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Listed below are comments made by mrsbloggs13c2 between Wednesday, 4th November 2009 and Thursday, 26th November 2009.

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A healthy squeeze (II) 9:20pm on 26 Nov 2009 Comment 19 looks odd without comment 18, sorry

Someone doesn't like the concept of budget cuts of 10% for all government spending or the examples that showed simple examples of where to start

Perhaps it was my second reference to jadedjean in two entries

Hey ho
A healthy squeeze (II) 8:56pm on 26 Nov 2009 Oh and by the way, 10% for three years gets us back to spending levels of about 2004/2005.

Things weren't that desperate then, were they?

And as a simple example of the nonsense that has happened over the last 5 years...

The BBC director general's expense list published on the BBC website was 3 pages in 2004/2005. In 2008/2009 it was 15 pages. So it ain't difficult at all to find areas of savings that aren't jobs, is it.
A healthy squeeze (II) 8:49pm on 26 Nov 2009 Its too easy to say that its hard to find savings

I could find plenty of savings. You start small and build up. If government imposed a 10% cut on all government budgets for three years running, that would be a start. This happened in a local authority I once worked for. Very few lost their jobs. They'd be allowed to look at increasing income for some services.

A teeny example of waste, in more ways than one.... My local authority produces at least 4 glossy magazines per annum which end up in recycling, of course. They tell you its paid for from advertising. ALL the advertising is for another government body. It is, as JJ would have said, narcissistic nonsense, in any event. Look at us we are very clever and you all like what we do. Actually we eve got a copy of the mag for the over 50s which was full of the over 75s being pleased they got the last copy.

Multiply this nonsense up and you'd probably be talking half a billion a year. It wouldn't be difficult to find 100 examples of this type of nonsense. We do not need I am so sorry you are a victim' letters from the police. We do not need to give money to babies and children to be locked up in bank accounts with RBS for the next 18 years. Ridiculous nonsense we can't afford. Working, well paid 60 year olds getting free bus travel and cheaper train travel - ridiculous

All lights out and all electronic equipment off after 6pm. No mobile phones for public sector workers. No taxis. You want a taxi, you pay. No conferences. No hotel bills. No taking people to lunch. No consultants, especially image consultants. No more SAP. Turn off the street lights after midnight and before 6am.

Its not difficult. The big stuff isn't difficult either. You just need some balls.
A healthy squeeze (II) 8:25pm on 26 Nov 2009 'The overall tax rate for the richest 10% is 34%; for the poorest 10% it is 46%.'

I think jadedjean would have described this as intensional. Designed to make us think 'Oh dear, the poor people'.

If you earn 100,000 per annum then your direct taxes and NI are about 30,000. Putting some aside for mortgages and heating and food, you might pay vat on another 30,000 so that's another 5,000. And this doesn't account for council tax or petrol tax.

Lets say 40,000 per annum on average.

So how much would someone earning 25,000 contribute to government spending. Quite alot less yet they too have their kids educated and child benefit, bins emptied, streets cleaned, their health care for life etc.

Poverty does not exist in the UK. Needs are met even if all wants aren't. Do you see barefoot children begging or scrabbling about in landfill or working in sweatshops. NO you don't. That's why people want to come and live in the UK.

This is no reflection on whether I think any given individual is worth their hourly rate.
Boxed in 9:59pm on 10 Nov 2009 There are about 2.7 million claiming unemployment benefit
There are armies of people from overseas employed in UK jobs
Over 50% of the nurses I came across at several recent hospital visits came from somewhere else including Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados
Over 90% of the staff that served me in a variety of establishments in central London came from somewhere else including North America, France, South Africa, New Zealand, Indian subcontinent.

Why is it that these hardworking, dedicated individuals are prepared to fill posts that 2.7 million could fill?

Is it because the state meets needs for citizens? Is there a black market meeting wants.

If fewer needs were met by the state would we miraculously find that there was a sea change in attitude?
Boxed in 9:48pm on 10 Nov 2009 I know there's plenty of doom about and I'm not exactly positive myself but

I don't know if any of you saw this article about the extent to which RBS owns stakes in british industry following debt for equity swaps

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6907843.ece

It seems to me that there is plenty of new silver for the more or less state owned bank to sell

In fact, I believe that there is plenty of scope for getting out of the tunnel which includes RBS selling off or floating Citizens Bank in the US.

We should demand that this virtually nationalised organisation gradually float off all the acquisitions of the last 15 years in order to put the UK house in order.

Does it matter that RBS then becomes a regional bank again. To be frank, I don't think so.
Boxed in 9:27pm on 10 Nov 2009 #397

Dear Frank

Its my view that the magical GDP will reduce, if we reduce our use of oil, gas, petrol, water etc. That has certainly been the experience at the Bloggs household gdp level. In fact, my plumber suggested that the best return on investment right now was to install a new condensing boiler and CFL light bulbs.

Anyway, if it is true that the magical GDP would reduce if resource levels are reduced, how should 'success' be measured in the future?

GDP seems to be a complete fudge based on surveys and smoothing three different sets of data.

In fact, since GDP is pretty meaningless when 50% is government expenditure and 50% of that is borrowings what would be simple meaningful indicators.

In a dim and distant past Mr Aubrey Wilson and a nice man from Phillips and Drew used to go on about M4 on the financial world tonight on radio 4. This stat has disappeared from public view but I think it would have been exceptionally useful over the last 5 years.

Likewise some simple graphs that showed budget deficits and cummulative government debt could be good. Had these been published we'd have seen that total government debt was skyrocketing.

I like trade surplus/deficit too

Whatever, it seems to me that the post Bretton Woods indicators are defunct in a post industrial society.

Any thoughts?

Yrs Mrs Bloggs
Boxed in 2:30pm on 06 Nov 2009 For some bizarre reason the mods think that a link to a Bank of England quarterly report is unsuitable.

Strangely it was referred to by Robert Peston about a year ago here http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/12/2009_is_pay_back_year.html

Here's the link again

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Boxed in 2:21pm on 06 Nov 2009 I may be barking up the wrong tree but

According to BoE reports huge amounts of financial and non-financial corporate debt was due to be renewed across europe in 2009

See chart 28 in here [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

$600bn was in the financial sector. $200bn in the non financial sector.

I have no idea what proportion of this might be in the UK but it won't be insignificant.

So my guess is that all this QE liquidity is just taking the place of previous wholesale borrowings and bonds that enabled the spree from 2004 onwards, the 'foreign money' lurching back to wherever it came from or somewhere else, perhaps.
Is Britain growing yet? 9:12pm on 04 Nov 2009 According to

Consumers have minutely reduced debt

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8231135.stm

According to

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uk-government-borrowing-soars-as-receipts-plunge-2009-09-18

In September, the national debt was approximately 57% of GDP
A year ago it was 44%

The only growth is government debt, everything else is spending.

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