New Year's Honours!

Another year gone and another list of people who have received one of the New Year's Honours. Good to see a number of people in the list who actually deserve an honour either for bravery or for doing somehing that they did not get paid to do but there are still far to many people in the list that have got an honour for doing what they got paid to do. I am waiting for the list of people who have to give back their pay for not doing their job properly, you know all those responsible for the fancial collapse or for the enourmous uncontrolled overspends of public budgets like the Ministry of Defence or the NHS.

One should not get an honour for doing ANYTHING that is related to the job one is supposed to do. I will not name names but if you read through the list you can pick them out yourself. They should be ashamed to accept the award and be listed with those who really do deserve them.

No politician, either from the House of Lords or the other place, should have got an award considering the bloody mess they have got the country and the economy into and unless the business of a 'captain of industry' has increased it's contribution to the exports of the country AND at the same time increased the number of UK citizens that it employs AND reduced its carbon footprint, then they should not get one either! It's no good being good at some minor issue and completely useless at the rest and THEY ARE USELESS OTHERWISE WE WOULD NOT BE BROKE!

We've been framed!

I have just been watching a re-run of a Christmas episode of 'You've been framed' on the Telly and had a few mild chuckles at some unfortunate folks suffering from collapsing dining tables, collapsing chairs, Christmas trees that fall over at the slightest touch, crap that comes out of crackers and the inevitable junk present that some distant aunt, uncle or cousin bought. And then it struck me!


The stuff that we get sold is mostly low quality rubbish, a collapsing dining table isn't funny it's pathetic, so are chairs that can't take the weight of an average adult. A Christmas tree that falls over when you put decorations on it is as much use as a chocolate teapot. Why do we put up with this junk. No wonder the British economy is going down the drain all we make or sell is crap.

There are laws that state that an object has to be fit for the purpose for which it is sold, so if your table or chair collapses, or your Christmas tree won't stand up, once you've sent the DVD to 'You've been framed' for your £250 ring the Trading Standards Service and get them to get the rest of your money back too.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Card Charges

The years go by and still the government does not act against totally unfair credit and debit card charges. It is going to take another year whilst they "consult"! Consult who? If they consult the public they will not find one person who agrees with the charges so once again they, the government, are going to do what commerce wants and not what the people want.

I don't have a problem with credit card charges BUT they should be built in to the advertised price of the goods or services and NOT added on at the end of a transaction. That way we can determine who is offering the best deal and vote with our wallet or purse.

With regard to Debit Card charges they should not be allowed at all especially if the government has any intention of getting rid of cheques or perhaps even cash at some point in the future. Why on earth should be have to pay, what we were told when Debit Cards were issued, was electronic cash!

Oh, yes! I bet all that happens anyway is that the companies who charge us for giving them money just change the name of what they are doing to something like "Booking Fee" or some other title that allows them to get around not calling it a "Credit Card Charge" and once again escape the new legislation when ever it arrives - if ever.

Higher Unemployment

Very depressing statistics out today show the unemployment figures have increased again with the Government blaming the poor results on the Eurozone problems. What rubbish!

The current situation is due to what was happening in the economy 6 to 12 months ago not as a result of what is happening now. The awful thing is that with other current economic indicators also showing sluggish, if not zero, growth then the unemployment figures are set to get a lot worse in 6 months time when the Eurozone effect does actually start to influence them.

The Government has to take action to help the million plus young people get some kind of employment and they need to do it now. This mess will not go away for quite a while, probably years, and it is totally unacceptable for youngsters to be dumped on the scrap heap for that length of time.

What can be done? Well, here's a few ideas;

1) Give employers PAYE credits for employing school/college/university leavers.
2) Remove employers NIC contributions on new employees under 21's
3) Give employers grants to take on apprentices.
4) Allow the unemployed to take up short term unpaid secondment to businesses where they are still paid Job Seekers Allowance but don't need to sign on during the secondment. This will allow them to get the experience required to get a proper paid position.

Listening to young people talk about the difficulty getting a job the most common problem is that they don't have the experience required. This is a growing issue and needs some "out of the box" thinking to permanently resolve. Perhaps all education leavers should go on secondment for 'x' months after finishing education. A permanent system, jointly funded by employers and the government, should be set up to provide a route to experience where every employer over a certain size must offer young persons secondment positions.

Nothing on TV!

They, whom ever they are!, warned us that once we got multiple TV channels that the quality of the programs would deteriorate. Well, perhaps the quality has not deteriorated as badly as we imagined because all we get to see are the better (or sometimes the worst) programs that were produced years ago. It's repeat after repeat and then they, the TV companies, throw in "The Best of ..." or "Highlights from ..." or "Revisiting ...". What crap that's just another word for REPEAT. Do they think were all stupid?

Poor programming is blamed on low advertising revenues supposedly due to the recession but more likely due to there being too many channels chasing to few advertisers, with new mobile technologies available there are far better ways for advertisers to get their products to the people than using expensive TV adverts.

However the TV companies don't help themselves; putting adverts 5 or 10 minutes before the end of a film or other program does not make me sit and watch the boring adverts as they show for so long I have time to go and put the kettle on AND visit the loo AND get back to see the last 2 minutes of the real program and I imagine the rest of the country is doing likewise. If per chance there is an excellent program being shown and adverts disturb my enjoyment of it I make a point NOT to buy any of the advertised products, I don't complain to the TV company I just vote with my wallet. Given that TV advertising revenues are constantly falling, and set to fall even more, perhaps others including the advertisers have figured out that bad timing of adverts just antagonises the potential customers and it is a poor way to sell products and services.

Whilst I am spouting off I will not just blame the TV companies, the adverts themselves don't help the advertisers either - WHY DOES THE VOLUME (SOUND LEVEL) GO UP DURING THE AD BREAK - It just makes me turn the sound off completely! - ADVERTISERS DO YOU HEAR ME?

WE TURN THE SOUND OFF!

Another AD type that is laughable are those that are obviously recorded in a foreign language and then over-dubbed. There is a current car advert featuring what is supposed to be an English couple in their new offering but if they are in Britain then they are driving on the wrong side of the road! My view is that if you are trying to tempt me to buy your product at least make an effort to appeal to me in my own language and film it in my country or perhaps it's not really an advert you are making but a feeble attempt to produce an out-take for Harry's TV Burp.

COOKERY PROGRAMS

The problem with showing cookery programmes that were filmed last year, or perhaps even earlier, is that they did not reckon on few being able to afford to "put it a slow oven for FOUR HOURS!" - Do you own an electricity generating station or a gas pipeline from Norway too?

And what about your larder - what larder! TV chefs are cooking in kitchens twice the size of most folks houses, using gadgets and gizmo's that few people have room for today.

There is a great need to get back to basics, you don't need all that crap to cook. you don't even need scales (an old fashioned gadget used to weight things), just buy an old cook book from a charity shop as it is likely to use measures like "one and a half a cup of flour" or "a teaspoon full or baking powder" or perhaps even a "pinch of salt". I even saw one gadget that has different size spoons on it to measure a full spoon, a half-spoon and a quarter-spoon! I bet the person who thought that one up could sell sand to Egypt. What idiot needs a gadget other than a teaspoon to measure "half "of one! 


Why not make cookery programs using a kitchen space the size of a normal domestic kitchen, with equipment and ingredients that normal people have (and can afford) or perhaps you are not interested in economically feeding the masses but only those who can afford to eat out every day anyway?

Anyway, got to go, the repeat of the repeat of "Coast" has just started and even though I have seen it before, more than once, it's the only decent program on all night. Bye.

Bank threat to move to Hong Kong

The HSBC, or rather what was the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, makes threats to move to Hong Kong. Let it go then, the sooner we get rid of egotistic organisations that have no care or responsibility for the place and people where they do business the better.

They say we would loose around £1.6 billion in taxation if they move their headquarters. Well we have already lost a lot more than that from having to bail out the banks already, what's a little bit more to be rid of these morons. Oh, yes the HSBC say they did not get any of the bank bail out money so why should they contribute to the additional taxation the government is imposing. One wonders how long HSBC would have survived if the other banks had been left to fail, I imagine not very long.

All the banks benefited from the bail out whether or not they actually received the cash and they are idiots if they think otherwise and even bigger idiots if they think they can convince us otherwise.

I would also think that the Chinese Government would very much like them to move to Hong Kong they will soon need the additional tax revenue to support their expanding economy as that also is a potential "house of cards". Why? because China have very little natural resources so everything needs to be imported to sustain their economy. As the cost of fuel rises they will no longer be in a position to produce the cheap exports that are stuffing up the rest of us. All we have to do is wait.

If HSBC does move to Hong Kong we can still tax its operations in the UK and as they would then be outside the EC we would be free to impose even more stringent regulations and heavier taxation on them than we are proposing at the moment. He who laughs last....go on bu**er off, we'll help you pack!

Fuel costs more than a fine?

With national budgets and public spending being cut all over the place, including that of the Police and other Emergency Services is it not time to increase the level that drivers, and others, are fined when they break the law. Currently the £80 fixed fine is becoming less than the cost of a tank of petrol. Given the number of cars still on the road, clearly not occupied in travelling to and from work, many people are obviously not bothered too much about the cost of fuel.

Perhaps by dramatically increasing the level of fines one of two things would happen. Either the government would get some income which could be used to help fund the Emergency Services., or everyone would drive more sensibly and the number of accidents would go down thus reducing the costs of the Emergency Services.

I can almost hear the sceptics that say recovering the money from increased fines would erode any benefit from doing so. No it would not, because once an offender had received a Penalty Notice they would have to cease driving and surrender their driving license. The driving ban should last until the fine was paid in full or they had negotiated a payment plan. Oh yes!, if the fine is not paid the car gets crushed too.

Similarly the costs of an accident, or at least a substantial contribution, should be charged to the insurance companies of the parties at fault. Why should all the careful drivers and the public that don’t drive have to pay to clear up the mess created by those that are reckless?

Recovery will be in jeopardy

A ludicrous situation is going to happen shortly when the Bank of England is forced to raise interest rates to slow down inflation. It will effectively screw up the financial recovery!

I have no confidence in the Bank of England experts or those in the Treasury because just as they should have separated the Investment Banks from the Retail Banks when they had the ideal opportunity. They should also have separated the domestic interest rate from that of commercial borrowing. The Bank of England would then be able increase interest rates on domestic borrowing to slow down inflation whilst leaving the borrowing rate for commerce and industry at a lower rate to encourage growth.

WHAT IS A JOB WORTH?

Our economy is about the sixth largest in the world, yet we're told we're broke. What rubbish, we're merely spending our money on the wrong things like Local Authority Chief Executives who take home over £300,000 per year. This is OBSCENE.

Even if these people were being paid £100,000 it would be too much. I would hazard a guess that their authorities are over budget and requiring to make dramatic and drastic cuts and even then they will still be over budget and short of funds. They should not just have a pay cut, they should have a P45 because none of them are competent senior managers.

All our local authorities are over borrowed and over budget. What makes the executives think they deserve high salaries? It is obvious why they work for local government, they could not hold down a job in commerce or industry for very long, or even more unlikely, manage a business by themselves.

Every business has to live within it means or it goes bust. Our local authorities and our central government have gone bust, yet the remunerations and pensions of all the idiots that run them go up and up. It is time to call a halt. A graduated remuneration scale for ALL public employees should be defined and enshrined in law then we will not have the ludicrous state of affairs where a Local Authority Chief Executive is getting paid more than the Prime Minister.

BANKERS WILL GO ELSEWHERE?

We are constantly being told that if we put limits on the earnings of the banks or individual bankers that we risk them going elsewhere. What rubbish!

The banks and the other financial institutions are located in London because of geography not for any fiscal reason. The UK market place is convenient as it straddles the "opening hours" of all of most the world major markets, they can do business with the Middle East in the morning, Europe and Africa at lunchtime and the USA in the afternoon. The only other major markets not trading whilst London is open are Hong Kong, China.and perhaps you could include Australia.

This fact is the other major reason that it is unlikely that we, the British Isles, will move to a European time zone as to do so would erode some of this advantage. At the moment we can trade with the USA markets for at least one hour longer than the rest of Europe.

Unless someone is going to physically move the UK then we don't have to worry about the banks and other markets moving elsewhere there is no elsewhere. The threat that they will relocate to another county in response to caps on their earnings or higher taxation is absolute rubbish as they will loose far more than us.