000 to your MEW fund because restaint equals 10% HPI.The choice is yours 4% and property collapse or restraint and 10% HPI?20K on the MEW fund please.

Is a 2% cut not in actual fact a sneaky threat? Take it or you'll all be sacked.

[munimula]

The problem is too much consumption by government. The government has finite capacity to extract purchasing power from the tax payer (inflation comes to an end one day - they have gotten good at dragging the process out!)

Either the government must pay less to those people it employs, or it must employ less people. Neither of these are acceptable to the public in general and to those unions in particular. The government is always a prisoner of its budget, indeed of its own past.

Well here's an idea. Apparently single mothers get around £487 per week if they work just 6 hours per week after all their benefits are paid. And they don't have to work until kids are 16 even though by then the kids have all been out of the house on the streets causing trouble for years.

This is more than my girlfriend gets paid working as a frontline hospital nurse in critical illness ward for 37.5 hours a week including very unsociable hours.

So how about a bit of re-distribution of taxes to the people tha actually deserve it.

[Far Out Bear]

Public sector workers are being remarkably restrained over these two percent in real terms pay cuts.I honestly think there is unwitting collusion on the part of the 75% or so who own property.You can strike and have 4% and we will increase interest rates and sink your property equity or you can take a 2% cut and we will add £20 000 to your MEW fund because restaint equals 10% HPI.The choice is yours 4% and property collapse or restraint and 10% HPI?20K on the MEW fund please.

There is no collusion.

What you're whitnessing is like the fat kid at school that just wants to be everyone's friend. You can get him to say anything and do anything, no matter how stupid or contradictory, just by being nice to him.

The government is the same. They want to be all things to all people, they just want to get voted in and they don't care about anything else. They'll say what they need to say and they'll spend whatever they need to spend to stay popular.

And the BoE are not some kind of counterbalance moral authority, there to safeguard the interests of the public. The truth is quite the OPPOSITE. They're just propaganda merchants, designed to implement the government's inflationary policy. Nothing more - Just grow already.

This is public sector pay thing has barely begun, give it a couple of years (when real wages have fallen 20% - 30% or so) just like in the seventies. It's not just government that is hopelessly malinvested, inflation has created similar circumstances in many industries - Royal Mail is another disaster brewing. It's a massive shit storm. I would urge you to examine your finances and try to take some sort of cover.

[meow]

So how about a bit of re-distribution of taxes to the people tha actually deserve it.

Yeah, but that would be a fair and sensible idea setting a good example to rest of society, would good would come from that?

[PricedOutNative]

I would urge you to examine your finances and try to take some sort of cover.

How?????

[Sinking Feeling]

In my experience there are a lot of public sector jobs which pay more than the private sector for less work. Unless private sector incomes increase substantially I'm not sure where any extra money is supposed to come from.