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Andrew Morton

Listed below are comments made by Andrew Morton between Tuesday, 12th May 2009 and Sunday, 6th December 2009.

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A flight that almost cost me my marriage 11:41pm on 06 Dec 2009 There is a very simple solution to this. Limit every person, by law, to a certain number of air-miles each year. Using economic methods to deal with this simply prices out the poorest people who fly - the ones who save years for their one special holiday - while doing little to dissuade those who are wealthy to fly as often as they like. Entrenching and exacerbating economic inequality will do little to encourage people to make this an "ethical" issue. So - limit everyone to a certain number of air miles each year. Make them tradeable. Require those wealthy enough to travel often to pay those who will never be able to fly for the privilege.
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 00:52am on 03 Dec 2009 Post 227 "There is a hell of a lot of "the politics of envy" on this site. Did anyone notice that Goldman Sachs (which i know has now repaid or nearly repaid it's state aid) was going to pay bonuses equiv. of £500k per person. If RBS paid £2bn out it would equate to c£15k per person, which i know is a lot of money but you do the comparisson."

I've done the comparison. I've compared it with the waitress getting the minimum wage whose tax is going to paying that "measly" £15K bonus. I've compared it with the dustman who clears the bins from outside the houses of the folk who are getting the £15K bonus, and whose tax money is subsidising it. This isn't "the politics of envy" - it's the politics of justice and fairness and righteousness.
Hey - here's an idea! How about, if the board of RBS get their bonus, then everyone who's contributed to it - every tax payer - resigns from our jobs?
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 00:13am on 03 Dec 2009 Post 231 Says that the long game is to de-nationalise the bank. That the bank "has to be sold"? Why? Keep it nationalised. Merge it with the Post Office and create a bank that isn't in the pockets of the rich and the powerful to the detriment of the poor.
The poor have, between us, bought this bank. It's ours. It's our money that has kept it going. Let's keep it going on those terms.
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 10:55pm on 02 Dec 2009 The Board that oversaw, and was therefore responsible for, the RBS becoming embroiled in the worst financial disaster since the South Sea Bubble threatens to resign. They seem to think this qualifies as some kind of threat.
They know where the door is. I'm sure, with their track record, they will soon find jobs with companies who will reward them as they deserve. I'm told Macdonald's has an employee incentive scheme. They could get to 5 stars in no time
New name for a new economy? 00:34am on 14 Nov 2009 Stuff-the-pooracracy?
Why so coy, Steph? We already have a word for what we have. The word is "plutocracy". The richest and wealthiest among us get to to decide how we are informed (eg Rupert Murdoch), how we are governed (Murdoch too), what the laws will be etc. When they screw up the economy big time they have the ear of government so closely that they can ensure that their bonuses will be paid and that the poorest waitress who serves them at table will pay for it.

And this is what the "free-market purists" don't understand. The biggest players in the 'free market' - folk like Murdoch - don't, and never have, subscribe to the notion of a genuinely free market. They wield their political power, they call in their debts, they use their financial muscle to jig the market. They always have. When times are good they seek "deregulation". When they are bad they seek "intervention"

Frankly, anyone who believes in a genuinely free market needs his/her bumps read
Responses to Megrahi release 8:29pm on 20 Aug 2009 David Cameron's comments reflect so many of the knee-jerk remarks I've read today - "He showed no compassion or mercy so we should show him none". Really? We should set our standards for compassion and mercy at the same level as those of a mass murderer? Call me conceited if you like, but I like to think my nation shows standards of humanity rather higher than those of the Lockerbie Bomber. And praise be! Kenny MacAskill demonstrated those standards today.

Assuming he was guilty, Megrahi did not deserve release; but that's what mercy involves, isn't it? Giving people what they deserve scarcely qualifies as mercy, and probably doesn't qualify as compassion.
Treasury forecasts £77bn loan losses for Lloyds and RBS 00:15am on 23 Jul 2009 94. At 5:17pm on 22 Jul 2009, truths33k3r wrote:
93. At 4:31pm on 22 Jul 2009, CRANBROOKKID

What about instead of enslaving future generations in debt and robbing savers and pensioners through inflation, the government got out of the way and let the market function?

Well let me think. Oh yes! Because the market failed to function. Because the market encouraged inexperienced tyros at every level of the economy to run up unsustainable debts. Because the market has landed the poorest members of our society with the burden of bailing out the wealthiest.

The market as the best guide to economics - the biggest bust in history. If it weren't for the fact that it's failed so often before.
Treasury forecasts £77bn loan losses for Lloyds and RBS 11:40pm on 22 Jul 2009 Yes, these losses are "eye-watering" - and, whatever you say, Bob, they are being underwritten by the taxpayer. So let's put this down in simple terms. The cleaner in London's poshest hotel, drawing minimum wage, is paying to underwrite the financial losses incurred by the folk who still sleep in the rooms she cleans. The waitress in the smart restaurant who actually takes home less than the minimum wage because she's supposed to pick up tips is bailing out the folk who completely screwed our economy and who are still sitting at the tables and ordering their lobster and champagne. The guy who hauls dustbins filled with empty bottles from fine vineyards away from smart London addresses has shelled out for their occupants who continue to eat only the best while having shown themselves to be wholly inadequate to the job they are paid for.

Bob - this is a sin. It is wrong. It is the mark of a society that has become wholly corrupt and amoral.
Will he do it? 00:45am on 03 Jun 2009 Your comment about the folk who run "the markets" is important. Sure it would be good if they could take a longer term view - but they can't. They are third rate players of the economic game getting paid top-whack wages because we've been told that if we don't pay them they'll take their ineptitude elsewhere.

Trouble is, our economy has been so strongly hitched to these shysters that we have to take their wobbles seriously. And ditching a Chancellor mid-recession is guaranteed to provoke wobbles, especially as it's beginning to look as if sinking billions of pounds into underwriting the incompetence of our management class might actually save us. Are those wobbles an acceptable cost of bringing Darling to book over his expenses? I'm not at all sure.
Away with the Honourable Member 00:12am on 12 May 2009 I agree with a lot of your comments regarding the Scottish Parliament and the insidious use of titles at Westminster. I would suggest, though, that something else has changed with which we have to deal as a nation. There is a sense in which we have started to regard MPs as simply public employees, responsible to their employees - the taxpayers.

And that's OK - if we are ready to shoulder the responsibilities of employers and make sure that we pay our employees a proper wage for the job; and if we are willing to to give of our time to involve ourselves in the business of employing our public servants.

Truth is, though, too many of us have been all too ready to be absentee landlords - ready to draw on the profits, but not to involve ourselves or our time.

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Andrew Morton