UK 'must cut spending or raise taxes,' say experts

Sir_Humphrey

Generali wrote: »

Well mine was. I lost my job so am now unproductive so receive no wage. I have no recourse to welfare as a recent migrant to Australia.

If you start indulging in protectionism things will end up in an almighty mess.

You can buy a pair of jeans for GBP3 in Tesco(?). What's the cheapest pair of UK made jeans you can buy? 30 quid? 50 quid?

As I said, in general I am in favour of Free Trade. However, I hear a lot of talk about rebalancing the global economy and I do not see how that can be done without some form of limited protectionism.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Consumers here or elsewhere have no interest in rebalancing anything. I think most people get the concept now that borrowing to pay for tat is a bad thing. But stopping the wonders of globalisation - a £3 pair of Tesco Value jeans sewn together by a 9 year-old bangladeshi for example - is not what people want. Don't the public see falling prices as their right?

Tell people that clothes are going to cost what they used to (and be greatly reduced in choice), that food will no longer be available cheaply all year round and must instead be seasonal, that electricals can go up in price as well as down - forget that Durabrand TV imported from Poland and instead buy a Murphy one screwed together badly in Barnsley - and I think there will be a lot of very upset people.

Globalisation isn't all bad - like the free market its worst excesses need to be tempered and regulated.

Sir_Humphrey

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Consumers here or elsewhere have no interest in rebalancing anything. I think most people get the concept now that borrowing to pay for tat is a bad thing. But stopping the wonders of globalisation - a £3 pair of Tesco Value jeans sewn together by a 9 year-old bangladeshi for example - is not what people want. Don't the public see falling prices as their right

There is an issue with pay and conditions. Without easy credit to boost things, there is likely to be a large reduction in demand in the west, with structural deflation. This is the logical conclusion of taking a purely Ricardian approach - the Chinese have a big comparative advantage in cheap manufacturing, combined with weak Chinese domestic demand. Both these are due to pitiful Chinese wages (although they are not as bad as they were).

Whether they are better off than before is irrelevant to this particular argument, that is just a statement of the current situation.

tomstickland

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Consumers here or elsewhere have no interest in rebalancing anything. I think most people get the concept now that borrowing to pay for tat is a bad thing. But stopping the wonders of globalisation - a £3 pair of Tesco Value jeans sewn together by a 9 year-old bangladeshi for example - is not what people want. Don't the public see falling prices as their right?

Tell people that clothes are going to cost what they used to (and be greatly reduced in choice), that food will no longer be available cheaply all year round and must instead be seasonal, that electricals can go up in price as well as down - forget that Durabrand TV imported from Poland and instead buy a Murphy one screwed together badly in Barnsley - and I think there will be a lot of very upset people.

Globalisation isn't all bad - like the free market its worst excesses need to be tempered and regulated.

So because a lot of people have become accustomed to tat we should treat globalisaton as a good thing?
Why should something screwed together in Barnsley be done badly? It might have been done so in the past, but there's no reason why it should in the future.

The trouble with globalisation is that goods can be traded freely, but all the various countries have their own localised issues and costs of living.

bubblesmoney

Generali wrote: »

There was no massive shortage of nurses that I'm aware of. There is no good reason to pay more than is necessary to fill the posts.

"paid for productivity they was previously unpaid" is a meaningless phrase.

In 2004-05 trusts spent £790 millionon temporary nursing cover. it was 10% of the nhs nurses wage bills. (NAO REPORT 2004)

20% of public employees are temporary staff!!!!!!!!!! (Gershon enquiry)

later i think locum nurses bill went upto 1 billion £ a year.

around london 20% of wage bill for nurses goes for locums. in some areas of the uk it is 4%

Last month, 27 NHS hospitals admitted to paying more than £50 an hour for agency nursing staff, with rates as high as £128 an hour paid out in 2006/7.

but nhsprofessionals pay is a lot lower. but hospitals still hire agency locums because of shortages.

to cut down costs they set up a quango called nhsprofessionals and pay the boss a million £ a year. wonder how many nurses they could have hired for that much instead. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4413472/Quango-boss-deal-costs-taxpayers-440000-a-year.html

i know nurses who have done some addional years (think it is called an intercalated degree or something like that) and become doctors later. and one such person i know who was a nurse earlier and is a junior doctor now when ever she does locum shifts she never does locum doctor shifts as she gets a lower pay for a junior doctors post (foundation year), she prefers to do icu nurse locum jobs as the pay is apparently better. i dont know how much though.

i have tried getting hold of similar data for doctors but cant find it anywhere. but do know abot people who dont have regular jobs and only do locums and quite a few get atleast 9k a month after tax. know about atleast 1 who got 16k after tax in one month doing locum jobs, dont know if this was a oneoff or a regular feature.

NHS 'paying £200 an hour' for agency nurses

Published Date: 03 January 2009

http://news.scotsman.com/conservativeparty/NHS-39paying-200-an-hour39.4840724.jp

i know from a friend who worked at harefield hospital (world renowned because of magdi yakoob cardiac surgeon), that cardiac surgeons doing extra lists were getting £2500 for half a day extra work and they would be doing usually full days extra work from what my friend who worked there as a junior told me. this was more than 6y ago. dont know what the rates are now. such extra lists were routine there every week then.

StevieJ

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

The general public are demanding access to a GP 24 hours a day - an abolition of office hours only surgery times with access in evenings and weekends becoming the norm. They're demanding enough slack in the system to be able to make a same day appointment guaranteed.

Both of those things require another large increase in the number of GPs - not a reduction as you appear to be suggesting. I agree that doctors like anyone should be accountable. But you can't physically make them work 80 hour weeks - to greatly increase both capacity and operating hours you're going to need more doctors even if they work as efficiently as it is humanly possible to do.

I remember the days before appointments when everybody was dealt with 'same day' a bit of a wait though. I may of course just be looking through rose tinted glasses. I do have to say though I am not impressed when I visit GP, I wonder sometimes if the receptionist is the health professional, e.g. I went for holiday jabs and renewal of Tetanus and was told oh you don't need any of those any more :eek:

bubblesmoney

Wookster wrote: »

That is just rubbish. Most people don't demand to see a GP the same day unless it is an emergency, which doesn't happen very often. Most people would like to see surgeries open in the evenings and some of the weekend though.



Again, rubbish. Its about working smarter - instead of surgeries open from 7.30 till 5.30 (10 hours) why not open from 7:30 to 12:30 and 15.30 to 20.30.
Its just simple common sense - but you fail to see this!

this wont work at all or will be more expensive in the long run. tell me which other profession will agree to work from 07:30 - 12:30 then take a 3h unpaid break then work again till 2030. doctors have personal lifes too. most would quit the nhs pretty soon if they had daily 3h unpaid breaks. they wouldnt be able to go home in those 3h, so effectively they'll be stuck in office greater than 13h daily. also evening work will be costlier and payscales would have to match for antisocial hours. doctors dont work in isolation contrary to the popular misconception. modern day doctors do need access to investigations, ECG, Xray, liase with hospital staff for info on investigations and consultations with hospital consultants etc etc and so consequently all ancillary support staff will have to do these longer hours as well plus same goes for secretarial staff otherwise doctors will have to man the phones and reception etc. wholely unworkable plan these longer hours on current budgets. everyone wants everything but not everything is practical. this might work in a private setup because numbers of patients will be lower and patients will be paying a massive amount. basically for the plan to work you will need full amount of daytime staff to work extra time in the evenings as well effectively increasing the nhs wage bill by 50% or more overnight. plus emergency work that gets done more in evenings will get affected. there is a limit to what is physically possible. in theory it may look good but as someone who has been a doctor 14+years this is not feasible in the nhs. how ever it might work to some extent in the private sector but numbers will be smaller but bills vastly bigger.

doctors and others in the nhs have families too. so even we value our evenings with family. we already do enough nights etc. anymore i would certainly quit and look elsewhere, loads of others would do the same. i have done my share of 1:3or4 24 oncalls and dont want to go back there again as i have a child now and want to see her grow up like anyother parent too. money isnt everything i would happily cut my hours for lesser pay but the dept wont allow it as they already are short and flying in people from abroad for locum shifts. i get asked almost everyday by email or phone for extra shifts.

tomstickland

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

I believe that 1993 to 1995 was a period of growth following the recession. the Tories should have been reducing debt in that time.

Where did the cash go in 1993-95? Or 1990-93 whilst we're on the subject.

My point is this - the Tories bashing Labour round the head for financial mismanagement should look at their own record and show how it was better. And thats before we start comparing interest rates and inflation.

I had a think about this today. You claim that they showed mismanagement, but you don't know what caused the rise in debt as a percentage of GDP. Nor do I.
How can you claim it was bad management or I try to claim it was not if neither of us know?

My opinion is that 91-95 was a recovery period following a recession and I guess that the rise in the percentage was due to a contraction in GDP and the sorting out the outcome of the recession.

Rochdale_Pioneers

tomstickland wrote: »

I had a think about this today. You claim that they showed mismanagement, but you don't know what caused the rise in debt as a percentage of GDP. Nor do I.
How can you claim it was bad management or I try to claim it was not if neither of us know?.

Its comparitive. If Labour mismanaged the economy by reducing debt, then by the same logic the Tories must have mismanaged it by hugely jacking up debt. Like I said earlier, logic has to cut both ways.

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Its comparitive. If Labour mismanaged the economy by reducing debt, then by the same logic the Tories must have mismanaged it by hugely jacking up debt. Like I said earlier, logic has to cut both ways.

Its logical to prepare for the bad times in the good times. Crash has increased government debt in the good times which scuppers his ability to make the bad times smoother. Labour bankrupts Britain. Again!