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frglee

Listed below are comments made by frglee between Tuesday, 24th February 2009 and Friday, 13th November 2009.

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Glasgow North East by-election 05:41am on 13 Nov 2009 Just a little reminder to Mr Cameron that he is not Prime Minister yet,and that the Conservatives are still a long way from being described as winners in any way in Scotland. As for the SNP,they appear to be also a long way from capturing the soul of many Scottish voters.I suspect the Glasgow Airport rail link cancellation has not helped them.Who cares who came fourth?
Rising slowly 07:09am on 15 Oct 2009 The cleaning out of the Augean stables are going on,and the General Election next may should finish the job as people will just not vote for those thought to have their hands in the till.If I was to attempt to claim even a tenner fraudulently from my company,then I would be sacked for dishonesty,the police would be involved with maybe a court case,and then I might find that the benefits systems punishes me as well for being responsible for my situation. Still one law for the rich and one for the poor in the UK...
PM: 'We'll cut with Germany, France and the US' 9:54pm on 14 Sep 2009 For the PM to say the bonus culture returning is appalling and then add various woolly things that might be done as if he is powerless to really do much,does not inspire much confidence. He is the PM,the buck stops with him. If he really wanted to, he could stop this nonsense easily and simply with huge taxes on bonuses.As for all the talent then flooding abroad,maybe our neighbours might be well advised to do something similar to stop a culture of gambling and greed in the banking industry.
Map of the Week: Can we live without broadband? 7:16pm on 13 Aug 2009 The problem is,and always has been,BT's stranglehold on the technology that allows broadband access into most peoples homes and businesses in the UK. They have been so slow to invest in the new technology that we are years behind the rest of Europe in this respect and the government seems powerless to force them to invest properly...but dividends to shareholders and management bonuses are clearly more important to private companies than Britain's future.

In Sweden,despite the deregulation of Televerket,the Swedish telecoms provider,the government installed radio relays to isolated areas to ensure fast broadband access throughout the country.They see that Broadband access is a right,not a luxury.It ensures that people in rural areas are not handicapped by inabilty to access web services...so vital these days for business,education,government services and private use.
The NHS: At What Cost? 7:34pm on 27 Jul 2009 I wonder whether the waiting lists actually cost the country a huge amount. For instance,whilst waiting 8 months for a relatively simple gallbladder removal operation,I had to be taken to hospital several times in the middle of the night in great pain. I also had to have time off work again and again.
BT: Self-inflicted wounds 12:15pm on 17 May 2009 Privatising BT was a disastrous mistake which has had severe repurcussions for the British economy. Because of the delays to introduce fast broadband internet nationally,it has meant we are years behind our competitors to have fast internet access,so vital for businesses. BT's excuse for this was continuslly the myopic and pathetic excuse that it was not profitable for them to do so.[Always profitable to pay massive bonuses to their directors and senior managers of course!] The government was also to blame for not threatening BT hard enough on this issue,although they tried.
Now BT is slowly beginning to make money out of the net,[Can't think why,all their pricing plans seem to be hopelessly uncompetitive for the consumer] they are beginning to see the possiblitities and are demanding that they be allowed to make extra profits from other companies using 'their' lines and exchanges!
The truth is that Britain still has generally slow internet speeds and we are being sabotaged and hamstrung by this sorry excuse for a company that is living in the past,will not invest properly and has about as much commercial nous as a stuffed elephant.As for customer relations..try reporting a fault on your antediluvian BT 1920's copper wired telephone line! They immediately threaten you with a hundred quid fine if it turns out to be a fault 'inside your house'!
Cleaning up bankers' mess 09:48am on 04 May 2009 As in the book '1984' it seems neccessary to blame someone for this mess,and to many,Gordon Brown seems to be as good as person as anyone. If the government really has to take a part of the blame it is the incompetence of the FSA to watch over a banking system about to implode. Just like lemmings,most of the financial gurus seemed to be happy to charge mindlessly to the cliff edge,on the grounds that everyone else was doing it, and so it must be right. That banks like RBS were treated as 'personal cash cow casinos' by thier management and senior staff shows the level of gross incompetence, overwhelming greed and crass stupidity there. In hindsight of course,it is so easy to say all this. But there were voices in the wilderness chirruping on for years about the dangers inherent in the changed nature of the world banking system and no one took much notice.

The Mutuals' safer banking methods seem to have found the way forward out of this mess and of course should not be hamstrung by regulations demanding they fork out huge sums to gaurantee the banks that have behaved less sensibly. I would hope though,that all banks now be forced to behave very much within a straitjacket of safer banking procedures. We should ignore some world banks making fortunes by risky speculation and aharp practises. In the long term that will destroy them and their investors. All we want are dull and boring financial institutions that behave properly and are 100% safe. If people want to gamble with their money,they should try the 2.30 at Kempton Park,not the local branch of Natwestbarclloyds.
'A bit of a week' 11:28am on 01 May 2009 There does seem to be a problem with Gordon Brown not really listening to his MP's. If he did so,we would not get into these embarassing situations where he ends up having his authority challenged. Looks like the 'Sir Humphries' brigade are exerting an undue influence here,the cockup over the Ghurkas has all their hallmarks. It is all very well GB trying to stride the international stage like a collossus etc,but keeping an eye on the ball closer to home might prevent a few more home goals in the run up to an election.
Why tax the rich? 8:05pm on 25 Apr 2009 Aw for heavens sake,do you not think that guys like me working full time on very close to national minimum wage have not been feeling the pain the past couple of years with a huge increase in energy costs and food costs? Seems that people on 100K+ are invulnerable to any kind of financial worries that affect normal people when the economy goes down the pan. I never heard such nonsense this week about 'class War politics restarting' and 'soaking the rich'. Perhaps these comments are written by journos who are in these tax bands and annoyed they will have to downgrade the new Merc this year. Believe me,ordinary people think the new 50% tax is quite fair and reasonable. Try and think with a more general perspective on these issues rather than a 'London elite' mentality.
Taxpayers to insure £500bn of bank assets 06:37am on 24 Feb 2009 Yeah,well no doubt the shareholders will be whingeing again how the government is 'stealing' all their money. It's a damn shame that shareholders cannot be made liable for the huge debts incurred by these banks,instead the public now have to clean up their mess at the astonishing cost of half a trillion pounds. The chickens have finally come to roost for the Thatcherite years,the bankers and their investors have had a 30 year long party,siphoning out billions year on year out for their 'bonuses' and now the public are going to be paying for it for a very long time. Is it any wonder that the general public is angry?

As well fomenting a major worldwide economic collapse;decent hardworking people are losing value on their pensions,savings and property, and it seems we will be taxed heavily as well over the next few decades to pay for this fiasco.

Brown and the EU leaders are doing the right thing in strict regulation of the banking industry.Lets hope that such a situation never happens again.It's obvious now that big business can never be left alone to run it's own affairs without ' pesky state interference'.This has been tantamount to burglars complaining about street patrol coppers interefering with their own 'business practises'.

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