De-railed. Is English your second language?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight
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De-railed. Is English your second language?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight
Utter pish, these people are mostly a waste of good air. I have to deal with quite a few of them and they are unfit for purpose. They'd not get work any where else other than the public sector. They think sick days are part and parcel of their job contract, feckless parasites.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
If they were oh so essential how did the NHS manage pre 1997 without them?
My problem with the radical changes being introduced are that before the election we were explicitely promised that there would be no such re-organisation of the NHS, and yet the plans were unveiled within weeks of the coalition being formed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
This means that either (a) the plans were cobbled together without much thought or care, or (b) the Conservatives told a blatent lie.
Worse, the bill has only just been published but the changes are being pushed though before it's been properly debated - let alone voted on. In my local PCT the changeover is so far advanced that even if the bill were to be defeated the process is pretty much irreversable. This stinks of idealogical change rather than being driven by the needs of the patient.
GPs have two choices. Either manage their own commissioning, thereby spending less time with patients; or pay a private management company to do the same job as the PCT they replaced but at a profit.
Expect to hear the tabloids' staple phrase "postcode lottery" replace the other staple of "government interference" over the next few years.
On a seperate note, it appears that the coalition's policies are depressing the economy and - as my bolding illustrates - it cannot entirely be blamed on the weather:
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...-five-per-centQuote:
The UK economy shrunk by a shock 0.5% in the last quarter of 2010 as Britain's recovery from recession faltered.
Most of the unexpected contraction was caused by the wintry weather that gripped Britain last month, the Office for National Statistics said. Without it, GDP would probably have been flat – suggesting that the UK economy had already run out of steam before the snow hit the country.
Or, as some people have a distrust of The Guardian :
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...nks-0.5pc.htmlQuote:
George Osborne insisted that the Government will press ahead with planned cuts to public spending, despite warnings from forecasters that the economy may be too weak to withstand the package.
...
"This is a horrendous figure. An absolute disaster for the economy," said Hetal Mehta, an economist at Daiwa Capital Markets Europe.
"We knew that retail sales were heavily affected and that services output would be weak, but the collapse in construction was a major contributor the downside surprise."
And this was all before the effects of the VAT increase bite. In fact, the looming increase may actually have helped last quarter as consumers and businesses brought forward purchases.
It's not working, is it?
No, but that doesn't matter. The important thing is that it's all Labour and the public sector's fault.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave B
No no, the important thing is we're all in it together.
Unless you're a banker who isn't having his bonus taxed at a higher rate despite a promise to do so; or a foreign media tycoon looking to have a buyout rubber-stamped despite OFCOM recommending it be referred to the Competition Commission.
or public sector as they seem to think they are above cutsQuote:
Originally Posted by Dave B
What did Labour do re bank bonuses? Yep sweet f a and during the bail out was the ideal time to put in some kind of ceiling, so the coalition's hands are tied re penalising banker's bonuses, so yet again that is Labour's fault not the coalition's.
The only way to get folk spending is tax cuts and we can't have them until Labour's debts have been reduced, so massive cuts to public spending have to come first.
Can you follow this?
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...-government.do
yes or no?
Overall, a terrible headline reading, probably exacerbated by the weather. Nonetheless, weak even without the weather and likely to reinforce our below-consensus growth forecast for this year.
Alan Clarke, UK economist at BNP Paribas
Sadly there seems to be little in the way of confidence that there will be a turnaround in the industry's prospects in 2011, and with the full effect of public sector cuts yet to feed through, there may very well be further bad news to come in future quarters.
Alasdair Reisner, Civil Engineering Contractors Association
While bad weather has had some impact, the sharp fall in activity should serve as a stark warning that growth and the recovery cannot be taken for granted. Manufacturing remains the one bright spot on the landscape clouded with uncertainty but there are widespread challenges at home and abroad that could still dent growth this year.
Jeegar Kakkad, EEF senior economist
Although heavily affected by the weather, the UK's shockingly bad Q4 GDP figures revealing a 0.5% quarterly drop will nonetheless raise serious concerns over whether the economy is in a strong enough position to withstand the coming fiscal tightening. The ONS estimates that weather effects knocked about 0.5% off GDP in Q4 so, even without the impact, the underlying growth picture is significantly weaker than expected.
Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist, Capital Economics
Strong demand from overseas markets such as Germany, China and the Middle East raises our hopes that UK exporters will have continued to help offset domestic weakness and revive the recovery, but the chances of a double-dip recession have surely increased.
Chris Williamson, chief economist, Markit
This is a horrendous figure. An absolute disaster for the economy.
Hetal Mehta, UK economist, Daiwa Capital Markets Europe
It is reasonable to expect that there will be a bounce back in growth in the first quarter of 2011 as some of December's lost activity to the weather is made up. However, this is likely to prove temporary as growth is likely to be increasingly pressurised by fiscal tightening increasingly kicking in, starting with the already enacted VAT hike from 17.5% to 20%
Howard Archer, chief European & UK economist, IHS Global Insight
Alongside weak growth, we now have the very real prospect that more money will be printed, which will further dilute Sterling. Stagflation is now a real and imminent threat.
Although the extreme weather conditions would certainly have contributed to the shock performance of the economy in Q4, the real reasons for its continued stagnation are far more fundamental.
Consumer spending and demand have been decimated by rising unemployment, rising living costs and the prospect that rates could rise sooner rather than later as inflation runs out of control.
Christina Weisz, a director of foreign exchange specialists, Currency Solutions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...e-analysts-say
:mad:
Yes. It's overly simplistic and deeply flawed. It fails to take into account, just for starters, the revenue brought to the exchequer by those notional employees when they spend their wages - the 20% VAT for example. The economy is a bit more complicated than I think you understand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight
DanielQuote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
You are avoiding the facts and posting the same nonsense time and time again. It doesn't change anything apart from making you look blinkered and ignorant to rational debate.
We both agree that the scrappage scheme paid for itself by the amount of VAT raised on the sale of new cars, yes?
51,000 were sold of which 46,000 were foreign imports, yes?
So, answer me the following points please.
1. How many new cars would have been sold to those people if the scrappage scheme wasn't in place? 10%? 20%? 30%?
2. Where is the VAT Tax revenue that these sales would have generated?
3. If we take the average amount of contribution to be a grand a car, how much of the £50M remained in the UK?
The car scrappage scheme was good for the people that bought new cars but as far as being this great job generator, it's all smoke and mirrorw. At best it artificially bolstered some existing jobs which will have gone now and as for all these new car salesman, what's happened to them?
No, my old Dingleberry, it was a smoke and mirrors stunt that on the surface hasn't cost anything, when you scratch the surface, it explains the mentality of a Government that spent, spent, spent until the country was basically bankrupt.
Oh yes, we can bang the Global Financial Crisis gong all we like but the sad fact is that apart from a few heavily subsidised European countries, the UK is at the top of the pile for debt.
At the moment, we owe a slither less than one Trillion pounds and if you take into account things like the pension liability bombshell (oh yes, we haven't even really considered that yet), then the figure is eye wateringly large. But even without this, for the first time since the early severnties, debt has passed 50% of our GDP and even with all the cuts so far, it's increasing.
So, in conclusion, we know you like the scrappage scheme but it wasn't a success but a distraction and although it propped up the car trade for a bit, it did so by shipping millions of pounds offland to foreign car makers.