The way the Conservatives transformed a crisis of the banks into a crisis of public spending was a stroke of political genius. This year, bankers got away with awarding themselves nearly £14bn

[Tortington]

"The way the Conservatives transformed a crisis of the banks into a crisis of public spending was a stroke of political genius. This year, bankers got away with awarding themselves nearly £14bn of bonuses with barely a word of complaint. Meanwhile, the Tories have carefully constructed the image of a public sector workforce made up of idle, pampered pen-pushers who can easily be disposed of."

Guardian link below

am also liking 't's also classic Tory divide-and-rule politics. Make low-paid call centre and supermarket workers resent nurses and firefighters, and you will destroy any potential unity on issues such as cuts, pensions and rights in the workplace.'

its ok working class people, the rich people still get richer

Interesting posts, Nepko and Barbiegrows.

Niceguy, you said earlier that private companies make more profit than state-run ones. I don't know if that is true, but it's what they do with the profits that worries me. I am happier with the thought that they might be used for building more council houses, say, than for lining the pockets of chief execs. Imo the state sector gets it right more often.

Thanks Solopower.

Nepko that's brilliant. The statistics you linked were so satisfying to read. At first I thought - nah that can't be right, public net borrowing went DOWN from 1999 to 2008 and stayed low. I'm a glaze-over-when-it-comes-to-numbers type of person so it was natural self doubt. But of course you were right, or the ONS is right. The stark truth is that the public is paying the bankers their bonuses.

We bailed out the banks and that's why we're in this pickle. I totally agree with you that we should have let the banks fail. Unfortunately we didn't want to do it alone. I really don't get Gordon Brown at all - he's supposed to be the master strategist - what the hell was he thinking?

But I still think the Guardian are playing conspiracy theories (as usual) by assuming the public thinks that public sector workers are a bunch of lazy arses. If they listened to people other than their readers they would know the public don't think this. They should have worked on this one when their hero Gordon was arsing around with bank bailouts 3 years ago, it's too late to bleat about it now.

Yes Solo, I'd be happier with that thought too. Except we all know it wouldn't happen that way.

Publically owned companies have no need to make profits and therefore no incentive. So why invest in new technology? Why sack workers who are not performing? Why take a risk opening up new stores/products?

Most of the profits made by multinationals don't go into "lining the pockets of the chief execs". Sure some of it does in the form of bonuses and those numbers would seem quite obscene to most of us. But the vast majority of shares are held by investments such as our pension schemes.

So the worse companies do, the less profits they make, the worse our pensions get. Well that is unless you are a public sector worker who's pensions are funded by the taxpayer.

Thing is niceguy, the money held in pension schemes is just as unfairly distributed as the rest of the money in this country. The wealthy do very nicely indeed out of them, the middle don't do particularly well, and those at the bottom of the heap get very little indeed or sod-all because they can't even afford to pay into a pension.

And, just as in any other area of financial services, they've been used as a way to rip off ordinary people. Opting out of Serps gave financial advisers fat rewards, did fuck all for the saver in most cases. Then there were several cases of fat cats who were able to plunder pension schemes, stealing all the money their workers had paid in.

No, I disagree, Niceguy. Making a profit isn't the only incentive. The NHS doesn't make a profit, and is always investing in new technology and research, and of course it sacks workers who are not 'performing'. Same with schools and universities, libraries and local government etc.

Barblegrows, on the other two forums I visit there is most definitly a perception that public workers are all lazy, feckless layabouts. The other perception is that everyone on the dole has a 50" plasma with SkyHD and takes 3 holidays a year.

As for conspiratory theories in the Graunuad, that's what they were accused of with the phone hacking scandal, is that what you're refering to ?

Hi Solo. I guess it depends on whether or not you think the NHS is best or not. There's always a trade off.

Personally I love the concept of the NHS but I believe it's become too large, too bureaucratic and too afraid to take risks. If our NHS is "always investing" why is it then that people travel to the US for pioneering operations, treatments? It's because their private system provides incentives for doctors (aka money) that they push the boundaries more than we do.

That said I don't want the US system as the trade off for having leading edge treatments is to leave the poor behind who can't pay. Not something I'm willing to trade off.

Again schools. I suspect most of us if we could afford it would send our kids to a private school than state. You only have to look at the league tables to see that time & time again private schools kick the arses of state schools.

I grant that profit isn't the ONLY incentive but it's a bloody big one. And I also believe privatisation isn't always the answer. No-one wants to see a private police service or army. Even the Tories who are the most right wing of the 3 main parties would never dare privatise the NHS wholesale. They might tinker around the edges but that's it.

GentlemanGin, I had the misfortune of picking up a Daily Fail today and have to concur that the papers are feeding a myth but I don't think people actually believe that. I agree that on mn there are a lot of people that begrudge people on benefits but that's a different matter. This is about the myth of public sector workers laziness.

I used to read the Grauniad but I found that they were constantly tearing apart New Labour through lazy journalism that was designed to influence rather than inform their readers. The Daily Fail does exactly the same thing, it's probably just me but I want information and news from a newspaper, not a load of propaganda. I've been reading the Tory Times for a while now, despite being a socialist, I just find its reporting better.

The phone hacking scandal actually was common knowledge for years, it has only just been turned into a scandal recently. The Grauniad decided it was time to make an scandal for a reason - to bring down Murdoch's BSkyB bid - pure self-preservation, not the common socialist good that they purport to live by.

I'm just glad that kids are taught how to read through the lies in newspapers in citizenship lessons at school. We need a generation of cynics to break this cycle of propaganda.

Singforsupper. Hmm. You really think the Guardian just decided to make it into a scandle ?

They may well have an anti Murdoch line to tow, but they were pretty much the only paper to keep the preasure up despite constant accusations from all sectors , including polititians, that it was simply them, as a poster upthread said, chasing conpiracy theories. Boris Johnson said it was all codswhallop, until they were prooved right of course.

But the idea that the Guardian decided to make it a scandal is ludicrous. It became a scandal because of their stamina and persistance. The police were forced to re examine the records. And lo ! It was indeed the scandal they said it was involving polititians, media moguls and the police.

Funnilly enough that story didn't get a great deal of coverage in the Times or the Sun...... I wonder why.

But horses for courses. I personally find the Guardian, with all it's faults, a far more reliable news source than any other paper.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services

GG, I just meant that phone hacking was going on for years and was known to be going on, by everyone. The first I remember about it was the Charles and Camilla story and the verdict was 'aren't they a bit stoopid letting their phone get hacked?' The Grauniad was not jumping around saying 'this is immoral practice'.

I may go back to the Grauniad one day but I read far too many articles that are just hot air and political agenda and I haven't got time for that.

Custardo it's great to see an article that is so positive about the NHS. (I am its greatest fan, btw, and boast about it to foreign friends and acquaintances). Niceguy, the US system is very unfair on anyone who doesn't have insurance - glad you don't like it either!

yes it is for a bloody change isn't it

^Design: Economic inputs into healthcare, GDP health expenditure
(GDPHE) were compared with clinical outputs, i.e. total ?adult? (15?74
years) and ?older? (55?74 years) mortality rates based upon three-year
average mortality rates for 1979?81 vs. 2003?2005. A cost-effective ratio
was calculated by dividing average GDPHE into reduced mortality rates
over the period.^ taken from the source of the Grauniad article - research from the Royal Society of Medicine.

The research upon which this was based makes the assumption that a reduction in mortality rates over 22 years is caused by an efficiency in the country's health service. I'm no statistician but this difference could have a different cause - this research does not take that into account. It could be smoking, obesity, population shift, these are not directly related to health services.

To me this is more Grauniad mindwaffle.

So the royal society of medicine's research is mind waffle? sing why don't you find some research that indicates that the NHS is bloated etc etc as the Tories would have us believe...?

Thanks for the links sprog

The Information is beautiful site is brilliant.

Let's come back to this subject in 4 years time, when the cuts are really biting hard. At the moment they're not effecting too many of us, but when they do then this conversation will be completely different!!
I can remember the last time the Tories were in power because I had my daughter in a very run down hospital in 1996. It was a very frightening experience indeed! I can also remember how the schools at that time were!
It was a horrid period for the working class person and I just can't believe that we as a Country would want to go back to those days, but it seems like we're heading there fast!!!

The Labour Party want everyone to think the cuts are caused by the banking crisis. The recession was partly caused by the banking crisis, but the cuts are being made because we owe too much money. We have simply spent too much in the past and it has to be paid back. The recession and the deficit are different things, OK?

The deficit was caused by overspending by the Labour Party, not by the bankers. In fact the tax paid by the City largely paid for the Government and it still does.

Sorry, but having worked in private and public sector, I've seen the lack of productivity in the civil service, the nonsense and the waste. It isn't dogma that makes the conservatives want to save money, it's common sense. We simply need more people being productive, and less people doing nothing or very little. That's how we get richer and have more money to spend on public services, welfare etc.

Publically owned companies have no need to make profits and therefore no incentive. So why invest in new technology? Why sack workers who are not performing? Why take a risk opening up new stores/products?

Publicly owned companies don't need to a profit incentive to research and invest; it's part of their mandate that they do so. The army isn't private, yet invests in military technology all the time.

Most of the profits made by multinationals don't go into "lining the pockets of the chief execs". Sure some of it does in the form of bonuses and those numbers would seem quite obscene to most of us. But the vast majority of shares are held by investments such as our pension schemes.

Actually, it seems to be increasingly the case that they do, regardless of the performance of the company.

So the worse companies do, the less profits they make, the worse our pensions get. Well that is unless you are a public sector worker who's pensions are funded by the taxpayer.

It it not an automatic axiom by any means that penions are related to the profits of a company. Companies will try to reduce pensions as much as possible in any case in order to reduce costs. Private companies don't run of fairness, they run on maximising profit.

Finn

The Labour Party want everyone to think the cuts are caused by the banking crisis.

That's because they are. Or rather, the cuts are caused by a coalition with no mandate to implement these cuts, in order to reduce the deficit caused by the banking crisis.

The recession was partly caused by the banking crisis, but the cuts are being made because we owe too much money.

Err, no, that's wrong. The recession was entirely caused by the banking crisis. The banking crisis cost the taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds and caused a recession. The recession caused a loss of tax receipts and an increase in welfare spending. The loss of tax receipts increased the deficit to the unsustainable level it is now: 11%.

Before the 2008 banking crisis, the deficit was at 3%, which is about the european average. There was no 'deficit crisis' in 2008.

We have simply spent too much in the past and it has to be paid back. The recession and the deficit are different things, OK?

This is simply wrong. We haven't spent too much in the past. We don't have an enormous debt. We are experiencing a deficit crisis, not a debt crisis. Our debt, as percentage of GDP, is lower than:

Italy, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and Israel, not name but a few countries. The debt in the UK is historically low.

So no, you can't separate the two things. Trying to do so is dishonest and disingenuous. Some facts:

• Spending on public services in the UK is relatively low compared with many other european countires

• Before the recession, the deficit was 3% of GDP. After the recession, caused by the banking crisis, it grew to over 11%

• If the deficit problem was caused by the UK 'overspending' (it wasn't), then the deficit problem would be confined to the UK. In fact, many Western Capitalist democracies are in the midst of a deficit crisis. This is because they are all suffering from a global recession, caused by the banking crisis.

The deficit was caused by overspending by the Labour Party, not by the bankers. In fact the tax paid by the City largely paid for the Government and it still does.

This is wrong. Plain and simple, as I have shown. The deficit was 3% immediately before the recession. What has happened, in effect, is that the banking crisis has become a sovereign debt crisis, as the cost of the recession and bailouts is transferred to the tax payer.

Sorry, but having worked in private and public sector, I've seen the lack of productivity in the civil service, the nonsense and the waste. It isn't dogma that makes the conservatives want to save money, it's common sense. We simply need more people being productive, and less people doing nothing or very little. That's how we get richer and have more money to spend on public services, welfare etc.

No, it's definitely dogma from the conservatives that public bad, private good. They are exploiting the situation we are in to implement cuts which they would have loved to do anyway. Then you partisan party voters trying to pretend that the global deficit problem was caused by too much public spending. It's a lie, and a pernicious one at that.

Drastically cutting public spending during a recession is exactly the wrong thing to do, and we are now seeing the results of such poor policies: and extended recession and civil unrest.

Expect more of the same.

thanks for starting this thread.
I'm spitting feathers that taxpayers are supporting these bloody men who were so incompetent at their jobs that they apparently didn't even realize what they were doing as they were creating the crash! And their incompetence is rewarded with bonuses? From the hard-earned wages of women (and men)? In order to support "jobs for the big boys" at the top? ANd to support men's wars? Women, who are often forced to work in low-paid, part time jobs to "fit around the kids" -- are actually -subsidizing these already-wealthy men through their taxes?!!!?!!?!

The bankers are the biggest scroungers in history. And as for this government, "bunch of cunts clowns" springs to mind.

the bankers who caused this financial crash, through their greed and negligence should be in jail. Pure and simple. They are criminals and thieves.

Instead we are supporting them? It's crazy,

In Iceland the only bank that didn't flounder was run by women and shortly afterwards they elected a female lesbian prime minister into power. People sensed it was not a coincidence that the bank's policy had been "we never invest in something we don't understand"

When you read about how the bankers in the UK were operating they didn't have the first clue about how to do their jobs, and the ones that did were corrupt and greedy, and yet their salaries were mind-boggling.