How risk averse are you?

BananaRepublic

Glen_Clark wrote: »

All my family were/are teachers, many of their friends are teachers. But none of them seem to like their job anymore, and several have retired early.

Over the last few decades many teachers, working and retired, and the sons of teachers, have told me to not go into school teaching. There are too many 'initiatives' from the government, too many targets, too much micro-management, and long hours. I've come across more than a few with stress related illnesses.

By the way, why did you not blame George Osborne for this?

bowlhead99

BananaRepublic wrote: »

By the way, why did you not blame George Osborne for this?

Maybe he's rationing himself to only blame all life's woes on Osborne or Cameron once a day and had already dragged Osborne's name into the thread for no reason twelve hours earlier

("Osborne's insurance premium tax" - when of course the majority of IPT comes from the 1994 finance act implemented when Ken Clarke had the thankless honour of being chancellor for a while)

[...ducks for cover]

Glen_Clark

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm not a teacher, I am a chartered quantity surveyor working as a university lecturer, and I do really like my job.

Different when your pupils want to learn.
But my sister has just thankfully retired as a headmistress. She told me of a typical day when she called out an 8 year old for beating up and bullying other children. He just stood in front of her shouting and screaming 'You can't f*cking touch me.. I'll have you sacked' Often the parents are no better. They might have had religon beaten into them by bad teachers in the past, and now want to take their revenge on todays teachers who had nothing to do with it, and experienced the same thing themselves. But at least the pension is good and she is enjoying foreign holidays every few months.

chucknorris

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Different when your pupils want to learn.
But my sister has just thankfully retired as a headmistress. She told me of a typical day when she called out an 8 year old for beating up and bullying other children. He just stood in front of her shouting and screaming 'You can't f*cking touch me.. I'll have you sacked' Often the parents are no better. They might have had religon beaten into them by bad teachers in the past, and now want to take their revenge on todays teachers who had nothing to do with it, and experienced the same thing themselves. But at least the pension is good and she is enjoying foreign holidays every few months.

As Clint Eastwood said 'A man's got to know his limitations' and I don't think I would get past the first day, if I had to teach at a school. It sounds more like punishment to me, than a job, so I'm aware of the differences between the two jobs.

grey_gym_sock

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Well it would have been nice to have some assets to show to show for the National Debt - like Council Houses.

it is bizarre that the government seems only to care about the liability side of their balance sheet, ignoring the asset side.

similarly, their plan to reduce the annual government deficit relies on asset sales.

But the Government would make a mess of it like everything else. I believe in the free market. Government interference in the housing market is the problem, not the solution.

governments have put men on the moon, developed nuclear weapons (i don't want to debate the morality of that - it's just technically impressive), the jet engine, computers, the internet, etc, etc - basically, most of the major technical advances of the last 75 years - but you think you can't make building council houses work, when they can borrow money at 1% of 2%, and the rental yield might be 4% or 5%?

If they would at least stop strangling the supply with the world's most onerous planing system, whilst stoking up demand with taxpayers borrowed money, the housing and deficit crisis would improve on its own.:)

i do agree that changes in the planning system will be needed, including for my plan of building lots of council houses.

grey_gym_sock

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Is it a blunder, or is it deliberate?

i'm trying to be charitable about their motives

Cameron & Osborne are well connected with the landed aristocracy who have done extremely well out of the rise in property & land values, and increase in rents which is a drain on the productive side of the economy. The Duke of Westminster has seen the Capital Value of his inherited property portfolio double from £35bn to £70bn in about the same time Osborne has doubled the National Debt to pay for it all. Investment has gone into property speculation instead of productive industry needed to pay off Osborne's debts, I believe that will lead to high inflation. It won't worry the aristocracy too much because their wealth is in property.

that looks about 10X too high for the duke of westminster's wealth.

rising property prices are also in the interests of banks, who can lend more against higher property values. and of course if prices fall again, they borrowers still owe the money to the banks. and if they can't pay, the banks have the option of foreclosure.

i think the financial sector is a more powerful influence than the landed aristocracy nowadays. just look at all the links between HSBC and the current government (including the boss of HSBC becoming a minister). or indeed, look at how friendly gordon brown was with fred goodwin (just in case banana split is reading this, and thinks there's an anti-tory bias ).

The 'little people' will lose as usual - they will be holding Sterlng Cash because they can't afford to risk what they have and thought Cash was safe

well, the really little people have no savings.

BananaRepublic

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

i think the financial sector is a more powerful influence than the landed aristocracy nowadays. just look at all the links between HSBC and the current government (including the boss of HSBC becoming a minister). or indeed, look at how friendly gordon brown was with fred goodwin (just in case banana split is reading this, and thinks there's an anti-tory bias ).

New Labuh was built supported by management consultants who gave advice for free, in the hope, or even understanding, that they would get fat contracts when they got into power. And they did indeed get fat contracts. New Labuh was also in bed with the finance sector which for a decade was the golden goose. I'm sure the Tories have their own dirty linen which has yet to be aired.

BananaRepublic

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Different when your pupils want to learn.
But my sister has just thankfully retired as a headmistress. She told me of a typical day when she called out an 8 year old for beating up and bullying other children. He just stood in front of her shouting and screaming 'You can't f*cking touch me.. I'll have you sacked' Often the parents are no better. They might have had religon beaten into them by bad teachers in the past, and now want to take their revenge on todays teachers who had nothing to do with it, and experienced the same thing themselves. But at least the pension is good and she is enjoying foreign holidays every few months.

At my previous job a colleague was regularly on the phone having loud arguments with his wife. I lost count of the number of times he told here to ---- off, and then slammed the phone down. This would happen many times day, and after slamming the phone down he would out loud refer to her as a ----ing b---- or a ----ing c---. Several female colleagues were offended by the swearing. One of his sons was diabetic, and had behavioural problems. He often had to leave work, to go to the school to administer insulin. On several occasions he was called to the school as his son had had a tantrum, throwing chairs around the class, forcing the treacher to evacuate the room. Now what is the betting that the tantrums are due to a combination of mood swings caused by diabetes, and behavioural problems caused by his parents? Social services said that his wife was not fit to look after the children, but he could not look after them on his own, and did not want them to go into care.

His wife was useless. She came from a family of benefits claimants. She would get a job, under pressure from her husband, then after 3 months at most she would be sacked. The last time was when working in a shop. She simply did not turn up on two separate days as she wanted to do something else. She thought it unfair to get the sack. She went through three jobs while I was there (18 months). Her relatives all lived in council houses, claiming benefit, and thought it their right to get money from the state. When he met her father, he thought he was minted as he lived in a posh house in Putney, London. It was a council house. And when they met he thought she was 'fit' but complains that she is no longer 'fit'. Hi ho. He should have used his brain more often.

He was a reliable worker, but clearly had issues with his temper, and dealing with his wife.

I have never experienced anything like the above before, or since. The company owner did not seem to care. She also allowed a female staff member to sing out loud during the day, and to verbally abuse her colleagues. The only reason I can think of is that she cared about making money, and nothing else.

Glen_Clark

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

think you can't make building council houses work, when they can borrow money at 1% of 2%, and the rental yield might be 4% or 5%?

I don't think they could build enough to meet the demand for housing at below market price. Deciding who gets a council house is as much a recipe for beuracracy and corruption as the planning system.
Wheras if they just stopped interfering in the housing market (boosting demand whilst restricting supply) the free market would bring housing costs back into proportion to the economy like in the rest of Europe.
Then we could start paying off some of our debts, and I would feel safer holding Sterling cash.

Glen_Clark

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

i think the financial sector is a more powerful influence than the landed aristocracy nowadays. just look at all the links between HSBC and the current government (including the boss of HSBC becoming a minister). or indeed, look at how friendly gordon brown was with fred goodwin (just in case banana split is reading this, and thinks there's an anti-tory bias ).

Fair Point. Many politicians have gone into lucrative banking jobs like Tony Blair. Of course Sir Fred Goodwin was no longer in a position to put anything like that Gordon Brown's way when he was ousted.
But Osborne's HSBC tax, and his obsessive housing market interventions pushing up property prices at the expense of the rest of the economy, his obsession with taxing earned income far more than unearned income, suggest to me he is more interested in the old money landed aristocracy - with which he is better connected than Brown, than he is with new money wealth creators we so desperately need.

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

well, the really little people have no savings.

No but they still lose most from inflation, because they have no assets to increase in price to mitigate it.