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.

Max,

Are those rockets pointing at No 10 or Berkshire?

i fully understand the logic but i cannot see how on earth you can define let alone enshrine such a thing in law ...... it must surely be full of holes, or drafted so draconianly that you'ld end up in court for giving your child a stern telling off, let alone sending them to their room or even to the "naughty step"

Virtually impossible to prove emotional abuse. Evidence is the weak link in this.

"by"

8-)

like i say to others .... RTFQ!!!!
but same argument applies :-)

There is a UN report on climate change out today and looks like being so he of the main news items. There is not much coverage of this though

A climate scientist has accused the United Nations of being too alarmist over global warming – and demanded his name be removed from a crucial new report.

Professor Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex, said fellow UN academics were exaggerating climate change and comparing it to the ‘apocalypse’.

His comments are a blow to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which on Monday will publish its first update in seven years on the impacts of climate change.

Previous IPCC reports on climate impact have been plagued by errors that damaged the body’s credibility.

Most famously, it said in 2007 that glaciers in the Himalayas could disappear by 2035, a claim it has since withdrawn.

Scientists are meeting in Japan this week to agree the wording of the final document, which will be used to inform policy decisions of governments around the world.

Nice to see Holland's and his socialist party taking a beating in French elections It was only a poor candidate that stopped them losing Paris. Holland's reaction is a new Prime Minister and a cabinet shuffle.

That is a good start, perhaps Wavy Dave could do the same.

Fred whats your take on this FULL EMPLOYMENT claim from George Osbourne today???

Personally i thinks hes talking clap trap as usual.

Ive always used this measure as an economist........

Sir William Beveridge, the architect of the welfare state, thought it should be when 3% of the workforce is unemployed.

What Osbourne is failing to grasp is just how many people are really out of work in this country, certainly not the 7.1% his sidekicks the OBR state.

Probably over 10% when you add in all the previous groups that were in the figures.

Another TORY CON JOB imo.

What is Full Employment?
Posted on March 31, 2014 by alittleecon

George Osborne gave a speech today in which he gave a commitment to achieving ‘full employment’. The trouble is, full employment means different things to different people. Osborne seems to think it means having the highest employment rate in the G7. We’re already 4th on that measure (which is I guess why he chose it), but is this a good measure? It looks at the proportion who are employed, but to know if we have ‘full employment’, don’t we need to know how many are ‘unemployed’?

Chris Giles already has a blog up today with the same name as this one, and he gives two other definitions to the one George Osborne is using. Post-war, full employment just meant everyone had a job who wanted one. For most of the 50s and 60s, this was indeed the case. As Robert Skidelsky says here:

“Between 1950 and 1973 unemployment averaged 2% and was always well under one million.”

2%! We’re supposed to be happy with 7% today. Of course at that time there were much fewer women in the workplace, but they weren’t classed as unemployed because more households could get by on one income back then.

The second definition Giles gives I suppose you could say is the economist’s definition. That is called the NAIRU or the “non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment” to give it its full name. Many (most even) economists believe that there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment and that once unemployment falls below a certain level, inflation will start to accelerate. Ex Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont once said that unemployment was a price well worth paying to ensure inflation stayed low. The NAIRU in the UK is estimated at anywhere between 5 and 7%. This Guardian story gives a bit more detail:

“The Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) suggest that once the “equilibrium rate” for unemployment is reached, then full employment is achieved. The OBR said in its fiscal and outlook forecast, published at the same time of the budget, that unemployment would fall to its equilibrium rate in 2018.

The equilibrium rate is not fixed. In its February 2014 inflation report, the Bank of England said that the medium-term equilibrium unemployment rate was 6 to 6.5%, which means that unemployment remains 0.75 to 1.25% above this. The OBR said it judged that the long-term unemployment rate was 5.25% – with unemployment 1.75% above that. The bank says that the medium-term equilibrium unemployment rate will fall as demand recovers.”

So where does that leave use then? Full employment is either “the highest employment rate in the G7″, some technical, estimated rate believed to be the low-point at which inflation remains stable, or some loose (but much higher in some respects) definition of “everyone who wants a job has one”. I prefer the latter, but we could even extend this further and define it as “everyone who wants a job has one at a wage high enough to have a decent standard of living”. Wouldn’t that be something worthy of the name “full employment”?

I suspect George Osborne thinks he can get to his version of full employment by doing basically what he’s been doing, a bit of hand-waving while relying on the private sector to pick up with the help of rising levels of household debt. Which will be fine. Until it isn’t. Genuine full employment requires a much more active government than any of the main parties are currently willing to entertain. Here’s some further reading on how we could really get there.

GF.

The more I read about economics the more I like fairy stories.

I think the interpretation of the employment figures are often a distortion of fact and that under this motley crew running the the country is becoming a fine art.

The problem is that they are artless.

However, the more I read a about another figure ie. the GDP the more I think this is a bloody distortion an unrelated to the productivity or "true" wealth of the "country".

(Also, question what is productivity and what is wealth and why does productivity need to go up when half of the increasing productivity is worthless.)

As far I can see the GDP figures represent the amount of oil sloshing around in the engine, plus how much is pouring over the engine, and does not measure the "true" efficiency or "real" productivity of the engine.

Perhaps, I am old and a little P. off.

=======

Anyway followed you into NWS need to pay for my last trip around France.

Have a look at BARC, I think it may have bottomed out and noticed some large buys on LLOY. Also, have a sniff at ADN,although there was one large sell to-wards the end of the market.

Have a good evening and a better night.

8-)


PS. Cameron and Osborne could help the employment figures by resigning and holidaying in the Cayman Isles!

.

sticky - it would be so nice if you occasionally employed your brain to paraphrase

full employment is of course nothing of the sort and is never meant to be taken literally .... however, i would fully concur that whichever party is in power will manipulate the numbers by one means or another to support its cause

is it "fair" to describe as employed those in part-time employment or who have switched to self-employed in all its guises?
that all depends to whose tune you wish to dance, for both arguments have validity

what about the very considerable numbers (applies particularly in france) who work in the small family business, whether a corner shop or cafe? .... chances are that they won't get the minimum wage let alone paid holidays, sick pay etc etc

Tymoshenko seeks western military help for Ukraine
Ukraine’s best-known politician Yulia Tymoshenko has urged the west to bolster the country’s military defences and impose “immensely strong” economic sanctions on Moscow as the only way to deter further Russian military incursions

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

it may be on her wishlist but i doubt very much if it is on anyone else's
start down that route, and the end will be truly nasty

Don't forget the 'black economy' where large numbers work for cash in hand. We are talking about very large numbers. All this means that real unemployment is much lower than official figures.

bullshit hays .... the black economy has always been strong, and perhaps even more so in the 70/80s when certainly most restaurant staff and the like were paid cash

Manuel,

I am happy to read GF's postings, but would be happy if you shorten some of yours.

Put the kettle on!

--



If Tymoshenko is the lady who I think she is, then I can recall her having some very less than savoury friends.

But, I think at the moment sanctions directed at the Putin associates are the way forward.

I can't see Putin mad enough to resort to more military intervention in the bordering countries.

But similar was said about Hitler.

=======

GF. forgot thanks for NWS I think it will be profitable!

So you are agreeing with me then.

Scotland to switch to driving on the right if independence given green light

Current road signage system would also be scrapped under scheme nationalists say helps show country is 'part of Europe'


Bruce Roberts


The Guardian, Tuesday 1 April 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/01/scotland-driving-on-right-independence-road-scheme


Scottish nationalist leaders will attempt this week to give the trailing yes campaign a boost by revealing a series of measures aimed at showing what an independent country would look like.

Seeking to capitalise on the arguments this week about "bullying" England and keeping the pound, they will unveil an ambitious scheme to scrap the current – English inspired – road signage system. M for motorway will be replaced with a new S – for Scotland and the A trunk roads will become N roads – for Nationalist in honour of the new country. Blue will be the predominant backing colour.

The scale of the scheme is enormous: Scotland has 2,174 miles of road, including the 273-mile long A9 stretching from Edinburgh to John O'Groats – known as the "spine of Scotland".

It is estimated that 58,000 signs will have to be replaced – scrapping the famous road sign font known as "Transport" with a new Celtic-tinged typeface, Proclaimer. And it could be that they may take the opportunity to renumber all of Scotland's roads, beginning at one.

Independence strategists are believed to have sought advice on the plan from the Stirling University professor of transport semiotics, Lana Gocaireachd. "It's exciting, it gives us a clear difference from the English and is a tangible manifestation of a new, vibrant and independent national," said one official close to the scheme. "A more conscious uncoupling, perhaps."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he revealed that if the proposals were seen to swing the needle towards the yes camp then the next stage would be revealed: switch driving on the left of the road to the right – from the first day of independence in 2017.



Road names will change to reflect independence, with M (motorway) becoming S (Scotland) and A roads becoming N roads (nationalist). Photograph: Stephen Finn/Alamy



To ease the transition, Scottish transport planners, under strict conditions of secrecy, have begun drawing up plans for a series of spiral interchanges at the major border transport nodes. These will transition drivers to the correct side of the road – whether travelling south–north or north-south – and avoid cross-border crashes – "a PR disaster worse than horsemeat in haggis", according to one planner.

The campaigners take their inspiration from what Sweden – a much larger country than Scotland – was able to do in a single weekend in September 1967. Adopting the Swedish model, Scotland would need all signs ready, an intensive information campaign, and temporary speed restrictions. Backers say it would be more than symbolic – it would let Paris, Berlin and Brussels know that Scotland was serious about an EU role.

"It sends out an explicit signal: we are part of Europe," said one of the brains behind the scheme. "The little Englanders who want out of Europe are the only ones driving on the left-hand side. We've been the smaller relative dominated and having to copy their ridiculous ways for too long. No more. Just think, this will be an indignity for little England – isolated in Europe and pootling along in the slow lane on the left," he added.

They are concerned, however, that opponents of the move to the right might mobilise under the emotive slogan: "Proud to be left." Some fear that when the plans go public, the charismatic MP George Galloway would not be prepared to stand on the sidelines but would launch his own appeal: "Stay left, hard left."

It is understood that another proposal involving traffic light sequencing has been rejected. Instead of red, amber, green, it would have become red, amber, blue. But there was a fear that this would be adopted south of the border by the Conservatives and so lose any distinctiveness.