'A generation of Muslims not able to go to university?' blog discussion

Errata

I had a call from Marks and Spencer Financial services out of the blue yesterday. They are poised to steal personal banking business market space from the totally discredited banks.

Don't get too excited, the M&S bank is wholly owned by HSBC.

2sides2everystory

:rotfl:

You are kidding, Errata ? Please say you are ...

EnorMouse

So many potential issues in just one topic.

As far as I am concerned, all education and training belongs to the individual. They are entitled to take this, however it has been provided, and move anywhere in the world that will have them, to exploit it.

Graduates are free to leave this country, so that there is no inherent benefit to the rest of the country in churning out graduates. Accordingly there is no good reason why the taxpayer generally should contribute to the cost. At one time, this was less true, but personal mobility has brought an end to this.

As far as I am concerned, all education and training should be paid for by the individual receiving it. If there needs to be a system for financing this, then fine. Such a system should however be based on the funding being a loan and being fully repayable together with interest almost regardless of circumstances - particularly if the individual chooses to leave the country. The individual has the asset, so should also have the matching liability.

Of course, the other side of this coin is that employment should reflect the extent to which prior education and training is needed. Where and how this education and training has been provided is irrelevant. We have people coming to this country who have already paid for their education and training. Unless there is a level playing field with the cost of education and training kept separate from the financial rewards for having undertaken it, someone is being treated unfairly. This applies to all forms and levels of education and training, not just university education.

What about the proposition that the Government should set up different schemes to enable those with particular religious or moral views to access facilities or funds generally made available. In my opinion, this is not the function of Government. What the Government should do however is set up some form of structure to facilitate this.

What do I mean by this? If, for example, a Muslim student is entitled to financial assistance but for religious reasons can not accept it in the form that the Government offers, then it is up to the Muslim community to set up a scheme that is acceptable.

What would then happen is that the Government would provide funding to that Scheme exactly matching, in both amount and repayment terms, what it would have provided to the individual. The Government needs to put in place legal provisions which would enable it to act in this manner.

The terms between the Scheme and the individual would then be down to them and the rules that they feel the need to follow. The Government simply needs to be assured that its funds and the repayment thereof are as equally secure as if the funding was provided to the individual.

If we want something different to that which the Government generally provides, then it is up to us to set up the way that makes the feasible, not the Government. In this way such Government support can be made available to all, without being unfair to any or requiring some vast bureaucracy to manage it.

Fire_Fox

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Who has all the money? Where is it not being spent? How shall we go get it and start building properly and making sure that those hooked on the bonus culture are completely ostracised and totally buried very soon?

A fair whack goes on the NHS: a frightening percentage of that spent because Brits refuse to take personal responsibility, instead choosing to whinge about the nanny state, fatcat bankers and immigrants. We don't hit the healthy eating guidelines, are sedentary, overweight, smoke or drink too much.

A load more on education, pensions and the welfare state. Assume the unaccounted for 32% encompasses government and local government, council tax expenditure as well as defence which is mentioned.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/government_expenditure.html

Until the government stop ringfencing pensioners or the public start being penalised/ sanctioned for poor lifestyle choices (assuming they have been offered sound advice and support) it's difficult to know how the debts will ever be paid.

2sides2everystory

I don't think I was asking what we spend tax on FireFox, I was asking where has all the capital gone? Many of the projects that are being neglected are as a result of long term reserves having been depleted or more likely filched by the private sector using their wiles to outwit uncommercial public sector negotiators (sic).

Fire_Fox wrote: »

A fair whack goes on the NHS: a frightening percentage of that spent because Brits refuse to take personal responsibility, instead choosing to whinge about the nanny state, fatcat bankers and immigrants. We don't hit the healthy eating guidelines, are sedentary, overweight, smoke or drink too much.

I agree that we don't hit healthy eating guidelines, but I am not sure that our wingeing about the state, banksters and immigration necessarily manifests itself as a burden on the NHS

A frightening percentage also goes on paying both NHS executives AND certain "health care professionals" like surgeons far too much and allowing both to work inside and outside the NHS constantly negotiating one against the other to suit their own levels of greed.

In other words, don't pay an NHS surgeon at his private practice £20,000 to replace my mother's knees in order to prevent her busting the waiting list target, pay him just £5,000 and expect him to be committed. Else when he spends a week's fees on a flash Bentley motor car, make him pay three times the current price - the difference being a luxury car tax. He might think twice then on whether a less ostentatious expression of his "success" would be more appropriate. I am deadly serious.

A load more on education, pensions and the welfare state.

I think you are mixing missing capital reserves with spending income again. Where has the capital reserve for investment in new school buildings gone? Into greedy overcharging private construction firm's pockets of course. Even to the point now of them retaining ownership of the buildings they put up and becoming an enforced drain on the current account.

Assume the unaccounted for 32% encompasses government and local government, council tax expenditure as well as defence which is mentioned.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/government_expenditure.html

Yes and since none of that expenditure is actually productive work now and is merely administration, public servants need to realise that if they don't sharpen up and learn how to protect taxpayer funds instead of cosying up to preferred private contractors then their jobs are totally worthless and are a 100% drain on the current account too.

Until the government stop ringfencing pensioners or the public start being penalised/ sanctioned for poor lifestyle choices (assuming they have been offered sound advice and support) it's difficult to know how the debts will ever be paid.

Pensioners? Do you mean senior citizens who don't deserve respect? Or early retired fatcats who deserve prison? Be careful who you are pointing at. It is a poor lifestyle choice to become a banker with no scruples expecting to make a mint. Those deserve no sound advice or support save for being told to clear off or expect to be locked up.

PS

ErrorMouse wrote:

As far as I am concerned, all education and training belongs to the individual.

As far as I am concerned the right to state-funded education and training belongs to all individuals. Else we go backward into the dark ages where you aren't educated enough to tell that some privately educated person has just had you over a barrel leaving you with a funny feeling you don't recognise but one they learnt in the fourth before they moved on to doing the shafting.

Fire_Fox

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I don't think I was asking what we spend tax on FireFox, I was asking where has all the capital gone? Many of the projects that are being neglected are as a result of long term reserves having been depleted or more likely filched by the private sector using their wiles to outwit uncommercial public sector negotiators (sic).I agree that we don't hit healthy eating guidelines, but I am not sure that our wingeing about the state, banksters and immigration necessarily manifests itself as a burden on the NHS

A frightening percentage also goes on paying both NHS executives AND certain "health care professionals" like surgeons far too much and allowing both to work inside and outside the NHS constantly negotiating one against the other to suit their own levels of greed.

In other words, don't pay an NHS surgeon at his private practice £20,000 to replace my mother's knees in order to prevent her busting the waiting list target, pay him just £5,000 and expect him to be committed. Else when he spends a week's fees on a flash Bentley motor car, make him pay three times the current price - the difference being a luxury car tax. He might think twice then on whether a less ostentatious expression of his "success" would be more appropriate. I am deadly serious.

I think you are mixing missing capital reserves with spending income again. Where has the capital reserve for investment in new school buildings gone? Into greedy overcharging private construction firm's pockets of course. Even to the point now of them retaining ownership of the buildings they put up and becoming an enforced drain on the current account.
Yes and since none of that expenditure is actually productive work now and is merely administration, public servants need to realise that if they don't sharpen up and learn how to protect taxpayer funds instead of cosying up to preferred private contractors then their jobs are totally worthless and are a 100% drain on the current account too.

What you actually said was "Who has all the money? Where is it not being spent?" and I responded. What we spend every year is a large part of where the capital has gone/ how the debt has accrued, we've been overspending as a nation for years and we still are. Labour made a total hash of it in the final years and the ConDems have compounded that.

It's not disingenuous and inaccurate to blame those on six or seven figure incomes for all our woes or even most of our woes. We won't ever move forwards and become a truly great nation again when we expend so much energy blaming bankers and immigrants and politicians, but shouldering no responsibility ourselves.

Whinging about nanny state is very much part of the problem, ask anyone working in lifestyle health promotion, listen to those who still whinge about smoking ban in public places, refuse to accept smoke free homes, tell me I am a health nazi when I dare to bring up the healthy eating guidelines on MSE (which are miles from optimal, they are mins/ maxs), throw their toys out of the pram at the concept of sanctions or penalties for those who are a burden on the NHS and refuse to change their lifestyle.

The percentage of the NHS budget spent on unnecessary senior managers/ executives is actually very small compared to the total budget. Labour introduced choice of private facilities has all but gone but yes it was indeed part of the reason we are so far in hock now. Try working in the NHS, it all seems very simple to save money on 'fatcats' when you read newspapers instead of spending time in hospitals and reading the statistics for yourself.

Click on 'National Tables' to see numbers of full time equivalent NHS staff in 2012.
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?productid=7061&q=workforce&sort=Relevance&size=10&page=1&area=both#top
So the medical and healthcare staff outnumber the non medical staff by three to one. Even if you got rid of every last manager and senior manager in the entire NHS that is ~36,000 out of a total of ~1,980,000 full time equivalent staff. Consultants number ~ 42,000.

"The NHS Confederation, which represents NHS organisations and independent healthcare providers, argues that the proportion of NHS managers is relatively low given the size of the organisations that they run. They point out that it is lower than the proportion of managers in the whole of the workforce in the UK (NHS Confederation 2007), which in 2009 was 16 per cent (Office of National Statistics) ...

There are currently around 1,120 VSMs in England – chief executives, executive directors and others with board level responsibility. Their salaries, along with those of other senior public servants, are agreed by ministers on the advice of the Senior Salaries Review Body. In 2009 the average pay of a chief executive of a non-foundation NHS trust was £147,500, and the average pay of a chief executive of a Foundation trust was £157,500 (Senior Salaries Review Body 2010)."
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/general-election-2010/key-election-questions/how-many-managers

"Management

Managers and senior managers accounted for 2.83 per cent of the 1.35 million staff employed by the NHS in 2010.
Between 2001 and 2011 the NHS recruited 10,790 additional managers, an average annual increase of 3.4 per cent. The number has declined in each of the past two years. In the same period almost 93,500 additional doctors and nurses have been recruited.
In 2008/09 the management costs of the NHS had fallen from 5.0 per cent in 1997/98 to 3.0 per cent."
http://www.nhsconfed.org/priorities/political-engagement/Pages/NHS-statistics.aspx

Labour also massively overspent on introducing numerous new benefits for "hard working families" and stupid initiatives we could never sustain like free computers for the homes of "hard working families" that would be outdated within a few years anyway.

Was money wasted on bailing banks out only for them to still pay bonuses that had nothing to do with performance? Sure, but WE the people have blood on our hands, WE were happy to pay taxes that were too low for the services we were receiving, WE the ostriches are still costing the NHS billions in treating numerous conditions that could have been prevented, partially or wholly treated or even cured SIMPLY by lifestyle modification.

Billions on common conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, various skin complaints including eczema, many cancers, constipation, pulmonary diseases from COPD to asthma, certain disorders of mental health, allergies including hayfever.
"In 2006–07, poor diet-related ill health cost the NHS in the UK £5.8 billion. The cost of physical inactivity was £0.9 billion. Smoking cost was £3.3 billion, alcohol cost £3.3 billion, overweight and obesity cost £5.1 billion."
http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/11/pubmed.fdr033.abstract

2sides2everystory

Fire Fox, methinks you risk misinterpreting the statistics. The cost is not just what we've been paying the bad guys via their reward schemes, it is the cost of the disastrous effects they have had on budgets they control. You are no doubt familiar with the latterday term "gone viral". That is what has happened with management culture. It takes very few unscrupulous and corrupt executives with their cronies to smash a budget created for the good of society way beyond the comprehension of our elected representatives. And these individuals and their cartels are banking on it - all of them from private surgery practices to drug companies, and from construction firms refurbishing or extending hospitals to outsourced providers of hospital and education information systems. All of it countenanced by public sector employees not educated or trained robustly enough to do anything about the corruption and malpractice that serves as the norm in the big business end of what they all naively call public private partnership.

We need only talk of consciences here. Martin introduced the conundrum of the effect of the consciences of some of those who follow Islam and the imperative of getting properly educated for the 21st century - they may not entertain the idea of paying interest at RPI + 3% to pay for anything, let alone the education this society owes them. I introduced the phenomenon of a total lack of conscience by those in the City who have been worshiping only the money god and their own egos.

I know which has caused the most damage in this world. It is blatantly obvious.

No we do not have blood on our hands. We the majority are by all measure very fair minded and good people.

There are however some very bad people in this world. They are mostly beyond redemption. They have wrought havoc on our economies and they don't care. They have no conscience. They have power based on fear and awe and the continued support of self-centered underlings who associate themselves with such soundbites as working hard and wanting to "get on". They are wholly responsible for culture. The helpers might of course be redeemed if they were properly educated away from places like Crass Business School, but I would not bank on any improvement whilst they remain bankers of any description.

In these days when lives are being turned upside down by crass gut reaction initiatives such as the bedroom tax, why are other significant streams of our society e.g. those still taking the shilling in the City, not also vulnerable to their lives being suddenly turned upside down and their pockets emptied of their ill-gotten bonuses? Let us entertain some gut reactionary initiatives to sort them out and wipe off a few smug smiles.

No-one earned any City bonus ever. They just took it.

Let us go back and confiscate all of it. I fancy half of it is invested in Buy To Let properties by half-witted bankers and early-retired bankers with no real imagination but so much money they have no original idea of their own on how to put it to good use. Someone once just said BTL at the watercooler and they all piled in. Take those bonus bought BTL's and solve the housing crisis. Proper lemmings they would be then, eh? I am sure you will find quite some numbers of spare rooms to go with the void brains that spent their bonuses on them, and judged by the extraordinary number of shockingly carelessly discarded 6 month old mattresses littering our street corners never have quite got the hang of the business of short term tenancies :mad:

Then trace back all other non-regular-monthly-PAYE payments made over the past 15 years by employers, and transactions of shares in the employer or associate companies (i.e. "bonuses" - sic) and then if it is not possible to liquidate those gains and confiscate them, then convert the sums into debt to the exchequer at RPI +3% and surtax the sods at an extra 9% until they die.

Then I just know we shall have funds enough to educate the whole of our society such that obscene business culture is always swamped by the wisdom of the majority and no longer promulgated by the greed of the few.

Mozette

Fire_Fox wrote: »

What do you spend your income on - rent, household bills, car, socialising, package holidays, childcare? What if you lived with your parents into your thirties, didn't drink, mostly prepared food from scratch for friends and relatives, had holidays where you stayed with relatives overseas? What if you worked very long hours in your own small business and every member of your extended family helped out in that, even the children?

Many Brits are only willing to work nine to six, move out of their parents' home in their late teens/ early twenties, waste money on rent or mortgage interest, trade up to a larger house (more rent/ mortgage, higher bills) every few years, want or expect to live in a 'nice' area, aren't willing to shop in markets nor eat rice and lentils, often live alone or as single parents.

As my parents died, I didn't get the opportunity to live with them for that long, and I don't have much family so I spend money on a mortgage and the bills associated with owning a house. I have moved once, I haven't had a holiday, or a car in years, I do have a job, (never had a business), and have had for years. I nearly always cook from scratch.

I suppose if I'd not had any bills for most of my life maybe by now I might have saved enough to buy a house, but that's not the way my life went. I live alone as well, which is another way my life turned out, not necessarily by choice.

Thanks for your reply anyway.

Deepfatfriar

Curiously I think Martin has missed the point.

If a certain minority cannot use the student loan facility then that is their issue. It is not up to us to change the system.


Of far more importance is the ever escalating cost to us taxpayers of unpaid student loans especially by foreign students.


It runs into tens if not hundred of millions as far as I am aware.


Martin does not mention this.


As a pensioner and taxpayer I object to funding free university education for those who are supposed to pay the loans back.

2sides2everystory

Deepfatfriar wrote: »

Curiously I think Martin has missed the point.

If a certain minority cannot use the student loan facility then that is their issue. It is not up to us to change the system.


Of far more importance is the ever escalating cost to us taxpayers of unpaid student loans especially by foreign students.


It runs into tens if not hundred of millions as far as I am aware.


Martin does not mention this.


As a pensioner and taxpayer I object to funding free university education for those who are supposed to pay the loans back.

As a pensioner and taxpayer you are alright Jack. I can see you have affinity with deep fat but I of course do not know if you are a retired fatcat

My parents are pensioners but they are not taxpayers so I already have half an idea where you may be coming from you see!

This minority you belittle might well be England's conscience pricking good, had you thought of that?

My non-Muslim kids cannot afford university but are being told of course they must grab the opportunity and sign up for God knows what. Their insufficient godliness or godlessness (toss a florin or take your pick) is indeed insufficient to make them hesitate at the mention of RPI + 3%.

Thank Allah that there are still some people in our country who know an obscene unfair usury when they see it.

As a taxpayer, it's marketed in your name too.