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rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20322 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
 Posted: 09-05-2012 07:50 Post subject: |
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| ramonmercado wrote: | I think this fits here rather than the Europe thread.
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Au contraire, mon brave! That's pure Trash Europe material! It's about the failure of the Eurozone to do 'what it says on the tin', whereas the Credit Crunch was a world-wide affair caused largely by the selling of dodgy derivatives. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20322 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 21-05-2012 07:30 Post subject: |
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Recession? What recession?!
UK farmers enjoy boom despite economic slowdown
Britain's farmers have said they are enjoying a boom in business in spite of the economic downturn.
It comes as the National Farmers' Union launches a campaign to highlight farming's contribution to the economy.
Government figures show the agriculture and horticulture sector of the economy grew by 25% last year, the NFU says.
In addition, farmers say they are selling more produce overseas and farming now represents the UK's fourth largest exporting sector.
The BBC's Jeremy Cooke says that at a time of recession the latest figures make remarkable reading.
The Gross Value Added (GVA) contribution that farmers and growers made to the economy grew by £1.75bn, taking the total to some £8bn.
GVA represents the difference between overall output and costs.
It is welcome news for an industry which found itself in something of a slump just a decade ago, after suffering the disasters of BSE and foot-and-mouth disease, our correspondent says.
The NFU is launching the Farming Delivers for Britain campaign with a farm-themed boat trip along the River Thames in central London at 12:30 BST.
Afterwards a report on the importance of agriculture to the economy, and its contribute to its recovery, will be handed to MPs.
NFU senior campaigns adviser Gemma Fitzpatrick said the event was about "showcasing what farming delivers for Britain".
"We're hoping the boat will make a big impact and turn a few heads as it's not every day you see a farm sailing down the River Thames," she added.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18140854
I hope all the animals will be wearing life-jackets!  |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20322 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 18-06-2012 07:56 Post subject: |
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Some people limit discussion of 'cuts' to party political issues, but whichever party is in power, in whichever country, the problems are world-wide:
Viewpoint: Why the young should welcome austerity
By Prof Niall Ferguson
BBC Reith Lecturer 2012
Governments should be more honest about the size of their debts and young voters would be wise to get politicians to pay them off as soon as possible, says economic historian Niall Ferguson in the first of his BBC Reith Lectures.
The critics of Western democracy are right to discern that something is amiss with our political institutions. The most obvious symptom of the malaise is the huge debts we have managed to accumulate in recent decades, which - unlike in the past - cannot largely be blamed on wars.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the gross government debt of Greece this year will reach 153% of GDP. For Italy the figure is 123%, for Ireland 113%, for Portugal 112% and for the United States 107%.
Britain's debt is approaching 88%. Japan is the world leader, with a mountain of government debt approaching 236% of GDP - more than triple what it was 20 years ago.
Now, often these debts get discussed as if they themselves are the problem, and the result is a rather sterile argument between proponents of "austerity" and "stimulus".
I want to suggest that they are a consequence of a more profound malfunction.
The heart of the matter is the way public debt allows the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn.
In this regard, the statistics commonly cited as government debt are themselves deeply misleading, for they encompass only the sums owed by governments in the form of bonds.
The rapidly rising quantity of these bonds certainly implies a growing charge on those in employment, now and in the future, since - even if the current low rates of interest enjoyed by the biggest sovereign borrowers persist - the amount of money needed to service the debt must inexorably rise.
But the official debts in the form of bonds do not include the often far larger unfunded liabilities of welfare schemes like - to give the biggest American schemes - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The most recent estimate for the difference between the net present value of federal government liabilities and the net present value of future federal revenues is $200 trillion, nearly thirteen times the debt as stated by the U.S. Treasury. 
Notice that these figures, too, are incomplete, since they omit the unfunded liabilities of state and local governments, which are estimated to be around $38 trillion.
These mind-boggling numbers represent nothing less than a vast claim by the generation currently retired or about to retire on their children and grandchildren, who are obligated by current law to find the money in the future, by submitting either to substantial increases in taxation or to drastic cuts in other forms of public expenditure.
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790, Edmund Burke wrote that the real social contract is not Rousseau's contract between the sovereign and the people or "general will", but the "partnership" between the generations.
"Society," says Burke, "is indeed a contract. The state is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
In the enormous inter-generational transfers implied by current fiscal policies we see a shocking and perhaps unparalleled breach of precisely that partnership.
etc...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18456131
As an old git, it seems that I'm part of the problem. But what did I do wrong? What else could I have done? It's all too complicated for me...  |
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| Jerry_B Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2002 Total posts: 8265 |
| Posted: 18-06-2012 09:10 Post subject: |
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| You haven't done anything wrong. You were also born into this problem. It's not a new predicament. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20322 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 27-06-2012 08:03 Post subject: |
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Californian city of Stockton faces bankruptcy
By Regan Morris, BBC News, Los Angeles
The Californian city of Stockton looks set to become the largest US city to declare bankruptcy, after a deadline to make a deal with its creditors passed.
Stockton City Council is expected to vote on Tuesday night on whether to file for bankruptcy protection.
Mayor Ann Johnston told local media such a move appeared "very likely".
The river port city of 290,000 - which lies 90 miles (144km) east of San Francisco - suffered badly during the US housing market crash.
Filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection would allow the city to hold some of its creditors at bay while still paying for basic services like its police and fire department.
The city is facing a projected $26m budget shortfall and a bankruptcy filing could come as early as Wednesday.
The housing boom was good to Stockton. Flush with property tax, the city developed its waterfront, with a new marina and sports complex, and negotiated generous pension and healthcare benefits for city employees.
But in the past three years, officials in the city have dealt with $90m (£57m) in deficits through a series of drastic cuts.
They eliminated one-fourth of the city's police officers, one-third of the fire staff, and 40% of all other employees. They also cut wages and medical benefits.
Stockton's unemployment and violent crime rates now rank among the top in the nation. One in every 195 Stockton homes filed for foreclosure in May, according to RealtyTrac.
More than 15% of the population of Stockton is unemployed - nearly double the national average.
City buildings have been repossessed and "Out of Business" signs are a common sight.
City Hall was due to move into a new building, but since Stockton has run out of money, the new building has been repossessed.
Mike Brooking, 50, a Stockton native and coffee shop owner, blames city officials. He says they paid people unreasonably generous pensions and medical benefits.
"They gave employees guaranteed healthcare when they're gone - and their families," Mr Brooking said.
"To people who worked there for one month! They couldn't afford it then. They can't afford it now. No-one else has those guarantees.
"The fact is that the police department is shrunk and crime is crazy and there are no jobs. I think this is going on throughout the whole Central Valley, in the whole country and Europe."
Gusto Gifts, just down the street from Mr Brooking's cafe, was shuttered last month.
The shop's main business was selling passport photos, according to George Estrada, a 35-year-old computer programmer who worked there part-time and helped sell off its assets on the Craigslist website.
"Wells Fargo Bank took over a few parking garages that the city owned," Mr Estrada says.
"Now they own the building City Hall is in. You might well call it Wells Fargo town."
He added that it is very difficult for young skilled workers to find jobs. "Everybody here wants to leave town," he said. "People want to move out and find jobs in San Francisco, or Sacramento."
Stockton lies in the heart of one of America's most productive agriculture regions.
The city is built on an inland waterway, navigable to the nearby San Joaquin River, where the produce of California's fields are transported from Stockton's port.
The city has always relied on agriculture - but Mr Estrada and other educated young people have no interest in working in California's blistering hot fields picking cherries, almonds or other crops.
And the canneries are largely gone while other agricultural jobs have become automated.
A Wal-Mart department store is due to open soon in Stockton, "but nobody wants to work there", says Mr Estrada.
Mr Estrada already has a job as a computer programmer, but wants to leave the city because he says his opportunities in Stockton are too limited.
He is looking for jobs all over the San Francisco Bay Area, but says that the older members of his family would never leave Stockton.
He says the increase in crime is the hardest part about living in Stockton and you just never know when something might happen. The police agree.
"We've seen a rise in violent crime here in Stockton," says police officer Joe Silva, a Stockton native and 16-year veteran of the force.
"Last year was a record setting 58 homicides and so far this year we've had 31. This time last year we had 17."
Many blame the surge in violence on Stockton's economic woes. In 2008, the city had a budget for 441 police officers.
Today they have 317, according to Officer Silva, who adds that there is some optimism within the force now because of new Police Chief Eric Jones.
Officer Silva said they would have a few more police officers sworn into the force on Thursday and new strategies for policing some of Stockton's most dangerous neighbourhoods.
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18605326 |
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| Cavynaut Skoumed!
Usually tired. Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Total posts: 1961 Location: Crouch Wailing. UK. Age: 56 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-07-2012 02:05 Post subject: |
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Just been informed that my 50 quid a week tax credits are about to be withdrawn.
I'm now all together in it! Nice to know that some are doing okay though.
| Quote: | £13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite
• Study estimates staggering size of offshore economy
• Private banks help wealthiest to move cash into havens
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Heather Stewart, business editor
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 21 July 2012 21.00 BST
Jump to comments (537)
The Cayman Islands: a favourite haven from the taxman for the global elite. Photograph: David Doubilet/National Geographic/Getty Images
A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.
He shows that at least £13tn – perhaps up to £20tn – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, "protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy". According to Henry's research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn five years earlier.
The detailed analysis in the report, compiled using data from a range of sources, including the Bank of International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund, suggests that for many developing countries the cumulative value of the capital that has flowed out of their economies since the 1970s would be more than enough to pay off their debts to the rest of the world.
Oil-rich states with an internationally mobile elite have been especially prone to watching their wealth disappear into offshore bank accounts instead of being invested at home, the research suggests. Once the returns on investing the hidden assets is included, almost £500bn has left Russia since the early 1990s when its economy was opened up. Saudi Arabia has seen £197bn flood out since the mid-1970s, and Nigeria £196bn.
"The problem here is that the assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments," the report says.
The sheer size of the cash pile sitting out of reach of tax authorities is so great that it suggests standard measures of inequality radically underestimate the true gap between rich and poor. According to Henry's calculations, £6.3tn of assets is owned by only 92,000 people, or 0.001% of the world's population – a tiny class of the mega-rich who have more in common with each other than those at the bottom of the income scale in their own societies.
"These estimates reveal a staggering failure: inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people," said John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. "People on the street have no illusions about how unfair the situation has become."
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Countries around the world are under intense pressure to reduce their deficits and governments cannot afford to let so much wealth slip past into tax havens.
"Closing down the tax loopholes exploited by multinationals and the super-rich to avoid paying their fair share will reduce the deficit. This way the government can focus on stimulating the economy, rather than squeezing the life out of it with cuts and tax rises for the 99% of people who aren't rich enough to avoid paying their taxes."
Assuming the £13tn mountain of assets earned an average 3% a year for its owners, and governments were able to tax that income at 30%, it would generate a bumper £121bn in revenues – more than rich countries spend on aid to the developing world each year.
Groups such as UK Uncut have focused attention on the paltry tax bills of some highly wealthy individuals, such as Topshop owner Sir Philip Green, with campaigners at one recent protest shouting: "Where did all the money go? He took it off to Monaco!" Much of Green's retail empire is owned by his wife, Tina, who lives in the low-tax principality.
A spokeswoman for UK Uncut said: "People like Philip Green use public services – they need the streets to be cleaned, people need public transport to get to their shops – but they don't want to pay for it."
Leaders of G20 countries have repeatedly pledged to close down tax havens since the financial crisis of 2008, when the secrecy shrouding parts of the banking system was widely seen as exacerbating instability. But many countries still refuse to make details of individuals' financial worth available to the tax authorities in their home countries as a matter of course. Tax Justice Network would like to see this kind of exchange of information become standard practice, to prevent rich individuals playing off one jurisdiction against another.
"The very existence of the global offshore industry, and the tax-free status of the enormous sums invested by their wealthy clients, is predicated on secrecy," said Henry. |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy |
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| jimv1 Great Old One Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Total posts: 2645 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-07-2012 11:35 Post subject: |
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| Cavynaut wrote: | Just been informed that my 50 quid a week tax credits are about to be withdrawn.
I'm now all together in it! Nice to know that some are doing okay though.
| Quote: | £13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite
• Study estimates staggering size of offshore economy
• Private banks help wealthiest to move cash into havens
"The problem here is that the assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments," the report says.
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The word they were looking for is 'Trickleup' |
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| drbastard Great Old One Joined: 28 Sep 2004 Total posts: 516 Location: South West Age: 71 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-07-2012 20:09 Post subject: |
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| Cavynaut wrote: | Just been informed that my 50 quid a week tax credits are about to be withdrawn.
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Welcome to the club. I assumed when they talked about welfare reform they were thinking of targeting the workshy and benefit fiddlers. Apparently it's the hard-working sitting ducks they want to sink. |
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| Mal_Content Great Old One Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Total posts: 769 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 23-07-2012 12:38 Post subject: |
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| well i'm losing all my benefits in a month's time - i'm not sufficiently disabled to get ESA according to the new rules. i can get jobseekers if i apply, but as i reached 60 a few weeks ago i took the option of getting a small pension and a lump sum now (no point waiting another 5 years - might not be around then) so i doubt i'd get more than £10 a week jobseekers once all my income was taken into account. i'm in a high unemployment area, most of what's available isn't what i can do. don't fancy signing on to jobseekers for a tenner a week and do 30 hours compulsory "work experience" into the bargain. Will try and survive on what i've got, sell stuff, for as long as possible. (bad time to sell in a recession) Hope to last another 2 -3 years before i have to go to jobcentre. maybe things will have changed by then ? |
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| Quake42 Warrior Princess
Great Old One Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Total posts: 5212 Location: Over Silbury Hill, through the Solar field Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 23-07-2012 12:47 Post subject: |
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| Jobseekers' Allowance - assuming you have paid your NI contributions - is not means-tested, at least not for the first six months. You should be entitled to the full amount. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17657 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 23-07-2012 13:27 Post subject: |
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| Mal_Content wrote: | | well i'm losing all my benefits in a month's time - i'm not sufficiently disabled to get ESA according to the new rules. i can get jobseekers if i apply, but as i reached 60 a few weeks ago i took the option of getting a small pension and a lump sum now (no point waiting another 5 years - might not be around then) so i doubt i'd get more than £10 a week jobseekers once all my income was taken into account. i'm in a high unemployment area, most of what's available isn't what i can do. don't fancy signing on to jobseekers for a tenner a week and do 30 hours compulsory "work experience" into the bargain. Will try and survive on what i've got, sell stuff, for as long as possible. (bad time to sell in a recession) Hope to last another 2 -3 years before i have to go to jobcentre. maybe things will have changed by then ? |
Bad news. Any chance of an appeal working or have you tried that already?
Don't know if its the same over there but best not to let a gap in your record. Can you at least sign on for credits? If theres a gap it may affect your eligibility for old age pension.
When I parted company with the civil service at age 50 I got a reduced pension and lump sum. |
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| Cavynaut Skoumed!
Usually tired. Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Total posts: 1961 Location: Crouch Wailing. UK. Age: 56 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 23-07-2012 14:05 Post subject: |
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| Yeah...you really should sign on Mal. Even if you get next to bugger all at least you'll get the NI contributions credited to you. |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 8820 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 23-07-2012 17:43 Post subject: |
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I agree with the other posters, Mal.
At least you should get something, and it's better than a tenner a week. |
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| BlackRiverFalls I wear a fez now.
Joined: 03 Aug 2003 Total posts: 8716 Location: The Attic of Blinky Lights Age: 44 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 23-07-2012 18:26 Post subject: |
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| It's likely i'll be in a similar situation in a month or so Mal, can only say good luck. |
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| Mal_Content Great Old One Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Total posts: 769 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 24-07-2012 20:26 Post subject: |
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Looks like I might be able to get Pension Credit in 2 years time, and my money should last that long. I'll go to Jobcenter and to find out that the score is, it is all very confusing, not knowing what benefits I might be put on. If they'd left things as they are I could have gone straight to pension credit  The info on Jobseekers is pretty vague about additional income - and it seems to depend on which type of Jobseekers i qualify for. Appealing the decision doesn't appeal to me, it means more form filling in, bothering doctors etc. My physical problems i can manage - which is why i'm fit for work - if I don't have to do anything. anyways thanks for kind words - will let you know how it works out. In the meantime - anyone want any old copies of Nexus - I got a stack of them - dunno if they're worth anything |
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