Why are savings rates on the floor?

bowlhead99

2010 wrote: »

I always thought that a bonus was paid as the result of doing something exceptionally well and making MORE profits.

RBS LOST £5 billion but everyone receives a bonus.
Reward for failure.(at the taxpayers expense)

I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong in giving someone a financial reward to motivate them to achieve a target. Even if overall there is a loss. The fact that, for example, payment protection insurance was sold to gullible mugs who didn't really need it but would have happily taken the cash if it had paid out, a number of years ago, and the company is now doing the honourable thing as dictated by the regulator and compensating the affected customers, is not particularly the fault of this year's branch manager, prop trader or even CEO.

Lets say we give you the chairmanship of a bank with tens of billions of assets under your control. How many of them would you lose? Therefore the current management team might have outperformed you by 45 billion, when they deliver a result of negative 5 billion. If the market rate for the top hundred members of staff is a million pounds per head, it may well be a mighty good deal. Being shocked that someone could deserve a million pounds for delivering hundreds of million pounds of value to an organization, is your right - but it is not the only point of view.

If Cameron is not so keen on some of the EU`s policies, give us the referendum on getting out and his problem would be over.

Until they arm every member of the general public with an IQ upgrade and several years of education in, say, the fields of economics, business etc., I vehemently disagree with having a single-issue 'popular vote' on something as critical to our futures as international trade or matters related to strategic fiscal union. Someone who bases their decision on what they read in the Sun or Daily Mail, rather than a qualified critical evaluation is not, in my view, suitable to determine my country's economic strategy.

I, and they, can make broad judgements about which prospective member of parliament would best represent our interests in the various matters they are required to vote on during the year as part of their governmental duties. That is the point of a house of 'commons' in addition to the unelected 'lords'. We should not ask Joe Bloggs to fill in a form and say he wants out of Europe or into Europe or any particular issue really.

It might make the public think they are 'involved' but it is little more than a publicity stunt - we are not going to ask Joe to read the thousand page agreement and mark up the specific changes on which he would like to negotiate more strongly with the other European leaders, nor which bits he would like to strike out because it adversely affects his employer's competitive advantage and thus employment prospects. And then repeat 60 million times until we've all had our shout.

I do appreciate that politicians advised by civil servants are not necessarily masters of economics either, and are often derided as self-interested, incompetent and corrupt. However, they are better than leaving it to mob rule.

Apologies for straying off topic somewhat. The answer to the original question 'why are savings rates on the floor' has already been done to death in this and other threads.

2010

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Until they arm every member of the general public with an IQ upgrade and several years of education in, say, the fields of economics, business etc., I vehemently disagree with having a single-issue 'popular vote' on something as critical to our futures as international trade or matters related to strategic fiscal union. Someone who bases their decision on what they read in the Sun or Daily Mail, rather than a qualified critical evaluation is not, in my view, suitable to determine my country's economic strategy.

You`d better nip up to Scotland and have a word with A.Salmond who is even considering dropping the age so 16 year olds upwards can decide their country`s future.

bowlhead99

2010 wrote: »

You`d better nip up to Scotland and have a word with A.Salmond who is even considering dropping the age so 16 year olds upwards can decide their country`s future.

Well, again let me go somewhat off topic and pursue this one.

It's all very nice that the Scots are going to have the opportunity to embrace their heritage and vote based on their profound patriotism, but they only way it can really work out for them as a little independent country is if they embrace the economies of scale provided by UK or Europe and share our currencies, tax systems etc and buy into all the public stuff which is better organised on a large scale (defence, health, utility systems etc).

Things such as broadband infrastructure and utilities are rather more inefficient when your country is 60% of the size of England but only has 10% of the people. Going it alone as an independent nation whose population wants a high standard of living, and trying to be globally competitive vs a China or whatever 'real' emerging economy is flavour of the month, is futile.

In one sense they will be in positive territory because instead of sharing the bill of contributions to EU with the rest of the UK, as a poor relation they will hopefully get some going the other way. It seems strange to vote for independence so you can get handouts.

Still, when it doesn't work out, Salmond can blame Westminster for the fact his manufacturing output is not what it was, and gloss over the fact that he would not have been able to bail out RBS from his own purse. A fair exclusion he would say, because the economic downturn on the back of the credit crunch was pretty much London's fault too, for encouraging people in Scotland to overspend on credit cards and mortgages and buy things they couldn't afford.

If only they had allowed Scotland its own currency and accompanying global credit rating, the government and consumers would have found credit much more difficult to obtain, and would never have had the opportunity to overspend, and then would not be annoyed and/or destitute when the boom years went away.

An element of their success will depend on whether they get a share of UK oil/gas revenues based on population split or geographical proximity. And whether it ever runs out, which won't happen in the lifetimes of some voters. Should those particular voters even be allowed to vote, if some of the key issues don't affect them? They get upset when MPs in the rest of the UK try to vote on Scottish issues, and exclude them

I realise this is only scratching the surface of the issues and completely OT. But the fact there are probably perfectly good counter arguments to the above, means Scottish Independence, or any subject on which a referendum might be considered, is far from a simple question. And the majority of the people in a referendum don't have the facts or don't fully comprehend the points of view and basically the noise from idiots cancels out the people who are making informed decisions.

But still, let the people speak their own minds. Freeeedom!

Noble_Savage

Steady on bowlhead99. You're in danger of talking common sense on an online forum.

That's not what the Internet was invented for. We need baseless accusations, unfounded opinions and populist slogans!

grey_gym_sock

i not going to go into the arguments for and against scottish independence, but it's exactly the kind of issue which referendums should be used for. because it is a yes or no question.

there are complex issues behind the decision. but the same goes for selecting an MP. if you think most ppl are so stupid, why do you think they should get to vote for an MP? this is in danger of turning into an outright attack on the idea of democracy.

a referendum is also working extremely well right now in scotland, because it's enabled the scottish ppl to choose the SNP as their preferred scottish government, even though most of them don't want scottish independence. if a referendum was not going to be used, and the scottish parliament would speak for scotland on independence with no chance for the scottish ppl to say no, then they would have faced the dilemma of either putting the SNP in power and risking independence being imposed on them against their will, or handing the government of scotland over to parties they didn't think would do as good a job as the SNP.

2010

bowlhead99 wrote: »

But still, let the people speak their own minds. Freeeedom!

Yes, and I can`t see turkeys voting for Christmas.;)

Salmond promised a referendum if elected but now I bet he wished he hadn`t.

This seems to be the same with Cameron, there`s a hell of a lot going to happen "if elected again".

bowlhead99

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

referendum is also working extremely well right now in scotland, because it's enabled the scottish ppl to choose the SNP as their preferred scottish government, even though most of them don't want scottish independence. if a referendum was not going to be used, and the scottish parliament would speak for scotland on independence with no chance for the scottish ppl to say no, then they would have faced the dilemma of either putting the SNP in power and risking independence being imposed on them against their will, or handing the government of scotland over to parties they didn't think would do as good a job as the SNP.

That's a fair point which I would have to concede. It can make sense essentially as a veto. However what I was concerned about was the risk is that a charismatic leader can stir up support from an uneducated mass to change the constitution for the worse. The alternative is to change democracy entirely and have only certain types/classes of people eligible to vote on anything, which doesn't really work for those who don't get to vote.

Though I suppose whether you have democracy or not there are always unlucky groups who will get screwed over by others who get their favoured outcome, whether by voting or force.

The US addressed that by giving everyone the right to bear arms so they could avoid being oppressed, but anyone these days trying to take up arms against their rulers (as worked successfully for them at the Boston Tea Party and the war against the Brits), would simply be shot as a terrorist if they didn't have quite enough guns on their side. Which I suppose is arguably still a form of voting.

Conclusion - your saving rates are low because of adverse economic conditions. If you don't like it, take up arms and/or move countries. Being a rebellious terrorist worked out quite well for Luke Skywalker in a popular series of movies, though he did have special superpowers bestowed upon him by a crackpot religion.

iAMaLONDONER

bowlhead99 wrote: »

I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong in giving someone a financial reward to motivate them to achieve a target. Even if overall there is a loss. The fact that, for example, payment protection insurance was sold to gullible mugs who didn't really need it but would have happily taken the cash if it had paid out, a number of years ago, and the company is now doing the honourable thing as dictated by the regulator and compensating the affected customers, is not particularly the fault of this year's branch manager, prop trader or even CEO.

Lets say we give you the chairmanship of a bank with tens of billions of assets under your control. How many of them would you lose? Therefore the current management team might have outperformed you by 45 billion, when they deliver a result of negative 5 billion. If the market rate for the top hundred members of staff is a million pounds per head, it may well be a mighty good deal. Being shocked that someone could deserve a million pounds for delivering hundreds of million pounds of value to an organization, is your right - but it is not the only point of view.

Until they arm every member of the general public with an IQ upgrade and several years of education in, say, the fields of economics, business etc., I vehemently disagree with having a single-issue 'popular vote' on something as critical to our futures as international trade or matters related to strategic fiscal union. Someone who bases their decision on what they read in the Sun or Daily Mail, rather than a qualified critical evaluation is not, in my view, suitable to determine my country's economic strategy.

I, and they, can make broad judgements about which prospective member of parliament would best represent our interests in the various matters they are required to vote on during the year as part of their governmental duties. That is the point of a house of 'commons' in addition to the unelected 'lords'. We should not ask Joe Bloggs to fill in a form and say he wants out of Europe or into Europe or any particular issue really.

It might make the public think they are 'involved' but it is little more than a publicity stunt - we are not going to ask Joe to read the thousand page agreement and mark up the specific changes on which he would like to negotiate more strongly with the other European leaders, nor which bits he would like to strike out because it adversely affects his employer's competitive advantage and thus employment prospects. And then repeat 60 million times until we've all had our shout.

I do appreciate that politicians advised by civil servants are not necessarily masters of economics either, and are often derided as self-interested, incompetent and corrupt. However, they are better than leaving it to mob rule.

Apologies for straying off topic somewhat. The answer to the original question 'why are savings rates on the floor' has already been done to death in this and other threads.

Exactly this is why we need referendums

especially on the EU

innovate

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Until they arm every member of the general public with an IQ upgrade and several years of education in, say, the fields of economics, business etc., I vehemently disagree with having a single-issue 'popular vote' on something as critical to our futures as international trade or matters related to strategic fiscal union. Someone who bases their decision on what they read in the Sun or Daily Mail, rather than a qualified critical evaluation is not, in my view, suitable to determine my country's economic strategy.

I, and they, can make broad judgements about which prospective member of parliament would best represent our interests in the various matters they are required to vote on during the year as part of their governmental duties. That is the point of a house of 'commons' in addition to the unelected 'lords'. We should not ask Joe Bloggs to fill in a form and say he wants out of Europe or into Europe or any particular issue really.

Couldn't agree more

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

Exactly this is why we need referendums

especially on the EU

'nuff said.

EDIT: My god, he's dug out another old thread.

doughnutmachine

bowlhead99 wrote: »

That's a fair point which I would have to concede. It can make sense essentially as a veto. However what I was concerned about was the risk is that a charismatic leader can stir up support from an uneducated mass to change the constitution for the worse. The alternative is to change democracy entirely and have only certain types/classes of people eligible to vote on anything, which doesn't really work for those who don't get to vote.

until about 100 years ago you had to be a male protestant landowner to vote. i would argue that britain was at it's most successful during that period....

i really don't see why a long term unemployed !!!!less layabout should have the same say in the country's future as a productive member of society.