[tomtom]

Tomorrow, the axe is due to fall on many public sector departments/employees in the Governments spending review...

I suspect there are many here who work in the public sector - so thought it may be worth a thread to shoot the shit about this... I'll kick things off...

I work in higher education - so we're due for an 80%+ cut in funding  yes thats a  as theres no real way of dealing with such a ridiculous statement. Of course a bulk of this money lost is what we recieved from the Govt for each student (£4k+) that will be transferred to Students through raised fees (we expect) but theres also a likely 25-50% cut in research funding (which was hard as nails to get anyway). Two things really worry me - first that the cuts happen, but then theres a delay/waering down in the implementation of the Browne review so a funding gap develops. Second, that we'll be OK for next year - but in 2012 when the higher fees and cuts kick in  - no-one knows what the fcku is going to happen regarding setting fees/markets/what will people spend etc..  Two years of uncertainty and rumour are due to follow I suspect....

[Sloper]

Some of us work in the private sector. But in any event.

The market will do to higher education what politicans lacked the courage to do, that is shrink the HE sector back to a size where quality becomes king rather than volume.  Do I think that this is a good thing?

No, I think creating a market was a disgraceful betrayal and one that (along with detention without charge, complicity in torture, the illegal wars, the erosion of civil liberties) ought to be rammed down the throat of anyone who seeks to defend what Labiour did in the last 13 years.

Anyway, as for cuts they're going to be deep and cause damage; cuts do.  What we need to do is cut out what we can do without and limit the necessary damage to things that we'd rather keep.

Cuts like expansion tend to overshoot both on the way up and the way down so it's going to be messy; if I had a biggish pot of dosh I'd be setting up a company to deliver training and welfare to work on the basis of workhouse style camps on old airbases. 

Hopefully the economic crisis left by labour can lead us to a fundamental rebalancing of the relationship between the individual and the state that leaves the state much, much, much smaller.

Ohhh and don't forget, the big society thing is a steaming pile of BS.

[Sloper]

on a lighter note.

!

[Sloper]

And some more



and yet more

[Bubba]

At least the armed forces get cut back so we can't play at being a world military power quite so well.

[tomtom]

 

In the same way the Navy are going to have aircraft carriers with no aircraft for a few years, we'll probably soon have a few Universities with no students...

[Sloper]

The difference is there are more HE institutions than there are naval dockyards, BAE plants and so on.

Hull will probably be o.k. University of Salford . . .I wouldn't bet on it.

[Jaspersharpe]

Check out this cuts calculator thing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/oct/19/comprehensive-spending-review-cuts

I saved £56.53bn and left the vast majority of departments untouched. Plus most of the cuts were in things that I believe in like withdrawing from Afghanistan and scrapping Trident.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/oct/19/comprehensive-spending-review-cuts#/AAAAAAAIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAAABAAAAAAkJSyBAAAAA/SmFzcGVy

Just goes to show, all those jobs don't need to go..... 

[Jaspersharpe]

To be fair, 99% of the mainstream media are making this very same error every time they mention "the deficit". Most people don't understand this stuff at all which is just how the politicians want it.

[granticus]

Was in London village yesterday at the TUC rally/ lobby of parliament.  Interestingly all the Conservative MPs that folk had arranged appointments with... cancelled last minute and were offering up there 'staff' or nothing as an alternative.   

The head of the Irish equivalent of the TUC made a very interesting speach about the effects of an age of 'austerity' on the economy over there and it wasn't very fUKcing rosie.  We are so not 'in this all together' and can't help thinking that beneath all this the wealthy are rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of increasing their bank balances.    Tax the rich, tax the banks, tax financial institutions, tax big business, tell those who keep their wealth off shore to jog on, punish tax dodgers/avoiders and quit telling us there is no alternative.

[shark]

Nice toy. Though I notice that if you try to cut debt interest payments you can't  - which is correct - but are told that "If only you could change this. But as you've borrowed the money, you have to pay it back" - which is the wrong explanation: the expenditure item is debt interest, not debt repayment (governments almost never make net debt repayments, they just roll it over with new borrowing). An example of why no-one should ever bother reading the Grauniad's finance or business pages.

As things stand our rating (compared to other sovereign debt nations) is good and debt interest costs low. I read there is likely to be a (unknown) tipping point where if our debt reaches a certain amount relative to GDP then the markets get twitchy and the cost of new or replacement borrowing will shoot up. So Osborne's principle/al aim is to keep overall borrowing below that point to maintain low cost of debt rather than reduce the debt per se. Yes/No?

[Sloper]

From memory one of the key criteria for AAA rating was a debt servicing rate at <10% of tax take.

What will be interesting to see is how we fare with yield and currency stability if the yuan strengthens significantly as they increase their base rate.

I personally remain very bearish about the state of the economy generally and think we'd do well not to have a 3 quarter recession followed by anaemic growth / stagnation for a three year period thereafter. The fundamentals are looking very bad indeed.

[LucyB]

Maybe. It's definitely weird that schools don't have some basic money/ finance stuff in the core curriculum. But I doubt any politician has ever lobbied against it (or for it, either).

We do. Teenagers tend to be mildly interested, but see it as rather irrelevant to their lives. How much stuff do you remember of what you were taught at school, when it didn't seem as important to you as trying to snog the girl with freckles sitting next to you?

[cheque]

Some of us work in the private sector.

You still use public services, though.

[Sloper]

Cheque, I fail to see what that's got to do with anything.  What I said was that some of us aren't going to be directly affected. 

As for the range of public services that I'm a net contributor to*, I'd be perfectly happy so see a whole lot not just reduced in scope but cut altogether.

*net contributors make up something like 10% of the workforce.

[lagerstarfish]

Maybe. It's definitely weird that schools don't have some basic money/ finance stuff in the core curriculum. But I doubt any politician has ever lobbied against it (or for it, either).

We do. Teenagers tend to be mildly interested, but see it as rather irrelevant to their lives.

Really? I didn't know that. In what subject/ at what level?

Citizenship. Compulsory to Key Stage 4

How much stuff do you remember of what you were taught at school, when it didn't seem as important to you as trying to snog the girl with freckles sitting next to you?

Two words: boys' school 

Does that mean that trying to snog the boy with freckles sitting next to you was more important to you than what you were being taught, or that you were taught at a higher standard which meant that you remembered what you were taught?

[lagerstarfish]

and at KS3

j. how economic decisions are made, including where public money comes from and who decides how it is spent

[lagerstarfish]

16 year olds who would have the ability to understand and retain info about that stuff if it was taught will grow up to become adults who will educate themselves about it anyway.

From what I remember, all education for under 16s was pretty shallow 

Perhaps citizenship training with an exam for all over 18s who want to vote or claim benefits?

Innit?

Blimey. How about the cost of money, interest rates ... that kind of thing?

Perhaps they do that at KS 1&2 so that they've forgotten about it by the time they can vote (under the current unqualified voting system)

[Jaspersharpe]

Perhaps citizenship training with an exam for all over 18s who want to vote or claim benefits?

Innit?

Getting dangerously close to my Luton plan there lagers. 

[Jaspersharpe]

Oh and Sloper, saying "I work in the private sector so I'm not directly affected" before predicting a 3 quarter recession which will have been directly caused by Tory economic policy is what it looks like. Contradictory nonsense.

[slackline]

Good piece by Johan Hari.

[slackline]

I found the fact that Vodafone have had a £6.9bn tax bill scrapped outrageous.

Really should be more being done to real in tax dodgers as it sounds as though it would have a fairly big impact on finances in general, but then I suspect there are cahoots aplenty to discourage this.

[SA Chris]

Pay tax according to what you earn, unless you earn shitloads then you pay none.

How about cutting some MP's salaries?

[Jaspersharpe]

I found the fact that Vodafone have had a £6.9bn tax bill scrapped outrageous.

Except that isn't a fact. The case had been going on for something like 13 years and it was never certain that the whole amount could be collected. A deal was done whereby HMRC received something like £1.4bn. I'm not saying it was right (far from it) but this "£6bn written off" statement is just headline grabbing stuff.

While I agree with a lot of Hari's sentiments, he has a tendency to throw figures about as FACT when they're not. Obviously I agree that big companies and rich individuals should be taxed properly (I'm always going on about it) but it's not that easy / simple.

[slackline]

Apologies for the over-simplification and not checking sources (had hoped that journalists would do such things responsibly, but should have known better).