Strike Action - Public Service - 30th November

No they adopt the 'Lay down and roll over' as they did under Thatcherism.

 

I just hope the the Unions learnt their lesson and this time fight on a united front instead of individual battles where the tories picked off the unions one by one.

reading this forum is better than comic cuts you young reds will not know what I,m talking about

Is a short memory the real problem or is selective amnesia more of a problem by denying inconvenient facts.

 

Steel was making a profit when it was nationalised. It was nationalised by Labour because they thought the profits were not being reinvested, as you state. But, by the time Labour had done in the '70s BSC was being subsidised 50% by the tax payer as Labour used nationalised industries to mask their huge unemployment problem which had gone up 100% in just a few years. By 1979 1m were unemployed and 2m were employed in nationalised industry with massive tax payer subsidy and IMF bail out money.

 

I used to work for the Post Office Telephones and the myth that they were making huge profits is just that. Few people even had a phone and "shared lines" where two houses shared one line were common. There was no competition so there was no investment. The equipment was old, the working practices archaic and they were hugely overmanned. One problem at the time was the price of copper made phone lines prohibitively expensive to install.

 

In the '70s they became British Telecom and a huge amount of tax payers money was poured into telecoms infrastructure. When they were sold off that paid for the investment.

 

Thatcher had to sell stuff off to pay for Callaghan's IMF bail out. And let's not forget standard rate of income tax under Labour had been 33%. Selling off loss making and subsidised nationalised industries reduced the drain on tax payers, provided tax receipts to the Treasury and provided fresh sources of investment. Water and Telecoms have done particularly well from investment. If BT were the only supplier today you would have virtually no internet and few mobile services as happens in countries where telecoms was not privatised.

 

Tax rates fell once the burden of nationalisation had been removed. I will concede that nationalising the mines brought a lot of benefits to the miners but, generally, nationalisation was an expensive failure used, not to invest in outdated industries but to artificially prop up employment levels. The last Labour lot did the same by using the public sector to employ an extra 600,000 and claim an economic miracle abolishing boom and bust.

ooh throwing our toys out of the pram are we?

ooh throwing our toys out of the pram are we?

So you have no argument against what I've written, just the usual snide comment.

Is a short memory the real problem or is selective amnesia more of a problem by denying inconvenient facts.

 

Steel was making a profit when it was nationalised. It was nationalised by Labour because they thought the profits were not being reinvested, as you state. But, by the time Labour had done in the '70s BSC was being subsidised 50% by the tax payer as Labour used nationalised industries to mask their huge unemployment problem which had gone up 100% in just a few years. By 1979 1m were unemployed and 2m were employed in nationalised industry with massive tax payer subsidy and IMF bail out money.

 

I used to work for the Post Office Telephones and the myth that they were making huge profits is just that. Few people even had a phone and "shared lines" where two houses shared one line were common. There was no competition so there was no investment. The equipment was old, the working practices archaic and they were hugely overmanned. One problem at the time was the price of copper made phone lines prohibitively expensive to install.

 

In the '70s they became British Telecom and a huge amount of tax payers money was poured into telecoms infrastructure. When they were sold off that paid for the investment.

 

Thatcher had to sell stuff off to pay for Callaghan's IMF bail out. And let's not forget standard rate of income tax under Labour had been 33%. Selling off loss making and subsidised nationalised industries reduced the drain on tax payers, provided tax receipts to the Treasury and provided fresh sources of investment. Water and Telecoms have done particularly well from investment. If BT were the only supplier today you would have virtually no internet and few mobile services as happens in countries where telecoms was not privatised.

 

Tax rates fell once the burden of nationalisation had been removed. I will concede that nationalising the mines brought a lot of benefits to the miners but, generally, nationalisation was an expensive failure used, not to invest in outdated industries but to artificially prop up employment levels. The last Labour lot did the same by using the public sector to employ an extra 600,000 and claim an economic miracle abolishing boom and bust.

As per your usual readiness to over engage your reactionary clap-trap of mouth before brain , you have ignored the gist of what I have said . Go back and read again . This time - inwardly digest .

Don't worry . It is common practice that those who open their mouths the widest , do so with their eyes and ears shut . Try it the other way round for once .

Is a short memory the real problem or is selective amnesia more of a problem by denying inconvenient facts.

 

Steel was making a profit when it was nationalised. It was nationalised by Labour because they thought the profits were not being reinvested, as you state. But, by the time Labour had done in the '70s BSC was being subsidised 50% by the tax payer as Labour used nationalised industries to mask their huge unemployment problem which had gone up 100% in just a few years. By 1979 1m were unemployed and 2m were employed in nationalised industry with massive tax payer subsidy and IMF bail out money.

 

I used to work for the Post Office Telephones and the myth that they were making huge profits is just that. Few people even had a phone and "shared lines" where two houses shared one line were common. There was no competition so there was no investment. The equipment was old, the working practices archaic and they were hugely overmanned. One problem at the time was the price of copper made phone lines prohibitively expensive to install.

 

In the '70s they became British Telecom and a huge amount of tax payers money was poured into telecoms infrastructure. When they were sold off that paid for the investment.

 

Thatcher had to sell stuff off to pay for Callaghan's IMF bail out. And let's not forget standard rate of income tax under Labour had been 33%. Selling off loss making and subsidised nationalised industries reduced the drain on tax payers, provided tax receipts to the Treasury and provided fresh sources of investment. Water and Telecoms have done particularly well from investment. If BT were the only supplier today you would have virtually no internet and few mobile services as happens in countries where telecoms was not privatised.

 

Tax rates fell once the burden of nationalisation had been removed. I will concede that nationalising the mines brought a lot of benefits to the miners but, generally, nationalisation was an expensive failure used, not to invest in outdated industries but to artificially prop up employment levels. The last Labour lot did the same by using the public sector to employ an extra 600,000 and claim an economic miracle abolishing boom and bust.

The nationalisation of mines was a gift to the owners -the state took on a catalogue of failed enterprises,and should sequestered these assets with no compensation.

I agree with Clarkson.

National Debt near 1 trillion, unemployment skyrocketing and the least productive sector decides to walk out because of their inflated sense of entitlement.

There is always the option of finding other employment but those in the public sector wont leave and take their chances in the real world.

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2011/08/public-sector-workers-staying-put/

Bottom line.......there is no money! Blair and Brown spent it all..........often on the public sector!

I agree with Clarkson.

 

National Debt near 1 trillion, unemployment skyrocketing and the least productive sector decides to walk out because of their inflated sense of entitlement.

 

There is always the option of finding other employment but those in the public sector wont leave and take their chances in the real world.

 

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2011/08/public-sector-workers-staying-put/

 

Bottom line.......there is no money! Blair and Brown spent it all..........often on the public sector!

The least productive sector are the unemployed silly!

I would call that none productive personally. They do produce SOMETHING in the public sector just relatively a lot less than private.

I can see why you said that though and I also know there are many many exceptions. Its a huge term to ascribe one label.

As per your usual readiness to over engage your reactionary clap-trap of mouth before brain , you have ignored the gist of what I have said . Go back and read again . This time - inwardly digest .

Don't worry . It is common practice that those who open their mouths the widest , do so with their eyes and ears shut . Try it the other way round for once .

You ramble over so many disparate subjects its difficult to know what your point is. Is it pensions? Is it profits? Is it losses? Is it clean air? Is it nationalisation? Perhaps you could focus and summarise.

The idea that BSC was making a profit but accounting rules made it look like a 50% loss is laughable.

However I can reference my source. I got my reactionary claptrap from:

Alasdair M. Blair, "The British iron and steel industry since 1945," Journal of European Economic History Winter 1997, Vol. 26 Issue 3, pp 571-81

"British Steel had serious problems, including complacency with existing obsolescent plants (plants operating under capacity and thus at low efficiency); outdated technology; price controls that reduced marketing flexibility; soaring coal and oil costs; lack of capital investment funds; and increasing competition on the world market. By the 1970s the government adopted a policy of keeping employment artificially high in the declining industry. This especially impacted BSC since it was a major employer in a number of depressed regions"

How about you? Where do you get your Socialist claptrap from?.

I agree with Clarkson.

National Debt near 1 trillion, unemployment skyrocketing and the least productive sector decides to walk out because of their inflated sense of entitlement.

 

There is always the option of finding other employment but those in the public sector wont leave and take their chances in the real world.

 

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2011/08/public-sector-workers-staying-put/

 

Bottom line.......there is no money! Blair and Brown spent it all..........often on the public sector!

So you support the strikers

was in traffic for 2 hours in city centre!!