And another one....
Wrath Rob
Posts: 2,918
Strike that is. On Wednesday 30th. And there's a protest march from Lincolns Inn to Victoria Embankment, separating at 12 so they may still be messing around by home time.
FCN3: Titanium Qoroz.
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Indeed - and BA tell me that it could take ridiculous amounts of time to get back into the country on wednesday after a business trip.
UKBA - what a bunch of utter cnuts.
Roll on laws requiring unions to obtain an absolute majority vote to engage in strike action.0 -
Well lets hope most of those who get their lives disrupted by the strike are w*nkers (sorry bankers) who got us in this state in the first place0
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There evidence that suggests that historically high rates of union membership correlate with a "fairer" income share amongst different economic groups. This is US data, but its pretty dramatic.
I find it baffling that when there is union action, most people just complain about being delayed a bit...0 -
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Jay dubbleU wrote:Well lets hope most of those who get their lives disrupted by the strike are w*nkers (sorry bankers) who got us in this state in the first place
Jeez, is that what you seriously think?0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:fidbod wrote:
Roll on laws requiring unions to obtain an absolute majority vote to engage in strike action.
Doubt David Cameron would be saying that regarding electing gov'ts....
You'd think that, but it seems to be that the gov't line is "A majority didn't vote for it, so it's wrong", which is more than a little hypocritical. They're having one day off work to try to stop their pensions being reduced. Whereas someone with a smaller proportion of the vote is running the country...whilst saying that doing something without a majority is wrong :?0 -
Don't be silly, the bankers have their own gold plated road in the sky to use. I get to cycle along the recently installed sapphire superhighway just because I work in the same building as the bankers. When it snows we grit the road with dried peasants.Jay dubbleU wrote:Well lets hope most of those who get their lives disrupted by the strike are w*nkers (sorry bankers) who got us in this state in the first place0 -
Very interesting chat over dinner at my house on Saturday evening. The friends we invited are both public sector workers, and the story that they are being giving by their unions differs to that being reported in the media (or at least with my comprehension of what I've read).
The unions are saying that the governement refuses to negotiate and that they just made a 'take it or leave it' offer. My understanding is that there have been at least two or three tweaks to what is on the table?
It seems to me >climbs into flame proof overalls< that it's a bit like haggling over the price of a carpet in a bazaar, either you get what you want for the price you want - or you go and shop somewhere else. You don't normally get the right to start breaking things because the shopkeeper tells you that he can no longer afford to give you the 25% special discount that he's always given your family before.FCN 5 belt driven fixie for city bits
CAADX 105 beastie for bumpy bits
Litespeed L3 for Strava bits
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.0 -
Jay dubbleU wrote:Well lets hope most of those who get their lives disrupted by the strike are w*nkers (sorry bankers) who got us in this state in the first place
Gah! Seriously, people, JW, you're an intelligent guy, perhaps read up on this before blindly parroting what the media latch on to?0 -
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Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
It would be lovely if these striks go ahead yet the country gets on without these people, proving just how unnecessary they are. With 1m unemployed, if you don't like you job, there will be someone else to take it. The private sector has been shafted, yet the public sector want the gravy train to continue - and if they don't get what they want, they use blackmail to bully the country.0 -
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. Having parents who worked in the public sector it sometimes feels like it.W1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
It would be lovely if these striks go ahead yet the country gets on without these people, proving just how unnecessary they are. With 1m unemployed, if you don't like you job, there will be someone else to take it. The private sector has been shafted, yet the public sector want the gravy train to continue - and if they don't get what they want, they use blackmail to bully the country.0 -
It doesn't have to be a race to the bottom.W1 wrote:The private sector has been shafted, yet the public sector want the gravy train to continue0 -
W1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
Quite.
Unless you expand 'bankers' to include ratings agencies, private equity firms, traders in CDOs, CMBS, ABS, securitization agencies, mortgage brokers, estate agents, credit rating agencies, the FSA, local councils, oh and of course let's not forget people who buy houses knowing they can't pay their mortgage after the introductory interest rate expires. And people who apparently can't read small print, or don't know what an 'introductory offer' is. And the thousands of others I've forgotten/left out.
If they're all bankers, then no, he's entirely right.0 -
suzyb wrote:
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. Having parents who worked in the public sector it sometimes feels like it.W1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
It would be lovely if these striks go ahead yet the country gets on without these people, proving just how unnecessary they are. With 1m unemployed, if you don't like you job, there will be someone else to take it. The private sector has been shafted, yet the public sector want the gravy train to continue - and if they don't get what they want, they use blackmail to bully the country.
You'll be pelted with eggs or something for thinking like that Suzy! I agree with you, would be lovely, but you can bet it's engineered to not really work out like that.0 -
lost_in_thought wrote:W1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
Quite.
Unless you expand 'bankers' to include ratings agencies, private equity firms, traders in CDOs, CMBS, ABS, securitization agencies, mortgage brokers, estate agents, credit rating agencies, the FSA, local councils, oh and of course let's not forget people who buy houses knowing they can't pay their mortgage after the introductory interest rate expires. And people who apparently can't read small print, or don't know what an 'introductory offer' is. And the thousands of others I've forgotten/left out.
If they're all bankers, then no, he's entirely right.
I'd say people who aren't in FS would say anyone in FS is probably is a 'banker' :P
Regarding mortgages, there's an asymmetry of information and expertise. Consumers pay mortgage lenders to know whether they can afford it or not, right? So when they're knowingly f*cking people by selling 'ninja' mortgages, then you can't blame the consumer.
FS had a disproportionately large role in the '08 tank, and we're still feeling the heat.
So a little hating on people in FS makes a lot of sense.
It's not like people in FS are behaving well now. Check out MF global - or Kweku.
Even us recruiters hear about how the banks are renaming their prop' desks so they can continue prop' trading - despite the fact they know they shouldn't be.
Sure, the FX Spot trader I was speaking to last week probably hasn't got much to do with the crisis - but then the nurse who isn't striking who is labelled a 'public sector' worker alongside all the others.0 -
Whaaaat?!?Rick Chasey wrote:Consumers pay mortgage lenders to know whether they can afford it or not, right?
No. If I just agreed to anyone that offered me a loan or a store card or a mortgage then I'd be in quite a state.
Consumers pay mortage lenders to lend them money. Consumers are responsible for knowing whether they can afford something. It's not hard to find a mortgage calc online and click up the interest by a few percent, or to imagine what might happen if your wage dropped by 20%.
Mortgage lenders tell you the cost of borrowing, they do not tell you whether you can afford it.0 -
dhope wrote:
Whaaaat?!?Rick Chasey wrote:Consumers pay mortgage lenders to know whether they can afford it or not, right?
No. If I just agreed to anyone that offered me a loan or a store card or a mortgage then I'd be in quite a state.
Consumers pay mortage lenders to lend them money. Consumers are responsible for knowing whether they can afford something. It's not hard to find a mortgage calc online and click up the interest by a few percent, or to imagine what might happen if your wage dropped by 20%.
Mortgage lenders tell you the cost of borrowing, they do not tell you whether you can afford it.
Selling a mortgage to someone that you know they can't afford, but saying they can is considered 'miss-selling' by the FSA and is sanctionable.0 -
Anyway, my point is, if you wanna lump 'public sector workers' into one group and hate on their striking, then you should let people lump people in FS together as 'bankers' when they hate on FS and its considerable role in the economic downturn.0
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But pension reforms have little to do with the global slowdown; It's just an easy thing to pin it on. Pensions have needed to be reformed because we have a growing elderly population and people are having fewer children. There just won't be enough young people to pay for the current pension schemes in the future. We will all be having to work a while longer, because we will be living longer. Time was that when you retired, you were pretty knackered, nowadays 65 isn't really seen as that old.
This has been coming for a long time, I guess now would be a good time to act, since we're in the doldrums anyway.0 -
lost_in_thought wrote:W1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
Quite.
Unless you expand 'bankers' to include ratings agencies, private equity firms, traders in CDOs, CMBS, ABS, securitization agencies, mortgage brokers, estate agents, credit rating agencies, the FSA, local councils, oh and of course let's not forget people who buy houses knowing they can't pay their mortgage after the introductory interest rate expires. And people who apparently can't read small print, or don't know what an 'introductory offer' is. And the thousands of others I've forgotten/left out.
If they're all bankers, then no, he's entirely right.
I'd agree with the above. But I'd say that it is inevitable that people will make poor financial decisions if complicated deals that are really too good to be true are offered to them. There are people in the financial industry who made a killing during the boom years either selling credit cheap, or by trading credit derivatives. Its hard to begrudge this because these are talented people who spotted a niche and exploited it. As anyone would really. But as both these and their employers will generally come out the other end unscathed due to huge injections of public money while the rest of the country is badly suffering, its hard not to feel a certain degree of resentment if your livelihood and pension is being ruined. But aiming the anger at "bankers" is a waste of time. They may have escalated the crisis, but it was successive governments that caused it through lax control of the financial industry.
I reckon ones attitude to the crisis largely depends on your attitude to personal responsibility, and the role of government. Its either the population's fault for buying stuff they couldn't afford, the financial industry's for selling them stuff they couldn't afford, or the government's fault for allowing those types of transactions to take place at all.
Personally, I think there will always be enough stupid people in this country to cause crises like this and that it is the government's responsibility to protect them from themselves. Because the result of not doing so leads to a situation where profits are privatised and debts are socialised. And I think thats Wrong™.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:dhope wrote:
Whaaaat?!?Rick Chasey wrote:Consumers pay mortgage lenders to know whether they can afford it or not, right?
No. If I just agreed to anyone that offered me a loan or a store card or a mortgage then I'd be in quite a state.
Consumers pay mortage lenders to lend them money. Consumers are responsible for knowing whether they can afford something. It's not hard to find a mortgage calc online and click up the interest by a few percent, or to imagine what might happen if your wage dropped by 20%.
Mortgage lenders tell you the cost of borrowing, they do not tell you whether you can afford it.
Selling a mortgage to someone that you know they can't afford, but saying they can is considered 'miss-selling' by the FSA and is sanctionable.
That's not the same. Deliberately selling when you know someone cannot afford it is one thing. Consumers relying on a mortgage advisor knowing more about their finances than they do is entirely another.
Consumer greed is no less responsible for the current mess than private sector greed.
They sold without a collective responsibility, we bought with a similar disregard.
I dislike that the lazy tabloid mud slinging ends up making me sound like an advocate of capitalist bastardism for thinking it's not quite as simple as private=bankers=bad, public=nurses=good.0 -
*shrugs*
I used to say the same about the crisis - it was as much about people leveraging up more than they should.
The more people I meet in FS and the longer I work here, the more I think FS is fundamentally dysfunctional, and was a much bigger player > especially after I read up about the problems with asymmetrical models that occur very frequently in FS.0 -
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UndercoverElephant wrote:But pension reforms have little to do with the global slowdown; It's just an easy thing to pin it on. Pensions have needed to be reformed because we have a growing elderly population and people are having fewer children. There just won't be enough young people to pay for the current pension schemes in the future. We will all be having to work a while longer, because we will be living longer. Time was that when you retired, you were pretty knackered, nowadays 65 isn't really seen as that old.
This has been coming for a long time, I guess now would be a good time to act, since we're in the doldrums anyway.
I agree, but what should our expectations be? Most people don't have the financial nous to prepare themselves well for retirement and rely on their employer or the government to make pension decisions for them. Are we getting to a point now where this expectation is unrealistic? That we're on our own when we retire? This is a huge source of anxiety for much of the population, its unsurprising that people want to defend their pensions.0 -
lost_in_thought wrote:Jay dubbleU wrote:Well lets hope most of those who get their lives disrupted by the strike are w*nkers (sorry bankers) who got us in this state in the first place
Gah! Seriously, people, JW, you're an intelligent guy, perhaps read up on this before blindly parroting what the media latch on to?
Sometimes I like to prod the hive mind with a sharp stick :twisted:0 -
notsoblue wrote:lost_in_thought wrote:W1 wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:He's not entirely wrong though, is he?
The implication that one group of unspecified people are wholly to blame is entirely wrong, yes.
Quite.
Unless you expand 'bankers' to include ratings agencies, private equity firms, traders in CDOs, CMBS, ABS, securitization agencies, mortgage brokers, estate agents, credit rating agencies, the FSA, local councils, oh and of course let's not forget people who buy houses knowing they can't pay their mortgage after the introductory interest rate expires. And people who apparently can't read small print, or don't know what an 'introductory offer' is. And the thousands of others I've forgotten/left out.
If they're all bankers, then no, he's entirely right.
I'd agree with the above. But I'd say that it is inevitable that people will make poor financial decisions if complicated deals that are really too good to be true are offered to them. There are people in the financial industry who made a killing during the boom years either selling credit cheap, or by trading credit derivatives. Its hard to begrudge this because these are talented people who spotted a niche and exploited it. As anyone would really. But as both these and their employers will generally come out the other end unscathed due to huge injections of public money while the rest of the country is badly suffering, its hard not to feel a certain degree of resentment if your livelihood and pension is being ruined. But aiming the anger at "bankers" is a waste of time. They may have escalated the crisis, but it was successive governments that caused it through lax control of the financial industry.
I reckon ones attitude to the crisis largely depends on your attitude to personal responsibility, and the role of government. Its either the population's fault for buying stuff they couldn't afford, the financial industry's for selling them stuff they couldn't afford, or the government's fault for allowing those types of transactions to take place at all.
Personally, I think there will always be enough stupid people in this country to cause crises like this and that it is the government's responsibility to protect them from themselves. Because the result of not doing so leads to a situation where profits are privatised and debts are socialised. And I think thats Wrong™.
The italicized bit... And the others who say that selling someone something they can't afford is the responsibility of the salesman... or that the government should supply the nous to look after us in our old age as the population lacks it.
It's a massive double standard - people who have amassed tens of thousands in unserviceable credit card debt by living beyond their means aren't pitied and the people they've been buying hair extensions and BMWs from castigated.
So why is it the seller's fault when it's a mortgage? Can't afford = can't afford. If you don't understand what you're signing up for, don't sign up for it.
Increased government control on this is only going to worsen the problem and shift perceived responsibility for, well, everything onto the government, and away from the individual; resulting in an increase in the sentiment of entitlement in a society where that is already rife. That, in my eyes, is Wrong™.0 -
lost_in_thought wrote:So why is it the seller's fault when it's a mortgage? Can't afford = can't afford. If you don't understand what you're signing up for, don't sign up for it.
The fundamental difference that has created the mass hystreia centres not on the action of selling products that may not be/are not affordable but that in having built a business on a foundation of low value assets with a disproportianate risk rating there has been the cry that the markets will crumble and hene state action is required to underpin the non-existant foundations of the assumed value. All of this merely follows the modern madness of appeal and appeasement rather than allowing the folly to crumble. Yes, the result of Central banks not bailing out morribund financial instutions will be the loss elements of the financial sector. You could inlcude Central banks in the morribund statement through their collective and Government driven desire maintain low interest rates through the 90's and 2000's which feed the mania of the masses that credit was free and virtually unlimited (step forward Greenspan, Brown et al)
All of this though, gets away from the OP which was about Public Sector Pensions and the associated industrial action.
The key issue is that consecutive Governments have feiled to address the Public Sector Pensions gap. Payouts are from general taxation and not from a ringfenced pension fund in the traditional construct. As such there is no scope for growth/losses to accrue through prudent management. As a result the risk level to public sector workers is neglible but so are the chances to influence/change their occupational pension.
I wil at some point be in receipt of a PS pension but am not in one of the sectors that will be taking action on Wed. I have seen in my 20 year career an alternate pension offered which would have extended the point at which I could draw it and devalued it over the lifecycle of the pension. Many may say how fortunate I am to have been offered the option and have pension scheme that is baselined against a representative rate across length of employment.
I have made points to the Hutton Enquiry as to the baseline assumptions behind current pension provisions and the salary review bodies which for my profession have over the last 8 years offset, due to HMG affordability reasons, the recommended settlement against the wider percieved benefit of the PS pension construct. There will undoubtedly be an exodus from my profession if the findings of the Hutton Commission unpick this relationship in the 2015 timeframe whilst we have in place mass redundancy programmes without taking in to account the historic undervaluation of the Public Sector Comparator which was constructed to reflect the pension benefit. Add to that, that I have no staff body to represent the views of the affected in negotiations is a basis for dissaffection.Allez Triple (hairy with mudguards) - FCN 4
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UndercoverElephant wrote:But pension reforms have little to do with the global slowdown; It's just an easy thing to pin it on. Pensions have needed to be reformed because we have a growing elderly population and people are having fewer children. There just won't be enough young people to pay for the current pension schemes in the future. We will all be having to work a while longer, because we will be living longer. Time was that when you retired, you were pretty knackered, nowadays 65 isn't really seen as that old.
This has been coming for a long time, I guess now would be a good time to act, since we're in the doldrums anyway.
You are absolutely right - and it's lazy scapegoating to blame "the bankers" for the need for pension reforms. Government cuts were long overdue, but hard to justify when tax revenues were high. Ditto pensions reforms.
There are some good posts in this thread. My personal view is that "the crisis" was caused by a mixture of reckless borrowing, reckless lending, and a lack of regulation. Only one of the "groups" at fault appears to be shouldering the blame. I look forward to a St Pauls style encampment outside the homes of those who have defaulted on their mortgage and have a white Range Rover on finance.0
