BBC Blog Network

User Profile

JiltedJohnwasright

Listed below are comments made by JiltedJohnwasright between Tuesday, 6th January 2009 and Monday, 14th September 2009.

«Newer
Older»

PM: 'We'll cut with Germany, France and the US' 6:42pm on 14 Sep 2009 Do the other countries havethe same level of unofficial borrowing as the UK - ie the PFI contracts and the unfunded public sector pensions.

Gordon keeps telling us the UK's borrowing is no more than other countries - but you need to add on roughly £1,000bn for the PFI contracts and the unfunded public sector pensions to the official borrowing figures.
Liverpool walks on 09:03am on 23 Jun 2009 Isn't a better football club analogy Leeds United and Gordon Brown is the equivalent of Peter Ridsdale - who took Leeds from the top of the Premiership, overspent spectacularly to create a short-lived 'feel-good factor' and left my club in a state that led to administration, Division 3 (yes I know its called Div 1) and probably decades of misery.

Marching on Together
The case for bonuses 8:10pm on 09 Feb 2009 Most people at Banks get a bonus but no final salary pension. The pensions would be worth a lot more.

Bonuses should be used to reward hard work. People I know who work in banks often work long days, unpaid overtime, working into the evenings or weekends. Absenteeism is low. Most put a lot of effort into their work. The bonuses help focus people's attention. A bonus of say 1 or 2 % annual salary wouldn't create enough incentive.. The bonus has to be a meaningful amount to motivate the hard work. 10 to 20% of annual salary for that hard work seems fair. More than that is too expensive for the employer and puts too much emphasis on the often subjective view of a manager. In a lot of cases its cheaper to pay bonuses of 10-20% for the extra work than to pay people for their overtime.
In some (but not all) parts of the public sector where bonuses are rare there are much higher rates of absenteeism and many people don't work a minute longer than the minimum they can get away with without expecting paid overtime and/ or flexi-time. There is little incentive to work your socks off. And we the taxpayer and our grandchildren will be paying final salary pensions to these people.

Clearly its the public sector reward mechanisms that are wrong, not the banks'.
Docking bankers' pay 11:34pm on 08 Feb 2009 110 - Whistling Neil
My wife takes on a lot more responsibility than those on minimum wage and has spent years building the epertise and experience she has- so not a fair comaprison.
But ... she would happily swap the bonus for the final salary pension that so many in the public sector get.
Docking bankers' pay 4:45pm on 08 Feb 2009 52 - Female Rambo - I totally agree - give the secretaries and tellers at banks the public sector pay-grades and final salary pensions but not the bonuses. They would be much better off.
According to the Telegraph 4 out of 5 people in the public sector are better paid than like for like roles in the private sector.
Docking bankers' pay 2:54pm on 08 Feb 2009 My wife works for UKI Partnerships(who own direct Line and Churchill) and are part of RBOS.

She gets a small bonus - usually roughly £5k pa. She doesn't get a final salary pension.

She has worked very hard this year as have her colleagues, in a difficult environment where the division was up for sale and there was a lot of uncertainty about job-security.

Her division is very profitable.

Why on earth shouldn't she get a bonus this year ???

If Alistair and Gordon refuse to pay her the pension she has earnt will they pay her the final salary pension that everyone in the public sector gets???
Refuelling the motor industry 5:05pm on 27 Jan 2009 Anyone want to buy an Allegro or a Princess???
When taxpayers buy business debt 11:57am on 27 Jan 2009 The last sentence says it all: when politicians were intimately involved in setting monetary policy, Britain was something of an economic loser.

We need to keep politicians out of the economic market places.

Politicians will allocate money to marginal constituencies rather than the overall national interest.

This is not what I pay my taxes for. I pay taxes to fund essential public services (health, education, law and order) not to bail out Brown's mismanagement of the economy.
The long and short of banks 10:52am on 23 Jan 2009 Brown is constantly blaming 'the Yanks and the Banks' rather than taking responsibility for the mess he has created.

Didn't he/ Blair grant knighthoods to half the Banks' CEOs???

Sir Fred Goodwin (RBOS)
Sir Peter Burt (HBOS)
Sir George Matthewson (RBOS)
Did John Varley (Barclays) get a knighthood.

If the banks were to blame for the credit crunch why did Brown/ Blair knight their CEOs. Assuming it wasn't 'Cash for Honours' Brown/ Blair must have been big fans of these guys when everything was going well.

Did they also grant an honorary knighthood to Greenspan, the US treasurer, for 'services to banking stability' as well? Sounds like they were fans of the YUanks as well.

Make your mind up Crash - if everyone is to blame except you - why did you knight them all.

Also - if this is the global crisis Crash keeps harping on about and his handling of the UK economy is no worse than everywhere else - why has the pound collapsed?

We have no hope of a recovery in shares, house-prices or the pound until Crash is replaced. Short them all.
Sterling challenge for UK shops 12:29pm on 06 Jan 2009 In 1992 Gordon Brown said : 'A weak currency results from a weak economy, which in turn arises from weak Government' It is ironic that in 2008, Brown's first full year as PM the Pound lost more value than any year since the Gold standard was dropped in 1931. By Brown's own logic, his is the weakest Government for 77 years.

If devaluing currency was good for an economy then Zimbabwe would be the richest country in the world. It isn't.

As Anne Robinson might say: 'Gordon - you are the weakest link - Goodbye.'

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

JiltedJohnwasright