TUC National Demonstration Against Cuts

The banking sector isn't a 'whipping boy' - it actually did mess up very badly.

We have one of the best health services in the world, which is just about to be dismantled by Cameron and his mob.

The dependency between the rich and the poor is mutual. It's the people doing poorly paid, menial jobs that make the world go round.

Society always like a whipping boy. Every generation has had one and at the moment it's bankers.

As we all know we have some of the best financial institutions in the world and most of the poor are dependant in fairly large part on what is earned in the City of London. If we are not careful we will kill the goose which lays the golden eggs.

smallwhitecat oh yeah, you're right, Fred Goodwin retired didn't he.....

coalition it seems that when things at the bottom go wrong it's 'individual failings', when things go wrong at the top, it's 'systemic failure'. That makes me think

How is it competent to be wrong? Don't get it.

Sorry, I haven't read all the posts..

Or to put it even more briefly: if the banks had gone under Sheffield Forgemasters would have been fucked anyway.

Didn't that Hari article already get discussed further up?

newwave "We cant bail out or invest in industry such as Sheffield Forgemasters but we can bail out Banks."

The thing that gets easily forgotten is that bailing out the banks didn't happen because of some cosy sweetheart deal. It happened because if we had a complete meltdown of global financial services then everything would grind to a halt.

Implying that it's a matter of consequence-free choice which industries to bail out is a specious argument. If one heavy industry plant goes under, yes the consequences for its employees are shit but it's not going to cause a global run on banks. Whereas the knock-on effects of Lehman going under shook the world. It's not fair, but it's how things are. Suggesting this is somehow down to political bias is just nonsense.

Yawn, not again!

Couldn't resist posting this..
johannhari.com/2011/03/29/the-biggest-lie-in-british-politics

SWC, they may no longer be working in banking but how much of the money they received on their path to the (almost) destruction of our economy and the banks they worked in have they had to return.

As always it is rewards for faliure at the top (Fred the Shred and his pension for one)

wook - No lots of people are to blame - they were competent but wrong. It's a different model of performance to an incompetent teacher.

The city = guess right, guess right, guess right, guess wrong, guess right, guess right, guess wrong, guess right, guess right, guess right, guess right, guess right, guess right, catastrophic failure, guess right, guess right.

Incompetent teacher = Teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly, teach badly.

This is taking an incompetant to mean someone who can't do their job properly despite adequate training, support etc.

How dare you challenge the competency of the banking filth MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.

We cant bail out or invest in industry such as Sheffield Forgemasters but we can bail out Banks.

so it depends on your definition of competence?!

so no one is to blame- it's a systemic failure?

you could argue the same about all incompetence then, you could say with teachers that it's a systemic thing: bad curriculum model, poor monitoring, management and leadership, wider social issues...

The way people talk about people in the financial services sector, they are some kind of gods. But they failed! They failed in a way that frontline public sector workers would never be forgiven for (by the DM contingent)

wook - Because you may not be the one that picks the model, because following the model even if it's wrong but it makes you money is competent, because competent doesn't mean perfect, because most of the time going along with the consensus is the smart, competent thing to do.

Xenia - There is certainly SOME point debating whether some services are worth it or not, otherwise you might end up cutting something that costs you money instead of saving it.

I would rather not drink anything with Polly Toynbee personally.

how is not realising you are following the wrong model competent?

Glasnost - I don't think I've been even slightly unpleasent to moondog.

I'd rather a perky little Brunello di Montalcino with Polly meself but I'm a Brunello bolshevik.

Actually, incompetence in the City isn't likely to have any serious effects. There are a lot of people in the City, at any one time a large number of them are fucking up. The Banking crisis was a systemic failure brought about by perfectly competent people realising the model they had been following was wrong (or at least incomplete).

Thanks but no thanks Glasnost.
I'd rather sip a cheeky little Chianti with Polly Toynbee.

And to think Coalition exhorted me ages ago on this thread to ne "nice" to types such as moondog. She's evidently embittered and incredibly meanspirited as most rightwingers happen to be. I say: Darling reach out!! And I'll be there!! Etc etc.

I see no signs of the money having run out in some quarters.

moondog I did say there was no excuse for it! Not an airy dismissal. A crap and/or lazy teacher makes me as cross as anyone. IMO, though, it's bad management at middle and top levels in schools that allows those situations to develop or continue, And I still argue that unemployment, social inequality and deprivation do a LOT more to fuck up someone's life chances- therefore the incompetence of the bankers is further removed but far more pernicious. Oh, and as if the shutting of libraries isn't going to ruin people's life chances!!

The phrase 'the money has run out' actually makes me want to sit in a corner and weep.

In the context of global economics, this statement is so shallow and vapid as to be completely meaningless but gets trotted out again and again as, as what? some crude attempt to provide an economic justification for political and ideological decisions? I dunno. Either that or just something to say.

Wook, I agree whole heartedly with you about the redeeming qualities of work and the fact there don't seem to be many proper jobs left. I suspect we will all end up as amorphous blobs, bent permanently over laptops, tapping out 'toolkit's and 'frameworks', wittering about 'stakeholder engagement' and breaking off occasionally to suck at a big foamy milky drink in a cardboard container.

What a shit life.

Maybe the real workers will become the new elite-people who can cook and garden and mend and build?

I can't agree with your airy dismissal of the effect of a poor teacher on a child however.
'a less than satisfactory teacher, well managed, will muck up a year's work for some kids. No excuse for it, but that's as bad as it gets'

A ppor teacher can fuck up someone's life permanently. I've seen it myself. In the words of one of my heroes, Vickie Snider (an educational commentator and academic) there is more redress in the States for selling a bad hamburger than there is for ruining someone's life chances.