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.

Do you think Cameron or side kick Osborne is going to be called as a character witness for Andy, or Rebecca?


Birds of a feather!!!!!

I agree Fred, on this occasion hes even disagreeing with the Italian government and people.

Anything for an argument, AND his memory is getting worse and worse.

He says their very much reduced income, fact is their pension is fully guranteed wether they are 55 or 65, they get full benefits as if it had run its full course with added inflation.

Not sure what happens if they want to carry on working past 65 but that wasnt part of my inital post. Im all for pensioners carrying on working if thats what they want.

don't confuse voluntary and obligatory redundancy or early retirement

btw, you may spend 6 months a year at your villa in spain, but i certainly do not and could not even afford to do so, at least not in the style i'ld like ..... more importantly, my business would not "allow" me to do that, and also it happens that i enjoy my work (generally!)

their pension is fully guaranteed whether they are 55 or 65, they get full benefits as if it had run its full course with added inflation.

guaranteed by whom?
italy is bankrupt, and will be in an even deeper hole if people are forced out at 55, thus increasing the strain on the exchequer

further, what is the level of the italian state pension, even in relation to the average wage?

you also fail to address the problem of replacing that vast pool of knowledge borne or experience

My contibution to this debate (as promised) is being delayed as I am to busy (and this is for the benefit of you know who) "working".

Just had a close do with IG at the close on a S BET, placed my 77 in the open box but only 7 showed left it for about 5 seconds so added another 7 and then clicked the buy box.

Came out at £777 a point on the lower Open positions box......nearly s-it myself.

Rang them up straight away passed around then cheif cheese came on and said in good faith we will honour £77 a point.......phew.

All altered on my screen , thank god.

What makes it worse it was Premier Foods who have had a kicking today. Could have been in big trouble in the morning.

Stan,

Is that what you call it now?

4 different posts in 1 minute by 4 different people... Is that a MAM record?

Cynic them worries you outline above were discusssed, short term worries, long term more secure the Italians reckon.

ps, Sticky SNR my holiday homes are in Rhodes, Malta, and Ibiza, not Spain.

you have far too much money which the exchequer should seize asap
clearly you're paying insufficient tax

Alf has clearly been drinking this afternoon while others have been working hard to get this economy moving -):

Dave Camoron‏@EtonOldBoys6m
What a way for Old Etonian Mr Brooks to find out his wife, was having an affair!!!

have had a VERY successful day starting at 07:00 with a conference call to the other side of the world ..... that and another deal sealed later in the day will certainly help company profits

Cyners how many new employees have you taken on since this so called recovery started 3 months ago??????

none in uk, as we moved nearly all the admin etc to our NL office a couple of years back, but i think 3 or 4 extra in that office over the last year .... in fact, our company (and industry) is labour lean but capital greedy, and a good job too, as otherwise i doubt we would have survived some of the nasty times encountered in the last 30 years

more generally, don't forget that companies still have a lot of slack to take up before they need to start employing (many) more, but that does not mean the economy and the money in it is not growing

QUESTION

goldfinger - 31 Oct 2013 17:26 - 32003 of 32004

Cyners how many new employees have you taken on since this so called recovery started 3 months ago??????

ANSWER

cynic - 31 Oct 2013 17:33 - 32004 of 32004

none in uk .......................ends



I rest my case.

Like I said this morning these so called jobs Camoron talks about are Mickey Mouse jobs on fixed training contracts in the likes of Poundland or Poundstretcher. Subsidising the employer.

Does anyone seriously think call me dave will be in charge after next election?



Tories opt for press regulation. We really are pretty hard to distinguish from Labour these days


By Douglas Carswell Politics Last updated: October 31st, 2013

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglascarswellmp/100243460/tories-opt-for-press-regulation-we-really-are-pretty-hard-to-distinguish-from-labour-these-days/







The longer I have been in Parliament, the more I realise that those on either front bench actually have rather a lot in common.

I don’t just mean that they did similar degrees at similar Oxbridge colleges. Or that they then went on to work as “special advisers”, before being selected in equally safe seats.

They also seemed to do all that at around the same time.

Those on both front benches seemed to learn their craft during the Blair ascendency, a time when politics was all about presentation, not principle. The most successful politicians of that era – Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder – boasted about doing “what works”. Having an underlying system of beliefs was seen as an encumberance, not an asset. It was – the ultimate dirty word – "ideological".

Yet look at some of the mess we Conservatives have got into precisely because we parted with principle.

Without any underlying system of beliefs about economics, the (post-monetarist) Tory frontbench bought into the idea that the financial boom meant a permanent addition to the UK tax base.

So instead of calling for tax cuts (“Old fashioned". "So 1980s!”), we started to talk about “sharing the proceeds of growth”. So when the Brownian boom went bust, we had almost nothing to say – a key reason, I suspect, why we failed to win the last election.

It has been a similar story with energy policy.

In the early Noughties, Labour bought into the whole “green energy” agenda. Since burning fossil fuels is easily the cheapest way of producing energy, in order to reduce CO2 emissions, the Labour government had to radically reconfigure the energy market. Instead of being free(ish), with producers generating electricity at the cheapest price punters were willing to pay, energy companies were required to generate according to quotas.

Again, we ditched our free market principles and went along with it. Modernisers, you see.

Now that the consequences of what Ed Miliband and co did when in office are coming home – with some householders priced out of being able to heat theirs – what do we have to say?

And then there is press regulation. Yet again, the Conservative front bench has opted to do what is expedient, rather than what is principled. And yet again, in doing so we have harmed our long term strategic interest.

Rather than risk a Commons defeat (there is almost certainly a majority in the House in favour of statutory press regulation), the Conservative front bench opted for a Royal Charter. “A half-way compromise, you see”. “Not really statutory at all, old boy”. Clever, eh?

Too clever, actually. Had a Labour/Lib Dem majority forced statutory press regulation through, in the face of principled Conservative opposition, we would go into the 2015 with almost every newspaper in the land willing on a Conservative victory.

Once again, tactical clever-dickery has overridden any strategic sense. May be principle-free politics isn’t such a good idea after all?

Who won the debate between Paxo and Russel Brand. I think Brand made a right fool of himself , what drug is he on now ? he was raving on like a madman.

I don't rate him as a stand up comic , and his voice is very annoying.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/31/robert-webb-russell-brand_n_4180398.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Brand said he won't vote ,and he made a fool of himself with his class war loony left views , Sound's like someone who post's on this thread ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/30/tristram-hunt-newsnight-paxman_n_4179585.html

Wednesday was not a good day for Tristram Hunt.

In the afternoon, the former TV historian laboured through his first big Commons outing as shadow education secretary, being mocked by Michael Gove for his past comments on free schools.

In the evening, the newly appointed member of the shadow cabinet received an even more forceful humiliation at the hands of Jeremy Paxman, who refused to let the plumy parliamentarian off the hook about Labour policy. When asked if he would allow his own children to go to schools with unqualified teachers, Hunt refused to answer - fives times.

Watch as the MP for Stoke-on-Trent buckles around three minutes 35 seconds.

Good ol Tristram, don't do as I do etc etc.

Hypocrite and chancer, hopefully temporary.