We're All In This Together .....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was listening to a discussion Radio 5 yesterday, involving the way student loan payments are calculated. After all the fuss the Coalition has created in diverting the indexation of pensions from RPI tp CPI, I was staggered to discover that calculations on student loan repayments are based on RPI.
What a 2-faced lot they are (the government - not the students).

[teamsaint]

well no doubt the torygraph is very understanding of the problems of the spanish unemployed, but I do think they could have found a more convincing photograph !!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9232293/Spain-in-huge-crisis-as-unemployment-hits-record-levels.html

Tough times down in the Peninsula.:sadface:

[teamsaint]

and it comes to something when we have to look to Romania for an ethical stance.and the booting out of yet another corrupt government.
(no offence to Romanians, obviously !!)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/04/romanian-government-falls?fsrc=gn_ep&google_editors_picks=true

[handsomefortune]

well no doubt the torygraph is very understanding of the problems of the spanish unemployed, but I do think they could have found a more convincing photograph !!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9232293/Spain-in-huge-crisis-as-unemployment-hits-record-levels.html

Tough times down in the Peninsula.:sadface:

yes, the pic suggests there's just six people, (mainly 'anoraks', who of course 'like' being poor, and jobless) apparently inconvenienced by the austerity measures in spain team saint!

but on the other hand, the fantastic pics of spanish youth congregated in their thousands, omits the not so young and unemployed from discussion....so the spanish queue pictured perhaps levels things out in this respect.....? but even so, it could have been a longer queue :erm:

at least there's not the 'lazy feckless mediteraneans deserved it' comment attached, that all too quickly hardened some to the plight of greek mass unemployment.

[teamsaint]

at least 5 more years of rising unemployment according to this lot

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9249629/Five-more-years-of-tough-job-market-in-most-of-UK-CEBR-says.html

and that is presumably if things don't really fall apart in the Eurozone......

I can think of a couple of people I wouldn't mind seeing have a spell on the dole..............

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I can think of a couple of people I wouldn't mind seeing have a spell on the dole..............

... but they're the ones who will never experience it.

[amateur51]

Dr Cable tries to spread a little comfort and joy ...

Business Secretary Vince Cable has condemned proposals to make it easier for firms to sack under-performing staff as "the wrong approach".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18142544

I particularly enjoyed the observation "But Mr Cable told the BBC it was not the job of government to "scare the wits" out of people."

Maybe Dr Cable should have a word with Mr Dunkin' Smiff & ATOS - millions of disabled people are living in fearful anticipation at the moment :yikes::grr:

[Serial_Apologist]

Cable's comments about the British workforce already being flexible enough without further legislation reminded me of an A4 sheet passed around at work. Headed "Company motto: Be Flexible", it portrayed standing a naked fugure bent double, head jammed up fundament. :yikes:

[amateur51]

Cable's comments about the British workforce already being flexible enough without further legislation reminded me of an A4 sheet passed around at work. Headed "Company motto: Be Flexible", it portrayed standing a naked fugure bent double, head jammed up fundament. :yikes:

:yikes:

[teamsaint]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/24/free-banking-regulation-debate

they really do think we are stupid.....
but they will get their way I suppose.

[burning dog]

They really dont know how things work. Millions are on zero hours casual contracts and have almost no rights at all.

Even arch Thatcherite Andrew Neil commented "If a businessman can't decide if a worker's not good enough after two years perhaps he shouldn't be "in business" in the first place..."

[ahinton]

They really dont know how things work. Millions are on zero hours casual contracts and have almost no rights at all.

Even arch Thatcherite Andrew Neil commented "If a businessman can't decide if a worker's not good enough after two years perhaps he shouldn't be "in business" in the first place..."

He has a point - but then perhaps at least some of those millions of whom you write ought instead to be the ones "in business" in their own respective right...

[Lateralthinking1]

Disabled disable millionaire Nicholas Clegg's teflon Putney weekend:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18219101

[amateur51]

Apols if this is not quite the right thread for this but ....

Tonight Radio 4 had two stunning programmes, one after the other and they were linked into a rather marvellous what I'd call a "How We Got To Where We are ... And Is There Any Way Out?" discussion primer :biggrin:

At 20:00 there was Michael Portillo's series Things We Forgot To Remember with an episode about the Morgenthau Plan which aimed to strip post-war Germany of its industry and turn it into an agricultural country. It was replaced by the Marshall Plan.There was fascinating detail about how the USSR kept tabs on the whole thing in the pre-Cold War scenario.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jgj0p/Things_We_Forgot_to_Remember_Series_8_Episode_2/

And then at 20:30 there was Analysis: Why Economics Is Bunk with Newsnight's Paul Mason at LSE interviewing Prof Steve Keen, Australian financial academic and possibly the only person who predicted the financial crash before Lehmann Bros.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j5h51

Well done Radio 4 :ok:

[Serial_Apologist]

possibly the only person who predicted the financial crash before Lehmann Bros.

Nah - it was the little cabbie East End guy on 56-Up. Get to watch it if it's still on iPlayer, ams - really excellent programme. Thanks for these links - will check 'em out tomorrow.