NO! We need more expensive, unsubsidised, public transport. This will force businesses to relocate to where the people can afford to travel and live. Building more houses in the south east is a recipe for needing even more taxpayers money to throw down the Labour drain of subsidised public transport. Who in his right mind travels into London ( IMM?), or Edinburgh by public transport? The system is under invested, poorly maintained, filthy and has no concept of customer service. Either it is a service business which the customer is prepared to pay the market price for, or let it go to the wall!
Here's an example, hot off the press. Today we have had Oliver Letwin explaining some of the Tories' proposals for spending should they be elected. It looks like the public services are going to be pared back somewhat.
However, tonight the Trevor McDonald programme on ITV had a piece about the dreadful lack of midwives in the UK and the effect this is having on births all over the country. Apparently we are 10,000 (ten thousand!) midwives short. The midwives that there are are having to work long hours to cope with the pressure.
So, if anything, both Labour and the Tories should be ploughing in
*more* taxpayers' money into the NHS, not less. Another item on the news today was the industrial action by job centre staff and others in that category. A public servant's starting salary mentioned earlier in the day was just over £9,000, so it's no wonder they're out on strike. How can the fourth richest country (so called) allow this to continue? And then wonder why we can't get the staff and increasingly have to rely on people from countries far worse than ours but who are willing to work for a pittance.
Adam Crozier, Royal Mail boss on the other hand gets a basic (basic!) salary of half a million quid! The top people in many other industries receive similar huge sums of dosh. I'd say, a couple of hundred grand should be enough for anybody.
So while managers everywhere are getting paid what I believe to be excessive remunerations, plus perks, share options, and golden goodbyes, we do not have enough staff to run a vital part of the NHS! Neither Gordon's nor Olive's sums add up at all.
For which they get more money than other people in similar professions.
Why not just introduce better tax breaks for people wishing to take private medical care...?
Life has winners and losers. Sounds terribly harsh but should they strike simply because they are low paid? Whilst I believe in freedom I also believe that those people went into those low paid jobs on low pay. If they had all gone in at £30k then had their money cut to £9k I could understand.
This has always been the way since slavery...
Why though? Typical left view (not that I am saying that that is wrong in itself if you can back it up). Adam's salary should be set at a level which he would earn in the next best employment (opportunity cost) for this is the way of the free market.
Are you the communist who would cap earnings at a couple of hundred grand?
A third of my family are employed by the NHS and I can only agree. However, nothing will be done on the back of strikes.
But do people care?
If that many people were bothered about our friend Brown he would be out tomorrow.
But the Royal Bank of Scotland will be announcing a profit this week of £6 billion! The big four banks are reckoned to have made £50,000 EVERY MINUTE of 2003. This is not what I would call a reasonable rate of return. It is greed, pure and simple. A few very highly paid managers are obtaining vast salaries and perks, while the citizens are enticed by beautifully made adverts to get ever deeper into debt. If the chancellor levies another windfall tax on such avaricious behaviour, I for one will cheer loudly. Maybe once day the shysters will realise that if they play fair with the public, there won't be a need to levy windfall taxes.
Administration in the public services as opposed to the "sharp end" should be pared back. Severely. I would do so much more agressively than Letwin is suggesting,.
Investment should be related to the service being delivered, (as it were) not the administration of it.
It should be shut down and replaced with a system appropriate for the
21st century, not one suited to the idealism of the mid 20th.
In effect the taxpayer is the customer of all of this. The question becomes one of do we want to spend more money protecting jobs which can be automated or outsourced to other countries more cheaply or do we want to pay more in tax towards propping up or even increasing the public share of GDP to fund what is ultimately untenable?
To me the answer to that is abundantly clear.
If Royal Mail were working properly then that would be justified. In general I see no reason why senior executives should not receive remuneration at the level that they do. If the shareholders disagree then they can vote accordingly. It really isn't anybody's business what people earn anyway except in so far that director's remuneration goes into annual reports and so forth anyway.
Why? This is a matter between employer, employee and shareholders. It isn't anybody else's business.
The NHS isn't vital at all. It's outmoded and should be replaced by a mixed system of public and private provision. People should contribute to a state fund via tax of some sort and receive healthcare vouchers in return. These could then be spent at state run facilities or topped up with private insurance or payment if the patient wishes private care or earlier treatment.
That is indeed very true and it's a crying shame that so much good property is being scrapped. However, it still fits in with the supply and demand equation, as down south there is the demand but reduced supply, whereas oop north there are no jobs to pay for mortgages.
I agree that an evening out would be a good thing (mine's a pint!). But it's a lot quicker, certainly in the interim, to build more housing wherever possible. You can have new housing available within a few months of planning decisions having been made. But it's much more difficult to persuade thousands of families to move, with all the concommitant issues of work, relatives, roots, schooling, friends to take account of.
Not difficult at all. It was done in the 1950's, they were called "new Towns" and moved many thousands of mainly young people from overcrowded urban conditions to rural areas where work was made available. Then we were stupid enough to build more council houses in the urban areas and provide cheap taxpayer funded transport, surprise, surprise, you get the overcrowded urban living conditions of today.
Some people have no logic or reasoning. The country is short of certain medical people. Shifting millions over to private will only starve the NHS of valuable staff.
And replaced with what? Loons like this always criticise yet never come up with a real solution. They see life from a narrow middle classy perspective.
We could farm everything out to India, and then the cost would be even more to the country in social payments, crime, broken homes etc. No one ever looks at the big picture.
Golden parachutes should be outlawed. They are just despicable.
Fortunately your view is not shared by the shareholders, or they would immediately sell their shares and invest the capital elsewhere. If you actually look at the rate of return on capital employed, which is the real yardstick, you will find that the actual profit per £ of turnover is very low indeed. The customers have real choice in which bank they use, indeed they can always use a non profit credit union if they feel so inclined. The comments I've seen here remind me very much of my definition of a UK motivated by envy and not motivated by the desire to succeed. A highly profitable company can and does afford good wages to the staff and provide a first rate pension scheme, they also pay high taxes. If the directors are successful, then they should be well rewarded. If however they fail, then obviously there should be a corresponding lack of reward. Companies which do not make adequate profits do not pay either wages or taxes. You can't have it both ways.
It is interesting to note, that the banks which were hit with windfall taxes are now generally under new ownership. HSBC of course is now owned offshore. Which one will be next?
Which is wrong. It should be to conduct its business in a professional manner, do the utmost to fulfil customer satisfaction (quality of product and service) and keep employee welfare at the highest levels.
Fulfil the above and returns will be high. The problem is that many companies put the cart before the horse.
80% of debt is mortgages. Back to land not being re-distributed and a planning system geared to keep stinking rich, stinking rich, as we all pay extortionate prices for box homes.
Show me one good doctor who just does private work and I'll show you ten who are able to afford to do both private and public work because of private work.
Of course, what would I know, I clearly lack logic or reasoning.
They are not perfectly good. they are insulation slums they missed the 1950s clearances.
Redo the planning system and allow people back into the countryside. That is the only way. read Low Impact Development.
It is to have them being realistic and not favouring large landowners and large property and building companies.
This will help, but land not being used for the benefit of the people, is the core of the problem. The Capital should be moved to a centralised location in the UK, not central England. An influential think tank recommended this. The capital is in the bottom right had corner of the country, not only that we are over centralised with far too much in one place: government, finance, media, etc.
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