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Saturday's programme started with an email from Karen, who works as a pharmacist. Is making an error in your job as big a risk?
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I can't believe there hasn't been more 'ridiculing' of the capitalist advocates this week.
Barclays are backing out of their Final Salary Pension Scheme. Isn't that a full admission capitalism doesn't work? The very company that claims expertise in money management! It's passing the risk back to the individual. Well that's progress!!! Where are the benefits of 'pooling' the risk and economies of scale gained from pension management. Where is the principle of 'delegation to experts.'
For the individual, figuring out and making pension decisions is extremely complex. Downright impossible for most people. You could spend a hundred hours on it and still get it wrong. And to be effective, you need to do that in your mid-twenties. Not only that, you have to dedicate, at least 10 hours each and every year managing it and checking for changes in rules, regulations and tax laws.
Passing the risk back to the individual means some people will be lucky and some won't. The best brains in Barclays are admitting they can't do it - so what hope does an individual have? If companies can't provide a pension scheme that is nothing more than a savings scheme, which money purchase plans are, then we need a 'socialist' approach from government.
Big business are abandoning any claim to being able to look after the individual and effectively passing the problem back to government. Big business may say it wants 'small government,' but actually we need 'big government' because the coporations are abdicating responsibility.
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I want to find out how MPs react to the idea of their pay being performance related.
Let's find out if they like the idea of their pay being linked to the constituency turnout of the election returned them as an MP. Something like 2,000 pounds/year for each percent of turnout achieved.
Clearly we also get rid of expenses, allowances and outside incomes (no man can have two masters).
How about it?
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Is that a photo of Eddie being sent out to interview someone from the government, as the Westminster Village collapses round their ears?
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As if...
The blackbird
lives in a
country like
a rose in the
dreamland,
and even a
pleasure declares
in a moment
that intention
of love.
Francesco Sinibaldi
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How about discussing Arnold Schwarznegger's idea to cut back on his State's textbook budget by promoting internet-based learning?
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Eddie - I saw Vera yesterday, Jack wasn't there. Anyhoo, we were wondering what that to be newly ennobled Alan Sugar bloke might be called. Vera said probably Lord Tate of Lyle.
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I think you should cover this story:
The German power company, RWE, has submitted plans for a nuclear power station at Kirksanton in Cumbria, which will result in the destruction of the two long established Haverigg windclusters, including three turbines owned by Triodos Renewables.
The Haverigg windcluster site, on the fringes of the Lake District National Park, is home to one of the UKs first wind energy projects. Commissioned in 1992 by Windcluster Ltd, a small privately owned company, it was heralded by Friends of the Lake District as a fine example of appropriate wind energy development. The wind turbines were financed by a pioneering group of ethical investors and are widely regarded as an exemplary example of sensitive and sustainable wind energy development. The site was subsequently expanded to a total of eight turbines and enjoys widespread local support.
If RWEs plans proceed, these turbines will be destroyed and the green electricity they produce will be lost.
Lots more here:
http://www.triodos.co.uk/uk/whats_new/latest_news/press_releases/Nuclearplantplannedonwindfarm
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Following on from the post above, it's all to do with joined up thinking, totally foreign to the political class.
Britain will miss 2020 clean energy targets and the supporting certificate scheme "will die" if the government does not spend more to support renewables, the CEO of clean energy developer Climate Change Capital said on Tuesday.
The UK's Renewables Obligation scheme forces utilities to generate an increasing proportion of their electricity from low-carbon sources, including wind and biomass energy, in an effort to meet a 2020 target of 15 percent renewable energy.
If utilities are unable to generate renewable energy, they must buy Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) from generators that have excess low-carbon energy to sell.
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/53299
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I would like to suggest the BBC begins a proper discussion regarding the establishment of an English Parliament. After all throughout the 70's, 80's and early 90's on every other discussion program the merits of a Scottish parliament was the main topic. Of course our Scottish MP's don't want devolution for the English and so this topic is not to be debated.
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Some weeks ago you ran a feature where we were asked to put on the blog what we would most like aboloshied/changed (that was the gist of it I seem to remember). Unfortunatley I was unable to master registering on the blog to beat the deadline but now that I have managed it I would like to air my view.
I feel that the now ubiquitous background music (or as a friend of mine refers to it "foreground music" when it is particularly loud) is excrutiating and makes it impossible for me to concentrate on working, reading for pleasure or conversation. I have never been asked by any organisation whether I would like to have such music played to me though we are constantly being told that "we play it because our customers like it". I would like to proffer that a very small percentage actually like it but rather that a large majority either detest it or simply tolerate it but that, if asked, this majority would err against this invasion of peace. It seems to me that silence is an enemy to those who feel we should have such backgournd noise played to us wherever we go whereas I feel that silence promotes thought, conversation and well-being.
I would be delighted if you could canvas the opinion of PM's listeners to see whether my analysis is correct. If so perhaps we can start to persuade our shops, restaurants, pubs, libraries (yes libraries I ask you!), aeroplanes, buses, trains etc etc to stop playing it and annoying us. My bank (HSBC) plays the most ridiculously inappropriate drivel all day in the branch and very loudly. This they do because "they have had confidentiality issues". This is rubish as it just means you have to shout to be heard and then everyone else in the branch can hear you too. I now almost never go into my branch bt simply e-mail my bank manager when I want something done.
Almost never do I go into any establishment where I have the chance to do so without asking them (very politely) to turn the music down or off. I feel that if enough of us did this we might be able to get the message across.
Many thanks for anything you can do to restore the sanity of this grumpy old man.
Robin [Personal details removed by Moderator]
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Richard_SM, spot on, there has been a near total collapse in the FSS pension and even if you are in one there is serious counterparty risk that the comapny may not be around. Successive Governments have complately failed to address this despite being endlessly reminded by Ros Altmann. A similar experience was also true of the endowment mess. I was told because I was a financial professional - a trade financier- that I should know better. If actuaries who after all are specialists cannot get the future value of a stream of payments right over 20-25 year time horizons - and I mean being out by 40-50% then what chance the average punter? The industry has walked away fromm this. Equally the International Accounting Standards Board did not see the consequences of their actions in insisitng firms put pension surplus or deficits on balance sheet- thus no two years accounts are stricly comparable- irrespective of the desirability of making firms recognise their obligations they effectively sounded the death knell for the FSS. So now we have to take all the investment risk ourselves and pay another group of often connected individuals to guess what is the most appropriate course of action. Since Dr.King admitted that it was extremely hard to predict the future course of events via QE and other stimulus measures- again what chance the man in the street? Serious longevity time-bomb lurking in the pensions industry as well- where is the FSA again?
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Suggestion for a story space- "Whinge of the week"
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