FT: The cost of burgeoning national debt

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

Generali wrote: »

However, a safety net should be just that - people shouldn't be living off unemployment benefit for year after year when they're perfectly capable of working.

We've had close to full employemt. To me this proves that most people would rather work than claim benefits. If people are long term unemployed this is hardly likely to be a lifestyle choice. They are just unfortunate. Unfortunate people should be cared for by the state imho.

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

Generali wrote: »

As regards education, I think that education should be paid for by central Government but provided by private companies.

Ummm - when it comes to public versus private being the best at delivering something, I'd say that the public sector is winning hands down at the moment;)

Generali

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

Ummm - when it comes to public versus private being the best at delivering something, I'd say that the public sector is winning hands down at the moment;)

Do you include the FSA in that?

ninky_2

Generali wrote: »

Do you include the FSA in that?

FSA didn't cause the current problems, just failed to prevent them. Are you suggesting we'd be in a better position if there had been no FSA?

Rochdale_Pioneers

ninky wrote: »

FSA didn't cause the current problems, just failed to prevent them. Are you suggesting we'd be in a better position if there had been no FSA?

If you listen to the Tories you'd think the FSA specifically caused all of it. "Brown set up the FSA and thats why we're in this mess". Nothing at all to do with greedy city types. Oh no.

Generali

ninky wrote: »

FSA didn't cause the current problems, just failed to prevent them. Are you suggesting we'd be in a better position if there had been no FSA?

We'd be in a better position if regulators had been competent.

There is a very specific part of reporting to the FSA which regards measuring the solvency of financial institutions. The process has been a complete failure.

To present the current problems as a failure of capitalism is either disingenuous or to misrepresent the current UK economy.

I describe the UK economy (using jargon incorrectly) as being corporate rather than capitalist. Through the use of complex rules and regulations being applied to companies, it is only feasible to be very large or very small as a firm. Try setting up a competitor to Barclays or Ford. It's virtually impossible because just getting your product to market is so massively expensive. As a result Ford and Barclays and so on become these massive behemoths and it is disastrous if they fail due to the wider consequences.

I see the current problems as be directly the result of the sort of economy that is forced to be created by the sort of socialism lite that is now the norm across the western world.

A._Badger

As has been remarked in the US, if a nursery school teacher gave every child in the class a bag of sweets, left the room for half an hour and returned to find a class full of sick children, who would be at fault?

Generali

LauraW10 wrote: »

LOL you do make me laugh. You never blame the greedy bankers/city types or unfettered capitalism for anything. It's always someone elses fault.....It's like forever blaming your parents for your failures even when you are an adult. I suppose it means that you can sleep at night.:rotfl:

There are plenty of other people blaming Greedy Bankers(TM).If I do that then I'm not adding much to the debate.

I worked for a few banks but I have nothing at all to do with the current problems - I worked in the back office sorting out problems between banks and stock markets. My job was very boring to the outside world and very technical. You wouldn't know the job exists and nor would the majority of people who work in banks.

I sleep just fine. I've done nothing immoral or illegal and nor would I. I'm getting a bit fed up with the large number of personal attacks which come my way each day from people who (respectfully) don't have a clue what they're talking about as if they did they wouldn't attack me for having done what I did for a living!

PS Which countries or industries have unfettered Capitalism do you think?

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

I describe the UK economy (using jargon incorrectly) as being corporate rather than capitalist. Through the use of complex rules and regulations being applied to companies, it is only feasible to be very large or very small as a firm. Try setting up a competitor to Barclays or Ford. It's virtually impossible because just getting your product to market is so massively expensive. As a result Ford and Barclays and so on become these massive behemoths and it is disastrous if they fail due to the wider consequences./quote]

I don't agree with you on the size issue Gen. There are certainly industries that tend towards oligopoly because of the economies of scale, cost of investment, regulatory pressures and other barriers to entry (car manufacture, banking, pharmaceuticals and utilities would be examples), however there are plenty of companies "in the middle". Many industries in the UK are fragmented, with no player holding more than even a 10% market share, in addition there are companies below the very big firms acting in niches that the big firms can't / won't service or can't service well, for example generic pharmaceuticals. These can be large companies in their own right, with turnovers in the region of £50m+.

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

I don't agree with you on the size issue Gen. There are certainly industries that tend towards oligopoly because of the economies of scale, cost of investment, regulatory pressures and other barriers to entry (car manufacture, banking, pharmaceuticals and utilities would be examples), however there are plenty of companies "in the middle". Many industries in the UK are fragmented, with no player holding more than even a 10% market share, in addition there are companies below the very big firms acting in niches that the big firms can't / won't service or can't service well, for example generic pharmaceuticals. These can be large companies in their own right, with turnovers in the region of £50m+.

That's a fair point, however if you look at countries in Asia or Australia then you seem to see many more small firms doing small scale manufacture very successfully.

Maybe that's just about zoning - the firms in the UK are more hidden. I really don't think that's the case (although that doesn't make me right!).