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.

I wish it was that simple.

Bur I can't get the bloody manacles off.

Do you know that it is so bad that even the dog has left home.

Just mention my name Fred, that should do the trick -):

Alexis Tsipras begins rolling back Greek austerity policies


New prime minister says there is no time to waste, as privatisation programme demanded by EU and IMF is put on hold




The privatisation of Piraeus Port, Greece's largest docks, has been postponed. A Chinese consortium and four other suitors were vying for a 67% stake in the port authority. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian


Helena Smith

Wednesday 28 January 2015 13.17 GMT



In a dramatic start to his tenure in office, Greece’s new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has begun unpicking the deeply unpopular austerity policies underpinning the debt-stricken country’s bailout programme.

After storming to power on Sunday, the leftwinger said there was no time to waste. “We will continue with our plan,” he told his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “We don’t have the right to disappoint our voters.”

The government’s top priority would be to tackle the “humanitarian crisis” – the result of five years of punitive belt-tightening measures – but also open negotiations over Greece’s unsustainable debt, at €320bn (£239bn) the largest in Europe.

“We won’t get into a mutually destructive clash, but we will not continue a policy of subjection,” said Tsipras, who at 40 is Greece’s youngest postwar leader.

Catapulted into office for the first time, Syriza – in power with the small, rightwing Independent Greeks party after falling two seats short of an overall majority in the 300-seat house – set about acting on its pledges before the cabinet meeting even began.

Earlier, the energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, called a halt to the privatisation programme that the EU and IMF have demanded in exchange for the €240bn in aid keeping Greece afloat. Plans to sell off the country’s dominant power corporation, PPC, were to be frozen with immediate effect. “We will immediately stop any privatisation of PPC,” said the politician, who heads Syriza’s militant Left Platform. Plans to privatise the port of Pireaus, the country’s largest docks, were also put on hold. China’s giant consortium, Cosco, and four other suitors had been vying for a 67% stake in the port authority, agreed in consultation with creditors by Greece’s previous conservative-led coalition government. “The Cosco deal will be reviewed to the benefit of the Greek people,” Thodoris Dritsas, the deputy minister in charge of shipping, told Reuters.




Shares in PCC and Piraeus Port both tumbled by around 7% at the start of trading in Athens, while Greek government bond yields rose to near record levels and bank shares fell.

Dismantling the EU-IMF mandated measures that had plunged Greece into poverty and despair would, declared Panos Skourletis, the labour minister, be his single greatest priority.

“The reinstatement of the minimum wage to €751 (£560) [a month] will be among the government’s first bills,” Skourletis announced on Antenna TV.


More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/greece-new-prime-minister-halts-austerity-policies

“The reinstatement of the minimum wage to €751 (£560) [a month] will be among the government’s first bills”

that should slash unemployment at a stroke!

Cant see how it will make it any worse.

could drive even more businesses to the wall and is assuredly a disincentive to take on new people

If a business cant afford the ><£115 a week wages, there's something wrong with the model.

Max.

Good for Alexis Tsipras.

Better than Cameron and Osborne flogging off London and companies to new Russian tory cronies hoping, that some will play tennis and pay for his balls.

He is going to do what should have been done 4 -5 years ago.
======

Mind it is good to think IDS and Cameron don't support Euthanasia.

They just cut the life supports off the elderly, weak and defenceless who won't be able to pay for the support services they need. Probably cheaper and the cash can be directed to tax cuts for the wealthier.

=======-=-=-=-=-

What is Haze's recent handout mantra from Grant Shapps and Lynton.

-=-=-=

What is happening in the A+E units of England after 4 years of misrule.



========-

Manuel,

I would halve you income.

That would increase employment and stimulate to you to worker harder.

Mind many would think you are over paid now and perhaps income tax should be raised on those earning a tenner a week.

======

Don't fall over and fracture your hip, the ambulance if you give your name will only take 3-4 hours.

i'll walk!

Analysis
Labour and Conservatives are now polling within just a point of each other, with the Tories having narrowed the Labour lead. This will be worrying for Labour leader Ed Miliband.

An analysis by Ipsos Mori of polling data from the three months ahead of polling day in each election campaign since 1992 found that the party's wafer thin lead over the Conservatives can only go down from this point.

What is clear is that it seems unlikely that either party would be able to secure a majority, meaning another coalition is on the cards.

The rise of other parties such as Ukip, the Green Party and the SNP could mean any one of them being called up to help form a coalition government.

If you do give me a bell and I will come and watch.

I am a sadist at heart.

4 foot of snow promised.

Instructions go out to suppress the news.


Cameron lost somewhere with his huskies.

Suppress the news.

8-)

(Good PR.)

Having realised I am a sadist, bought a few SBs longs on wide stops.

UMMMMH.

depends on whether you think dow will jump or dump when yellen speaks

prob with indicating that rates will rise is that $ is already very strong
there's also the underlying factor that though the US economic recovery has been strong, latest numbers have generally had cautious to weak outlook and further, US wages have (also!) not been increasing

Cyners when is Yellen speaking please?

Haystack Send an email to Haystack View Haystack's profile - 28 Jan 2015 13:27 - 55971 of 55992

cynic
It was the Mirror

Farage has admitted setting up offshore trust. His current view is that it was a mistake and he regrets it...........ends

Hays you shouldnt be complaining this is the kind of thing YOU applaud and support. Is it because you and your boys fear him.

i presume at 19:00 this evening

farage - as i said when the post went up, why shouldn't he?