Oy get orf my chest!!!



The FTSI is down today, watching the stock market it usually does rise after any fiscal announcement but will change after full analysis.

Growth in the economy does not always come for one thing. But it comes from basically from employment being high, thus creating more demand for goods, thus creating more demand for labour, thus increasing GDP. Not necessarily what jobs people are doing, and I disagree there will not always be plenty of dosh to splash about – thats what recessions are (slumps in growth) and depressions (stagnate growth).

But there IS money out there at the moment, I'm sure they are right, in that we have actually come OUT of that depression now, or almost so. The shopping malls are still full (or were when I last popped into Brighton). I recently went to book a very "posh" hotel for the night for my 60th birthday, and do you know what, they were ALL fully booked for that week-end and there I was thinking we were in a depression The shops are still selling their 50" tv's, so somebody out there has money to spend even in these times. As I said, the actual ratio of this new lot of redundancies set against the working commodity, will be but a fraction, i.e. we're not talking half the population being made redundant here are we (or ARE we???!!)

Demand can of course be a problem, the less disposable income people have (unemployment, less benefits etc) demand for goods and services will drop, labour requirement drops, GDP drops. This is when many governments step in and try to create a economic growth by increasing public spending, building schools, roads etc. Its a very fine line to draw as you can imagine.

I think therein could lie the problem with Brown's previous overspending perhaps, not to mention his overborrowing!

And there endith you economic lesson for the day – hopefully not too boring. Its a fascinating topic and one I used to study in depth so sorry if Im either boring you or telling you something you already know.

Lol, no, I for one actually find it very interesting. We did economics at college along with my shorthand/typing course (why I shall never know!), but I used to bunk off on those days (now I wish I'd stuck around)!

Politics are not my strong point, as I say Im more interested in macroeconomics but it would take an extensive redefining of the boundaries to increase the polling areas, so you could end up with an MP from inner city Manchester representing people living in rural lancashire for instance. It has been done before the problem lies in that which ever party is in power will always skew it to their own advantage (not all MP's are honest dont ya know).

Im not sure about Jols method of cutting MP's in half! Just think if they survived it would double the amount of MP's!!!


We could of course just get rid of the Lords.

Yes, why don't we do that I wonder?

To get into microeconomics and the police etc. the Home Office budget is being cut by over 20% and whilst many effected will be those pen pushers people hate so much, that amount of cut in budget cannot feasibly only come from that sector. The government have not actually said that front line police will NOT be cut.

From what I heard, they say they will cut out staff from the "back room" rather than the front line. If ONLY, they would do something to sort out the reams of paperwork these poor guys have to go through, it would probably make them so much more efficient in the real work they do!

At the end of the day with these cuts it will still be the poorer section of society that will lose the most and the top end lose the least.

H, ther were 17 people made redundant from the Leisure and communities department, I can only speak for that department but I know others lost their jobs throughout Scotland when working for local authorities when they had a big drive to break up regions - it was done under the guidse of local government reorganisation.

It could well be different in Scotland, maybe they already had their own sort out before the main government came up with these latest ideas perhaps, don't know on that one, but it's always been considered a safe bet down here to work in the public sector, for fear of redundancies I mean, it just doesn't happen. It's also been considered a highly paid job, no matter what the job. If you look in the local paper, you see numerous adverts for council jobs, and we're always quite surprised at the high wages for a 20 hour week. I might actually try and find one just to confirm this! I know the local bin men earn an absolute fortune, and then they're always working overtime, but maybe that's why we get all our bins emptied every single week, and maybe my particular council is rich, because in all honestly, I haven't noticed any cut backs around here, we still have all our roundabouts landscaped with pretty flowers all summer long, all the baskets in town, the grass is cut weekly on all the verges, the library is open although nobody goes in there, I have two friendly policeman in my village (real ones too, not the specials!)

Yes it was local government and yes it was reorganisation so I guess they named it well. And now....the talk in my work is that they will go back to the old way of a regional organisation not a local so instead of say Dundee it will be Tayside when Tayside doesn't even exist as an actual boundary anymore!

I know what you are saying avout it being "our" money that goes to paying wages etc so it is more emotive but I don't understand why it doesn't worry you or maybe worry is the wrong word, why you think it affects you less if its the private sector. they have to cover costs too, so for example Tesco, or Marks and Spencer , charge a price for their goods, the price they charge is factored on a lot of things but a main factor is the cost, so if they did not have to pay sick pay to those memebers of staff who are not really sick , as well as overtime to staff who have to cover shifts then your shopping would be cheaper, therefore everyone who is a consumer subsidises the sick and the surplus staff in even the private sector. Yes I admit their will be less surplus staff but I can bet my last dollar, or pound, that there are many instances still surplus staff, they just still make a profit by charging higher prices for services and goods than would be necessary if the kiddy on sick and the surplus staff were weeded out

I am not a manager..............but he was one of our managers.

So no one doing your job has been murdered then or had a serious assault ??

Sorry but I have been assaulted more than once, had my vehice damaged & property stolen all because of my "cushy"job, seen colleagues go into to meltdown & finally followed. My health is so badly damaged by the job I did that no matter how much I would like I cannot get another job, no one would employ me !!

Thank goodness I'm almost of state retirement pension age(I don't qualify until Jan 2011 one of the first to officially retire after my 60th birthday)

I feel I have to reply if the job was that bad for gods sake why didnt you leave.

No job in the world is worth putting life or health at risk.

But no you stayed and then moaned.

how many times do i have to say it..

a job is only a job

get another one .

I feel I have to reply if the job was that bad for gods sake why didnt you leave.

No job in the world is worth putting life or health at risk.

But no you stayed and then moaned.

how many times do i have to say it..

a job is only a job

get another one.

Great for the likes of my parents who are both retired and paid their way all their lives (middle income, not high flyers), now scraping to get by on pensions but not actually on benefits as such. My dad is terminally ill (cancer) and my mum is in and out of hospital at the moment as well so would be nice for them to see out their days without worry of finances. His car is getting so difficult to drive due to age that he really needs to replace it but doesn't think it's 'affordable' to do so and wont accept help from me to get a replacement.

I lost my nan a couple of years back and whilst she scrimped and saved to afford her stairlift so she could stay in her own house, her friends were in awe at how she 'got that off the council'...she worked all her life and was living off her pension and savings, they got benefits as they didn't have the savings that she had built up whilst working so the stuff she had to whittle her savings away for, they got for free.

Personally I don't think means testing for living expenses for pensioners is fair at all She saved all her life to have the same living standard that they had paid for for them.

You get two tiers of 'struggling to get by' Those who struggle to get by on benefit as they are below the thresholds required and those who struggle to get by who are above the threshold. In some circumstances I think it makes more sense to spend all your money rather than save it as you then fall into the 'low income' bracket rather than resting just above it.