Public Sector Strike(s)

Phil3822

julieq wrote: »

Was waiting for this one. It's all over everywhere at the moment.

So where do you think a deficit comes from? Two guesses:

1) Evil banks?
2) Governments spending more money than they have on Police, Ambulance workers, Midwives, Doctors, Social workers, Fireman, Outreach workers, Bin men, petty bureaucrats, health and safety inspectors, etc etc, and their overinflated pensions.

(Hint, answer is (2))

So yes, I do remember when the public sector crashed the economy. It started in 1997. Do you remember Gordon Brown explaining "no more boom and bust" and spending like it was going out of fashion? And the note Balls left in the treasury after the election saying there was no money left? Was that the bankers?

Now the trigger for the problems was a recession caused by a loss of confidence in the banks - it could have had other causes - but we're not paying bailout money to fat cats. We're ensuring the banks have enough liquidity to operate by lending it to them. That's it. As things haven't been as bad as predicted there's still a chance we'll get out with a profit, especially if the banks do well. That hasn't been explained, and most people think we're chucking hard earned fivers at fat cat bankers in bonuses. Banks generate profits for pension funds too, including my own. In the public sector you don't have pension funds. You just take what you need from taxation (about half of what it would take to fund the pension in the private sector comes from individual and government contributions, the rest is just creamed off our taxes).

And the banks, unlike the public sector, believe in performance related pay. Do a good job, get a bonus. Do a bad job, find your bonus curtailed or removed. Try that in the teaching profession and you'd have riots.

What is sickening about this endless banker bashing is how little is being done to make the contrary arguments or explaining what the bail out actually was. It's more convenient for everyone to have a set of scapegoats waiting in the wings.

LOL!! The banks believe in performance related pay? When things went wrong in the banking sector the key players were still paid and not sacked or made to resign. All that appeared to happen is they were not paid a bonus. There was no accountability. As I said earlier the banking debt the country paid/pays was huge in comparison to the 2010/2011 public purse deficit expenditure.

There seemed much less back lash reference the banking crisis where the Government financed a bank bailout (deficit) that is 6.5 times bigger than our own national deficit. The value of the bank bailout was £955 billion. The bank deficit as a percentage of GDP is 100%.

The cost of financing the banking deficit is/was £5 billion per year and still they take obscene bonuses. The banking sector crisis was a private hash up which cost the economy greatly. Such people should be held accountable.

Mallotum_X

These arguments nearly always get very black and white.

Lots of the public sector do a great and dificult job, often under difficult circumstances. The actual workers usually are on the poorer ends of the scales and are not getting massive pensions.

However there are lots of well paid excessive management, plenty of people who would have been fired from the private sector all knowing how to bend the system to their advantage. Tackle the excess and there will be enough to pay for what we need, and still save money.

The Public sector needs to reform itself cut the waste without always showing the poor plight of a bin man or nurse. Cut the waste and then maybe sympathy will be easier to come by.

Blaming the banks vs public sector is also a bit too black and white, fault lies in both camps.

Then you get the the public guys who say "if its so great here then get a job in the public sector". What kind of 6th form debating argument is that. Some of us enjoy having a productive life, we have a right to comment on waste mainly as we are funding it. I have to pay for my own pension plus chip in to the public sector pot. If you hate your public sector job so much get a job in the private sector. if you dont like the cut backs then get a job elsewhere, you dont have to stay.

Its clear there is waste and it needs to be tackled. But as always with these situations no doubt those that should be cut will find ways to escape and it will be the guys who do the real and needed work that suffer the most.

Mr_Mumble

MacMickster wrote: »

In his statement today, the chancellor apears to have declared war on the public sector:

• Following a 2 year pay freeze, there will be 2 years of only 1% average wage increase (while inflation is running at 5%). For many this will mean a 4 year pay freeze.

But we've been told by public sector workers such as Mervyn King that inflation is a temporary phenom and inflation will be back down to 2% soon.

Seriously though, I'm finding the chancellor's tack very bizarre. If he wants to boost economic output then incentivise productivity and disincentivise sloth - carrying on increasing benefits and state pensions at 5.2% while penalising workers is nonsensical for the wider economy. Workers have a higher propensity to spend than pensioners and workers should (but in modern deficit-loving Britain often don't) have more money to spend than the workless.

macaque_2

Phil3822 wrote: »

however I do find the negative views of many on here with regards to public sector workers (essential public sector workers that is) disappointing at best

I agree and I think that many public sector workers do a good job and give a fair day's work for fair pay.

I do harbour some annoyances however and public sector workers do not helped themselves. Like the time when my bin lid was an inch open and they refused to collect it, and then after multiple phone calls they agreed as a 'special one off favour' to come back the next day. I also don't like their predatory parking fines, their practice of snooping on people and their annoying newspapers filled with issues about diversity, inclusivity and safety. I don't like their chief execs paying themselves £200k and then getting big payoffs when they fail.

There are some really good people in the public sector (UKTI to name one group) but too many others have had an addiction for creating 'make busy' jobs with silly titles.


I have fallen more than slightly out of love with the current crop of public sector employees and if they want to win my love back they would make a good start by remembering that:

1. They are our servants, not our masters
2. They are spending our money
3. They have uniquely privileged employment terms and striking is not a reasonable response in the current climate
4. It is OK to sack people if they are useless

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne

macaque wrote: »

1. They are spending our money

No. It is not our money. You payed tax to the government and it became the state's money for the state to spend as it sees fit. This is not the fault of public sector workers. The notion of 'taxpayer's money' is convenient only to justify one's moral outrage.

grizzly1911

julieq wrote: »

Was waiting for this one. It's all over everywhere at the moment.

So where do you think a deficit comes from? Two guesses:

1) Evil banks?
2) Governments spending more money than they have on Police, Ambulance workers, Midwives, Doctors, Social workers, Fireman, Outreach workers, Bin men, petty bureaucrats, health and safety inspectors, etc etc, and their overinflated pensions.

(Hint, answer is (2))

.

Neither - it is successive Governments, since the early 70s, presiding over the slow dismantling of our wealth creating parts of the economy.

As we don't generate surplus income external to the UK will are slowly withering away.

They have all then slowly pawned or sold our assets to keep us afloat, whilst at the same time steadily borrowing more and more.

Had Conservatives been in power during the heady days of false profits from the Banks I doubt the debt burden would be much different to that which they "inherited". Perhaps re acquainted themselves with may be a better phrase.

The bankers were reckless but who can blame them as they were unregulated. bit like a child in the tuck shop. They certainly blew a massive hole below the water line.

If the bubble had burst on the Conservatives watch we would be in much the same position.

Many in the Public Sector provide a valuable service that will still need to be funded someway if we wish to live in a civilised society.

People seem to suggest that if we just decimate the public sector, just "throw it away" in a Fawltyesque way that things will somehow be better.

They won't they will just manifest themselves somewhere else.

Mallotum_X

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne wrote: »

No. It is not our money. You payed tax to the government and it became the state's money for the state to spend as it sees fit. This is not the fault of public sector workers. The notion of 'taxpayer's money' is convenient only to justify one's moral outrage.

What utter rubbish.

Phil3822

Mallotum_X wrote: »

These arguments nearly always get very black and white.

Lots of the public sector do a great and dificult job, often under difficult circumstances. The actual workers usually are on the poorer ends of the scales and are not getting massive pensions.

However there are lots of well paid excessive management, plenty of people who would have been fired from the private sector all knowing how to bend the system to their advantage. Tackle the excess and there will be enough to pay for what we need, and still save money.

The Public sector needs to reform itself cut the waste without always showing the poor plight of a bin man or nurse. Cut the waste and then maybe sympathy will be easier to come by.

Blaming the banks vs public sector is also a bit too black and white, fault lies in both camps.

Then you get the the public guys who say "if its so great here then get a job in the public sector". What kind of 6th form debating argument is that. Some of us enjoy having a productive life, we have a right to comment on waste mainly as we are funding it. I have to pay for my own pension plus chip in to the public sector pot. If you hate your public sector job so much get a job in the private sector. if you dont like the cut backs then get a job elsewhere, you dont have to stay.

Its clear there is waste and it needs to be tackled. But as always with these situations no doubt those that should be cut will find ways to escape and it will be the guys who do the real and needed work that suffer the most.

I agree with many of your comments. There is lots of fat to be trimmed.

I do however think many of these debates on this forum are not in perspective hence why the bank comparison is valuable. There was nowhere as much bad feeling or sniping when they racked up a huge debt. In terms of damage to the economy and public funds the banking system causing many times the damage. This often gets missed and lets just blame and bite at our fellow working/middle class.

I think there are so many arguments to be had of more importance in Parliament. Benefit system, tax and immigration etc. All of which are larger expenditure wise than the civil service.

As I have already said though, I cannot agree that striking is the way forward and fully support the need for reform. Not of just pension but also all the 'support roles'.

Kennyboy66

julieq wrote: »

£4.5B bonus pot is good news, means £1.8B in income tax, and means it's more likely the bailouts won't cost us anything.

Profits from public sector replacement is also good news. Will go to investors. Pension funds.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I agreed with the bank bailouts as it seemed the least worst thing to do and its probably a price worth paying, but this is laughable.

I suppose you think we will make a profit when QE unwinds as well ?

Credit-Crunched

Right public sector, whilst you are moaning about a slight change to an already very generous pension look at the news today in the brutal private sector

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-15935608

3000 job cuts from a bank, not high end bankers, the average joe trying to make a living.


So whilst you are on strike please take time to think of those in far worse positions for yourself and hopefully you will see how sicking and selfish your views really are.

Haven forbid if the public sector announced 300 job losses...