Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Fred

I am sure you will be pleased that it looks like Osborne's policies are working

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17708678

Standard & Poor's reaffirms UK's AAA credit rating

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has reaffirmed its AAA credit rating for the UK, saying it believes the economy is "wealthy, open and diversified".

S&P also confirmed a stable outlook, as it expects the government to implement the bulk of its austerity measures

S&P said in a statement: "In our view, the UK has a wealthy, open, and diversified economy, supported by a well-established political system and macroeconomic policy framework, which can react quickly to economic challenges.

"We expect economic policy to focus on closing the fiscal gap, and we forecast the government's net debt burden to peak in 2013 [at about 87% of GDP]."

Chancellor George Osborne said: "This is a reminder that Britain is weathering the international debt storms because of the policies we have adopted and stuck to in tough times."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/other_sports/racing/4256172/Grand-National-guide.html

Exec,

I am beginning to worry you about you.

I hate the thought of you getting lost on the road to Damascus.

Perhaps, I missed my vocation.

================

I have always had a difficulty with “charity” and believed that a civilised state should not have to rely on such to support its “weakest members”.

I am not against the actions of many who are charitable and believe their intentions, in general, are for the benefit of groups within society and probably society as a whole.

I sometimes question which organisation have “charitable” status and hence see difficulties when donations can be seen to be advantaging certain groups whose “values” are similar to those of the donors. Donations to minor religious sects, as well as other groups, may be seen in this way.

Also, some of the major humane and caring actions have been financed by charity and through charities. The Salvation Army and similar bodies, who have cared for some in society who many of us would have difficulty in helping,.

However, I believe that such charitable gifts should be given after tax and at the level which the donors wish to and can afford.

The effective distribution of “charity” to a large modern society cannot be left to the whims of individuals and for me there is the need for a “government” to organise it and the cost borne out of general taxation.

Again, I do think that it is wrong to give donations to so called “charities”, which are later diverted back into the family, even when this occurs abroad. To me this is evasion of social responsibilities.

Therefore, although I have some doubts about the sincerity of George’s proposed “charity tax reforms”, they do seem sensible.
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Regarding Osborne and Cameron.

They can be seen as CEO and CFO of UK corporation and I think if their management, promises and actions over the last 2 years were examined by the share holders, they would be fired for incompetence and general mismanagement .

They are fortunate that, even with such a right winged press as we have in the UK, that they haven’t be mauled for their mistakes in the way the previous government often was. Sometimes the criticism of the previous government’s policies and actions was justifiably, but I disliked the depths of personal abuse which was often descended to.

=============

Hays,

As far as AAA rating is concerned by Standard & Poor's is concerned.

Their opinion hasn’t affected the French economy.

---------------

The above rating company failed to recognise the oncoming financial collapse prior to it happening.

http://rjrnewsonline.com/business/moodys-standard-and-poors-blamed-global-financial-crisis

Moody's & Standard and Poor's blamed for global financial crisis

A United States Congressional Committee examining the causes of the 2008 global financial crisis has concluded that ratings agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's were the main triggers behind the meltdown.

The committee reached the conclusion after more than two years of poring over countless documents and holding hearings into the causes of the crisis.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, then the fourth largest investment bank in the US on September 15, 2008, triggered the worst financial crisis in decades.

However, a US Senate committee examining the reasons behind the crisis, points fingers elsewhere and more specifically at ratings agencies.

The committee, in a report, concluded that Moody's and Standard and Poor's, the world's two most prominent ratings agencies, were the triggers of the global financial crisis in 2008.

The Senate committee found that both ratings agencies continued to give top ratings to mortgage-backed securities months after the housing market started to collapse.

The panel said a subsequent "flood of downgrades" in July 2007 was "perhaps more than any other single event ... the immediate trigger for the financial crisis."

The Senate panel also released internal documents showing how Moody's and Standard and Poor's failed to heed their own internal warnings about the deteriorating mortgage market.

It concluded that the warnings were ignored because "neither company had a financial incentive to assign tougher credit ratings to the very securities that for a short while increased their revenues, boosted their stock prices, and expanded their executive compensation."
Etc.

-------------------------------------------------
Also!

To me,they may have a vested interested in maintaining their posturing against QE and prefer “austerity”, which may not effect them personally to much, for possibly the same reason as some of those who have invested in the present “tory” government.

At the end of the day QE is a delayed devaluation. Work out the processes and effects behind the processes, if you disagree.

Hays,

You must be pleased with the latest polls.


YouGov/Sunday Times – CON 33, LAB 39, LD 10
14 Apr 2012

Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times has topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 39%, LDEM 10% – so the six point Labour lead we’ve had this week remains steady.

------------------------

Edited to relieve it from his fears.

please dont... unfortunately those that want handouts now exceed those that have to provide them. The country is spiraling into an ever worse situation due to levels of taxation that an american (all the americas) would never tolerate. The nanny state has to be cut back and hard.

I don't trust any religious leaders. I'm exceedingly suspicious of the top people who work in and for large charitable institutions. I am very aware of the following:

One of the best ways to become wealthy is to get yourself involved in 'selling things'. This distances you from any 'time related/restricted' methods of making/earning money.

One of the next best ways to benefit yourself to a maximum, is to live on/off the back of a charity. The tax reliefs are much better. Not for much longer though, apparently.

Exec,

Which groups, bodies, or individuals do you completely trust?

(Not to make mistakes, not to run off with the proceeds, or not to dine disproportionately from the troughs.)

Cut down on "welfare" in order for the few to get fatter, or obtain "goods and objects", which are possibly of no use or real benefit to ourselves?

Would you apply the same to judgement to such organisations as Medicins sans Frontieres, or the Bill Gates Foundation?

-------

The cutbacks are to enable the UK to pack its debts. The cutting of our top rate tax was sensible as we were virtually the highest taxed country. We are still almost at that level and I expect the rate to fall to 40%.

Exec,

I can see the need for public audit of the accounts of these organisations.

Perhaps, the accountants could give their services freely to the individual charities.

(Some accountants do this already.)

Around 10 - 12 years ago the top dog (excuse the pun) in the guide dogs for the blind charity was getting just short of £70k a year, that's a huge number of tin cans full of money just to pay him.
2517

See http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/citigroups-first-quarter-net-income-falls-2/?partner=yahoofinance

Citigroup reported better-than-expected earnings on Monday, driven by steady demand for loans from consumers and businesses and an improving economic condition in the United States.

The New York based bank reported that net income was down 2 percent to $2.9 billion, or 95 cents a share. Total revenue was $19.4 billion, down 2 percent from a year ago.

Excluding certain items, the bank said it earned $1.11 a share in the first quarter of 2012, up 7 percent from the same period a year earlier. That exceeded analyst estimates of $1.02 a share, according to a survey by Bloomberg.
....

Do you seriously think that £70k is a huge wage?

The problemwith the government is that the CEO of a large comp0any earns about 10 times the salary of the PM so why would any sensible person want to be PM? We pay peanuts so we get monkeys.

T.I.M It wasn't bad a decade or so ago, there's many would like to be on that sort of money now. The 'huge' was used in the context of the number of collection cans required just to pay his wage.
2517

TIm.

If what you say is true, I think it would be better to pay for a monkey to replace the present incumbent, Cameron. as PM. Probably its competency's would be better and his expenses less.

It laughable that his pre-election rally call for local elections is based on "competency" and not persistent U-turns.

I wonder if the local tories will leave him of their canvassing material.

There is certainly a lot of fiddling inside the charities. I used to have a girlfriend who was in charge of audits for a very large firm of accountants (one of the big ones in the world). She audited a major charity and found that someone there had been stealing millions over a number of years. The details only came to light due to the sudden illness and absense of the person involved. A desk had to be forced and inside there were large numbers of big cheques made out to cash. The fraud had been going on for more than 10 years. The charity was told and they hushed it up as the truth would have damaged the response rate of doners. I was told at the time, that this was a fairly common occurrence.

Hays,

Through my wife's involment in and organisation, I have a minor interest into the workings of the Charity commision and I think you have be sold a pup.

Undoubtably, there have beensome episodes of false accounting, which have been allowed by the unforeseem side effects of weak legislation.

As said before I am a little ambivalent about some charities and certainly a society which some think should depend on them.

Fred
I know quite a bit about the case. I was living with the girlfriend at the time and saw some of the documents when they qualified the accounts. She said that there had been a number of similar high profile cases.

Hays.

"She said that there had been a number of similar high profile cases."


You knew her I didn't.

It wouldn't be the first time I am wrong.

But I don't think either of us think very highly of many individuals, some of whom are involved in "charities" and other areas of work.


In general, l I think such cases should be exposed"prosecuted" if they are at a significant level and if the actions are done knowingly.

I think the thing about the latest tory "Charity Tax" debacle, and the mounting U-turns, is that I think that Cameron and others in the party previous jobs were as PR men and presentation was their game.

I thought that job entailed presenting information to the public in a way that they would swallow it.

Cameron and Osborne present policies to the public and then asks for help from the cabinet to modify them to present to his own party.

I can see why they left their previous jobs, probably, nobody would hire them.

I only wish they would do some other jobs than the ones they are doing now.

-------------------

PS.

By PR, I didn't mean per rectum.