Nabble - Have Your Say

Re: A consequence of mass immigration

2013-05-18T04:07:39Z

Oracle & John K,

I have nothing more to add apart from my 100% support in all you both have written.

Re: Time to Depose David Cameron...... Its Now or Never!! Kelly

2013-05-18T03:58:26Z

Dlyne,

If you take the buffoonery out Boris Johnson, he is an achiever here are some positive achievement from him.....

When he entered City Hall in 2008 – He inherited a city with significant problems: rising crime, a transport system creaking at capacity and suffering from years of neglect, waste, inefficiencies, a breakdown of community relations and empty, unfunded promises.

He made five key pledges to Londoners and after just three and a half years as Mayor has delivered on every single one.

This is a proud record for any politician, from driving down crime by increasing police numbers to making the transport system one of the safest in Europe.
He and his team have done all this while saving thousands of taxpayers’ money by freezing our share of council tax.

Now take David Cameron's record over his first three years, failure after failure after failure.

Is there any real achievements, I think not....... If anyone can list five pledges he has made and kept please enlighten me.

Cameron may not act like a buffoon but he is No Leader, he is No Achiever, he is a posh boy with an education sounds ok when talking, which tells me he can..... Talk the Talk but he can not Walk the Walk.

So on simple facts and achievements Boris Johnson is streets ahead of David Cameron.

Re: Time to Depose David Cameron...... Its Now or Never!! Kelly

2013-05-18T00:23:01Z

Gents,

Thanks for your interesting comments. Ok, as per the above, I think I could be persuaded to vote for a Boris/Nigel dream ticket! With a few tweaks to their personalities as suggested but then, would they not lose their appeal and why we like them in the first place?

Otherwise they might become just like Cameron!

Dlyne

Re: Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-17T19:33:57Z

I agree, Alex Salmond has just shot himself in the foot...

A couple of my posts, Times Digital just printed:

2

Working man your comment speaks reams, and let's dispel the myth that UKIP supporters are all closet racists. I am a Conservative and humanitarian of the old school, believing in fair play and honour. I spent my childhood in East Africa and enjoyed being taught how to hold my breath under water and hunt for pearls by young Africans, my friends. Only when I came to England after Independence was I branded a racist by ignoramuses, assuming that I had to be, my coming from that part of the world. This is the same hypocrisy of those who would brand UKIP supporters thus, who have been fed utter rubbish about Nigel Farage by scared politicians fearful for their seats in the main. People compare him to a Hitlerite duping the people like Goebels. The truth is the people are not stupid and they want to be heard, and this good, honourable man is listening to them. I would say it is he who is being plagued by the results of Hitlerite propaganda, as was witnessed in a pub in Edinburgh a few days ago.

1

Matthew Parris, it is you and David Cameron who are totally out of touch with the seething resentment of good British people fed up to the back teeth with being kicked around by Brussels and being denied their British right to be tried in a British court of Law before any extradition is entertained, when we witness a man selling batteries doing time in an American prison, and a terrorist receiving expensive accommodation courtesy of the British taxpayer at Her Majesty's Pleasure, and where mob gangs from Eastern Europe invade and rape our country daily with impunity, while fat Parliamentary cats ignore our plight. My pension is frozen because I no longer live in UK, but someone from Montenegro or Latvia will enjoy more advantages than I ever will as an ex-pat, and you wonder why people are angry? Nigel Farage is the only man advocating common sense politics right now.

David A

Re: Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-17T15:59:29Z

John K,

You said......

"Yes it's a case of a desperate attempt by the SNP to distract attention in Scotland from their failing independence campaign"

I disagree I do not think the SNP have any links to this small group who are not representative of the majority of Scottish people. These people are akin to the EDL in England.

I believe that the SNP is just marginally ahead after the first live debate between Nicola Sturgeon and Michael Moore.

I would say that Alex Salmond's comments about UKIP and Nigel Farage will have caused irreparable damaged to his independence campaign.

Alex Salmond is usually a shroud politician and his outburst about UKIP is totally out off character but being a Pro Unionist I think Nigel Farage will have single handedly put the SNP and Alex Salmond back in his/their box.

Re: Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-17T15:47:04Z

Jenio,

I am proud to be a Scottish but today these "Morons" disgraced the Scottish people.

In reply to your question...... "What has the Scottish got against Nigel?"

In fairness there was a small group who abused Nigel Farage and they are not representative of the majority of Scottish people........ Genuine Scots have absolutely nothing against Nigel Farage.

I do have respect for Alex Salmond's as a politicians and after haven heard is comments about Nigel Farage and UKIP he has gone way down in my thinking.

Alex Salmond's comments only confirm what I had said in another post which was......

I suggested that Nigel Farage should look towards Scotland for support for UKIP because I believe there are huge numbers of Pro Unionists up here and even after this small group embarrassed Scotland today, I hope that UKIP will puruse their agenda here in Scotland. I said in the previous post, that UKIP could be perceived as a threat to the SNP and put Alex Salmond back in his box...... Well after his comments about UKIP and Nigel Farage, I'd say Alex Salmond's cage is well and truly rattle.

So if I were Nigel Farage I would pursue the Scottish votes with more vigor, Alex Salmond is concerned for his and the SNP future.

The behaviour of these mindless morons need brushed aside, they are not a true reflection of the Scottish people.

My hypothesis on the Way of the World Marketwise

2013-05-17T12:27:22Z

I have been studying intensely the movements of the markets of late, and toxic and volatile are understatements!

It's all about convincing people that a recovery is underway, when it patently isn't. The best way to do this is to bring irresistible pressure to the markets to convey a false impression, and rely on the gullibility and greed of the public to do the rest - and it seems to be working! There are no ethics or fairness involved, just short-term opportunism. So how is it possible to turn Humpty Dumpty on his head and avoid him from cracking? That, I strongly argue, is the question Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has asked himself.

So what has he done lately? Well, to set the ball rolling in his preferred direction, he recently announced that he was intent on reducing the current monthly QE - 85 billion dollar bailout of the American economy. He has had to do this because of the artificially low interest rate worldwide with the dollar in attendance, because he is fearful that if the US$ is undermined as the world reserve currency, the entire fragile card house that is the US economy will collapse. In the meantime, he has set in motion a chain of events to artificially strengthen the US$ and Wall Street, by forcing people to act in a counterproductive manner designed to help no one but the US treasury - reducing, at a stroke, traditional financial backing to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and dictating unfavourable terms of trade to Canada, and all four currencies are presently paying the price. Now we come to the really borderline bit. Time to find a red herring, and that red herring is gold. By emphasising that gold has been way too high for far too long, is encouraging a stampede of bears on the bullion market and that stampede magically undergoes a metamorphosis and transmutates itself into a bull stampede finding its way to the stocks and bonds of the stock market, where reckless speculators, encouraged by increased credit to bolster the housing and rural economy, have engineered spectacular growth in a matter of weeks in stocks teetering on the edge barely a month ago! It's devoid of rhyme or reason and reminiscent of the sheep in Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd" who follow the leader with the bell over the cliff! Don't be fooled for one minute that without intervention from the Fed, the Dow Index would probably be at around 7000 (rather then the present 15000 +) and gold would be nearer $3000 an ounce to reflect actual market conditions! Silver is near $20 an ounce which is utterly ridiculous in that actual demand (as opposed to speculative) vastly outstrips supply, and all present sources will be exhausted in seven years based on current consumption alone, of this immensely valuable mineral which has far greater utility value than gold! And on that last note, you may be assured that Germany is building up her stocks on the low gold price, preparatory to a Euro exit, and that not much gold is shifting from Fort Knox! What does that tell you? When the stock market falters, as it inevitably will, it will be all change! I've seen too much of this in my lifetime to avoid recognising the unmistakeable symptoms.

David A

Re: More European Union

2013-05-17T05:41:38Z

La lutte continue! In London! - poor old London...we'll have to think up a new term for Londoners soon - maybe Metros? thank the French too for the housing bubble fit to bursting...

David A

Re: More European Union

2013-05-17T05:17:33Z

The French economy is up shit creek without a paddle, Francois Holland wants to place total control of the French economy in the hands of the Brussels EU potentates, as his socialist policies have driven France into a triple dip recession,and more and more French millionaires flee the 75% super tax regime he introduced. Well that's what you get when you allow amateur's from the left of politics to gain control.

Vive Le Revolution

Re: A consequence of mass immigration

2013-05-17T02:14:04Z

Oracle

Well said, your comments are in no way racist inspired but simply a statement of fact regarding the collapse of British society that has continued since the end of WWII, with each wave of immigration we have seen the gradual erosion of previously held standards of behaviour in the public environment,
When I drove Taxi for a living I once picked up an eastern European man who during our journey to the airport told me that although he was an asylum seeker from Cosovo, he was actually Albanian, he had fought against Serbian forces in Cosovo, and admitted that during that time he had taken part in revenge attacks against soft targets in the local Serbian communities including summary executions, rapes & torture, this man was plainly a war criminal, how was he able to enter the UK?

Even in our quiet Shire towns it is possible today for street criminals to purchase firearms for as little as £200 for a semi automatic pistol, for £450 it is possible to buy an AK47.

Perhaps even more worrying,it is also possible to rent a firearm for a specific purpose.
How is it possible? where are these weapons coming into the UK from?
As someone who has served in the military where I received professional training on the use and maintenance of firearms I question the ability of these criminals to maintain the weapons in a safe condition and fully expect to read that one of these cowards has had their hand blown off or lost their eyesight as a result of a misfire in the breech of a dirty firearm, if that happens they will receive no sympathy from me.

A consequence of mass immigration

2013-05-16T23:32:56Z

To all those exponents of the theory that mass immigration is good for our society including many of this current government and members of all parties I would say take a look at photographs published in the press yesterday of heavily armed police officers on an estate in Bedfordshire. These officers are armed with Heckler and Goch G36 assault rifles capable of firing at a rate of 750 rounds per minute and commonly used in Afghanistan and Kosovo. On their backs they carry baton guns that fire plastic rounds that can floor someone at 25 metres. Nine shootings in a period of 4 months on this particular estate. This is what mass immigration is doing to our Society. It's not just the people but the influence of their cultures that are turning what were once green and pleasant home counties into places reminiscent of Ireland at the height of troubles there, or down down Los Angeles. Theresa May is considering a request for the use of water cannons in England and Wales saying she wants the police to have "the tools that they need" to do their job. What an indictment of the kind of Society we are becoming and how successive Governments have allowed this situation to develop in a Country that was once considered to be one of, it not, the safest in the world.

Is Wall Street just one big speculator bubble right now?

2013-05-16T19:07:59Z

This article from Bloomberg today asks a few interesting questions...

"Is This Another Bubble? We Can’t Know Without Better Data

Are the easy-money policies of the world’s central banks setting financial markets up for a crash? We would have a much better idea if we measured how much of the buying is being done with borrowed money.

In recent months, soaring prices of stocks and bonds have left many investors wondering whether the potential returns are worth the risk. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) is in record territory despite a weak economic recovery. Junk bonds included in a BofA Merrill Lynch index are yielding only 4.4 percentage points more than U.S. Treasuries, close to the narrowest spread since late 2007.

So is it a bubble? To get a sense, it is helpful to know what is driving prices higher. If investors are putting in very little of their own money and using a lot of borrowed money, also known as leverage, that can be a troubling signal.

When, for example, lenders allow people to buy a $100,000 house with a down payment of only $1,000, they give speculators immense power to bid up prices beyond the reach of those who want houses to live in. Similarly, if someone with only $1 million can borrow enough to buy $100 million in risky bonds, traders looking for quick gains can push prices up to levels that make little sense for people who want bonds as a source of fixed income.

Disastrous Dynamic
Leverage makes the whole financial system more fragile. Investors who use only their own money can lose no more than 100 percent of what they put in. By contrast, an investor who uses $1 million of his own money and $99 million of borrowed money to buy $100 million in securities can be wiped out by a price drop of only 1 percent: The new value of the investment, at $99 million, is just enough to pay off the debt. Larger declines can force investors to sell other assets to pay their creditors -- a dynamic that can turn seemingly isolated losses into widespread disasters.

Economists have long advocated that regulators pay more attention to leverage and do a better job of measuring it. In a 2011 paper, John Geanakoplos of Yale University and Lasse Pedersen of New York University proposed publishing a suite of leverage indicators. In consumer markets such as mortgages and auto loans, they would monitor down payments. In the so-called repo market, where investors put up securities as collateral for loans, they would track the “haircuts” that define how much money can be borrowed against different types of securities. Data on new transactions would offer insight into what was driving current buying, while averages for all loans outstanding would give a sense of the market’s fragility.

To a large extent, regulators are on board. The Office of Financial Research -- which the Dodd-Frank act equipped with subpoena power to improve the quality and accessibility of financial information -- has identified the paucity of leverage data as an important gap that needs filling. In a speech last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cited leverage as a vulnerability that can “amplify and propagate” financial shocks. The New York Fed publishes some limited information on repo haircuts.

Unfortunately, this sense of urgency might be getting lost in broader efforts to monitor systemic risk. The Office of Financial Research is spreading its resources across complex modeling and data standardization initiatives that, while necessary and promising, probably won’t provide useful real-time information for years. In trying to put the whole puzzle together, they could be missing an opportunity to do something useful right now.

Almost six years after the last financial crisis began, we are again reaching a point where robust, transparent measures of leverage would help regulators and investors understand whether markets are headed for trouble. The data would be relatively easy to produce, and officials have all the powers they need to do so. What are we waiting for?"

David A

Re: Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-16T12:14:19Z

Doesn't say much for the SNP does it?

David A

What's the Fed up to? (forgive the awful pun!)

2013-05-16T12:11:29Z

Perceptive article from Caroline Baum today. I agree with her concluding paragraph. Bernanke has no choice but to inflict pain if the credibility of the US$ is to be preserved, and that pain has to be introduced without unduly upsetting the Stock Markets or reversing both the housing market and unemployment situation. When bank rate is at .25% the only way is up, but when, and by how much? is on everyone's minds, bearing in mind that reduced QE coupled with a .25% rise is all it may take for a bull market to turn decidedly bear... gold bullion seems set to drop to the 1000 per oz mark in a year, but that is no big deal since its price has been grossly inflated for years. Silver is in short supply though and is looking as if it has bottomed - with gold holders beginning to switch over to that commodity...

The Question the Fed Should Be Asking
By Caroline Baum May 15, 2013 7:30 PM GMT-0230

Ed Koch, the late mayor of New York City, used to stop residents on the street and ask, “How am I doing?”

With next month marking the four-year anniversary of the end of the 2007-2009 recession, the longest and deepest since the Great Depression, it seemed like a good time to ask the same question -- of the Federal Reserve. The Fed’s actions to right the economy, once described as “unprecedented,” now seem ordinary. The various emergency-lending facilities have been closed, but the overnight rate is still at zero to 0.25 percent, and the Fed is engaged in its third round of quantitative easing, or large-scale asset purchases, which this time is open-ended (until it isn’t).

So how’s the Fed doing? Based on standard metrics, economic growth has been tepid as far as expansions go. Real gross domestic product has increased at an average 2 percent pace since the second quarter of 2009. The unemployment rate has inched its way down to 7.5 percent from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009, a stark contrast to the rapid doubling of the rate from the recession’s onset in December 2007.

In other respects, the economy is doing just fine. Asset markets are elated at the Fed’s liquidity provisions. And to the extent that the goal of policy was to encourage risk-taking, inflate asset markets and hope for a spillover to the broader economy, I guess two out of three isn’t bad. The risk is that Nos. 1 and 2 create problems before No. 3 takes hold.

Credit Risk
Some background first. Fed chief Ben Bernanke has gone out of his way to explain how monetary policy works once the traditional policy tool, the overnight interbank rate, hits zero. When the Fed buys long-term Treasuries, it depresses yields and forces investors to buy assets that carry more credit risk, such as stocks and corporate bonds. Lower yields make housing more affordable. Higher stock prices work through the wealth effect to increase consumer spending, leading to higher corporate profits and personal incomes in what he called a “virtuous circle.”

Let’s take a look at the results.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index set new highs this week, a reflection of either the Fed’s liquidity provision or record corporate profits, take your pick. (Price-earnings (SPX) ratios remain well within historical norms.)

Credit spreads have narrowed, just as the Fed wished.

Home prices have come roaring back, posting large gains in parts of the country that were hardest hit by the housing bust. Phoenix led major U.S. cities with a year-over-year jump of 23 percent, followed by San Francisco (up 18.9 percent) and Las Vegas (up 17.6 percent), according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for February. And the National Association of Realtors reported that the U.S. median price rose 11.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the biggest increase in seven years.

Then there’s the art market. After “giddy competition” last fall, the spring art auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York featured catalogs that “weigh as much as a phone book and contain relatively hefty price tags,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently there are a lot of new collectors, many from abroad, with money to throw at trophy art.

Another example: The average price of a New York City taxi medallion topped $1 million last month.

The Federal Advisory Council, a group of 12 bankers who advise the Fed, warned about a bubble in U.S. farmland prices and excessive risk-taking at their Feb. 8 meeting, according to minutes obtained by Bloomberg News reporters Craig Torres and Joshua Zumbrun under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Horse Race
Fed officials have started to walk back from their asset-price/virtuous-circle policy prescription, sprinkling recent speeches and press conferences with references to “reaching for yield” and “excessive risks” and invoking the central bank’s dual mandate of full employment and stable prices instead. At his March 20 news conference, Bernanke said the Fed isn’t “targeting asset prices.” Rather policy makers are “trying to identify, much more so than in the past, whether major asset classes are deviating in terms of their price or valuation from historical norms.” The degree to which assets are leveraged, something the Fed is monitoring, is crucial to determining potential systemic risk.

This is all good. But there’s a more important consideration. Four-and-a-half years of an overnight rate near zero and aggressive securities purchases by the Fed have succeeded in raising asset prices. The question is whether higher asset prices will deliver jobs and economic growth before they become destabilizing.

This is what policy makers are referring to when they talk about the costs versus the benefits of QE: the horse race between risk-taking and economic growth. It sounds as if Bernanke and the Federal Open Market Committee are getting ready to re-handicap the race at their meeting next month.

(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

David A

Re: Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-16T11:58:04Z

David A,

Yes it's a case of a desperate attempt by the SNP to distract attention in Scotland from their failing independence campaign by attempting to associate UKIP with their bigoted hatred of anything that might be linked to the UK which they foresee as a threat and anything English on which they can vent their bile.

Actually I think it is reminiscent of the violent actions of the SA in pure war Germany where anyone who did not share their racist views was subjected to violent attacks, bigotry, hypocracy and violence is now the hallmark of the SNP, and the whole world is looking on.

Re: Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-16T11:27:13Z

I'd say they have been fed propaganda branding him racist, which he is not! Speaking as a Scot (my father), a lot of ignorant Scots bastards! I feel sure John and Peter will agree with me!

David A

Protestors shout 'scum' at UKIP leader

2013-05-16T10:46:11Z

'UKIP leader Nigel Farage had to find refuge in a pub after he was swarmed by angry protestors as he left a press conference.

When he later left the Canons' Gait pub in Edinburgh's historic old town and was escorted into a police van, protestors chanted "scum, scum, scum".

Peter and other Scots on here.
What has the Scottish got against Nigel?

Re: bank lending

2013-05-16T09:39:18Z

Australian dollar sank below Canadian dollar minutes ago. Currently the former stands at .98321 US that's 7 cents lower than 2 weeks ago. It's a double whammy for Australia, because apart from Julia Gillard's folly of choosing to deal Aus$ for Chinese Yuan, bypassing the US$ reserve currency, the value of precious metals, particularly gold and silver has dived too - and Australia has large reserves of both...

Everyone is banking on Wall Street right now thanks to the ingenuity of Ben Bernanke at the Fed! You have to hand it to him, literally!

Australian dollar now .976 US! somebody's not happy, that's for sure!

David A

Re: NHS Shambles

2013-05-16T04:27:52Z

Peter Jenlo, I can see no earthly reason why 3 or 4 surgery's could not get together to provide proper 24 hour cover even if the joint venture is only for "out of hours"
service. At least people would get to see a doctor rather than speaking to a faceless entity on the other end of the telephone, who, it transpires are not even qualified nurses let alone doctors. It's the old old chestnut as far as politians are concerned.
Nothing is thought through properly. I will add another gripe to the mix. Why is it not possible to have blood tests done in all surgeries rather than having to travel miles to a "local" hospital and wait for more than an hour on many occasions? Some surgeries
provide this service so why not all?

An article by Roger Helmet MEP(UKIP)

2013-05-16T03:40:48Z

Those who follow EU affairs will remember Tony Blair’s extraordinarily naïve decision to give away a big chunk of our EU budget rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher at Fontainebleau, in exchange for a promise of a “root and branch reform” of the Common Agricultural Policy. Our partners in Brussels happily pocketed the money, but somehow the promise of CAP reform never materialised. Now, rumour has it, Cameron is about to make a similar elementary negotiating blunder -- offering a real and immediate benefit to the other side (like Blair’s decision, involving many billions of Pounds) in exchange for promises which are not only vague, but which actually look undeliverable.

I freely admit that I am retailing gossip here, but it is gossip that chimes with what we know. I think my sources are reliable, but I am not in a position to reveal them. I should be very happy to be told that I was mistaken. Maybe somebody at Number Ten, or somebody at DECC, might like to put me right.

The Coalition government is rightly desperate to get on with its nuclear programme, and is having serious difficulty -- largely, I believe, because no company wants to commit a multi-billion Pound investment over six decades, in the face of massive regulatory uncertainty. When politicians like Angela Merkel can close down the German nuclear industry in response to some bad publicity, investors will think twice.

Currently the government and DECC are negotiating with French nuclear company EDF over two new reactors at Hinckley Point. I’m told that the Brits are prepared to guarantee a price of £80 per MWh over twenty years, while the French want £100 over 35 years. MPs are claiming that EDF could make £90 billion over the course of the contract. And of course it’s the poor bl**dy consumer -- whether household or industry -- who will end up paying.

This whole proposal is a huge bet on oil futures. If fossil fuel energy follows the script, and becomes more and more expensive, there may come a time when even £100 per MWh looks attractive. But future prices so rarely do follow the script, and with unconventional oil and gas in the picture, the proposed EDF deal could be a disaster. Equally, of course, renewables are a similar bet on oil futures. And that’s without even considering cheap coal.

Cameron is said to have had a meeting scheduled with French President Francoise Hollande to seek to break the impasse -- though this meeting was cancelled as a result of the Thatcher funeral. They are expected to meet shortly. While the British government is under pressure to kick-start its nuclear programme, Hollande is also under pressure to deliver a major project overseas for a leading French industry.

Now the difficult bit. I’m being told that Cameron is prepared to be flexible on the pricing for EDF in exchange for undertakings from Hollande that he, Hollande, will be helpful in the matter of Cameron’s EU renegotiation. So our “heir to Blair” will be following his mentor, and giving away real money -- rather a lot of it -- in exchange for promises of future support in Europe.

It is frankly extraordinary naïveté on the part of Cameron to think he can gain unilateral concessions from Brussels in the first place. Those of us who’ve followed the EU issue for decades know that British politicians regularly attempt reform in the EU, and regularly retire hurt. The EU is beyond reform, and deserves to be put out of its misery. But it’s doubly naïve of our Prime Minister to imagine that a few obliging words from Hollande will seal the deal. The EU has its own agenda and its own Juggernaut momentum. The only way in which Cameron might hope to achieve change is to brandish Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Set out our intention to quit, and then let them propose terms to keep us in.

Cameron seems to be set on spending a great deal of our money on promoting political objectives which, as anyone could tell him, are simply unachievable. He is becoming a liability.

Re: NHS Shambles

2013-05-16T03:10:14Z

Oracle

I agree with your frustration and agree with what you have said.......

Jenio,

Until I read your post I was about to add what you have said.......

I can concur with what you have said........

I came out my GP's surgery and went to the reception to arrange a further appointment to come back in 4 weeks time as my GP had told me to do, only to be told...... We do not book past three weeks in advance, I just don't understand why. If I run a business it would lose business to a competitor if I did as the GP's do.

What happened to GP's surgeries being kept open until 10pm weekdays and opened at weekends, which would stop people from taking time off work to see their GP, the same should apply to dentists.

The most likely reason why this is never been implemented is, GP's will want extra money for working outside normal hours and they just don't want to work weekends, the same applies in hospitals, I happened to attend a hospital for an Xray on the last bank holiday, I was shocked because the car bays were empty, where you usually struggle to find to get parked, when I went in there was not even a receptionist to direct me, the hospital was like a ghost town deserted and only the odd person going around.

As much as doctors, nurses are worth their weight in gold, they need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the real world and supply a service 24/7 "every" day of the year.

This attitude they have that they can remain in a bygone era when the rest off us have to accept working around the clock these doctors and nurses must do the same.......

Can you imagine the waiting times would shrink to minimal waiting time if any.

The difficulty getting to see your GP and this call centers before you get to speak to a doctor are forcing people to say.....

Stuff this, I am going down the A&E department when they don't need to be there.

RE: Bedroom Tax

2013-05-16T02:11:26Z

Cas,

I have been up in arms about this and I agree that there must be breach in governments own rules, as you rightly say.

The government's own rules state very clearly that the minimum amount a single person needs to live off is.......

Taken from the government's own website........

Single person 16 to 24 £56.80
Single person 25 or over £71.70

This is the minimum amount they say a single person needs to live on, so how they are meant to find money out that to pay this bedroom tax must break their own rules.......

I find it astonishing that this has not been challenged in court. If it breaks their own rules it most certainly must break their human rights.......
Where is the EU on this one, I mean they tell us what meat etc must go into a sausage before we can call it a sausage.
The EU tell us we must pay foreigners benefits while working here in the UK, where are they when it comes to our own people getting the money they need to live on "illegally" taken away.

Re: NHS Shambles

2013-05-16T01:07:44Z

In a 24 hour society, I cannot understand why GP surgeries are exempt from providing 24 hour services. Even during a normal working day, I suspect in the majority of cases, surgeries do not even have someone to answer the phone all day. In my own case the telephone is manned between 9am -12.30 and 4pm - 6.30pm apart from Wednesdays when there is no afternoon surgery. They have recently introduced a system whereby if there is no appointment available, they take your number and a doctor rings back and generally speaking you have to make an appointment to see them anyway. If they have time to ring patients then to my mind they could see you, as in most cases you are only with the doctor for a few minutes. Most doctors may be good at medicine but not necessarily good with finances or time management. It all comes back to the problem of poor management, like the sickness that ails most of our hospitals. Too much time during the the day is spent on administration, tasks that could be dealt with out of peak hours if managed correctly!

RE: Bedroom Tax

2013-05-16T00:18:36Z

I am sure it must be illegal, the law states the legal minimum amount a person needs to live on is
£64, a week, also her human rights to Home and Family life have been breached ?
it is a quite a simple process to apply to the courts of human rights and I would urge any one affected by this to do so.

Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 23:34:08 -0700
From: [hidden email]
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Bedroom Tax

it must be tantamount to constructive manslaughter

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://have-your-say.915577.n3.nabble.com/Bedroom-Tax-tp4027759p4028935.html

To unsubscribe from Bedroom Tax, click here.
NAML

Re: Bedroom Tax

2013-05-15T23:34:07Z

it must be tantamount to constructive manslaughter

Re: Bedroom Tax

2013-05-15T17:41:06Z

Seems to me that Cameron is having his Gordon Brown moment now as a result of this which will guarantee disaster for the Conservative party if he is still there at the next General Election, and the first thing the new broom needs to do is scrap this iniquitous tax...

David A

Re: NHS Shambles

2013-05-15T15:47:30Z

Oracle,
We have had the doctors system where you ring at 8:30 only to be told they don't have any appointment, please try again at 12:30. Only to be told they have one available in 4 weeks time. It has been going on for years.
This past year they made appointments available on line. I still couldn't make one for 4 weeks. Finally i had an appointment, went to see the doctor, waiting room full of Europeans. I was told i had a frozen shoulder. An appointment has been made to see an Orthopaedic on the 30th. The doctor told me to make another appointment after that date as the Orthopaedic will send them the results. So i ask at reception for an appointment after the 30th, she said "We don't book appointments that far ahead".
It has been a shocking service, and i can definitely say it has only been so since the influx of foreigners.
Perhaps if the government do start to charge foreigners, the waiting room might be empty and i might get an appointment when i want one.
As for our A & E, even if it's empty, we still have to wait 4 hours. We have never had it any other way.

Re: NHS Shambles

2013-05-15T15:24:12Z

That's the trouble cas they don't think. It has been reported today that A&E is on the verge of total collapse. One million additional visitors in the last 3 years, an ever increasing population, and an out of hours system that is totally inadequate. What do this Government do? Close A & E departments all over the place and cut staff. If that isn't a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is. We have noticed that suddenly we have to wait longer for an appointment at our GP surgery, why?

Re: Bedroom Tax

2013-05-15T14:15:44Z

David cameron ! now has the blood on his hands of the poor woman who committed suicide over the bedroom tax, she was already budgeting down to her last penny, and then he nicks £20 quid a week off her, she said she could not afford to live,any more, my thoughts go out to her family she was only 53 ,i thought the lowest basic amount a person needs to live on was a legal minmum requirement which is JSA £64.00 a week ? spare room or no spare room, not only breaching her human right to home and family, that is so readily afforded to terrorists and the likes, but rail roading over our laws and through our essential services.

Re: NHS Shambles

2013-05-15T14:00:04Z

i agree, what on earth did they think was going to happen, they have been closing the already over streched A & E departments so where are we supposed to go there is nothing solid in its place, not the fault of the gps or doctors or nurses, but government cuts, i had to call an ambulance and they had to come 14 miles took 20 miniutes, to long im afraid, one way or another this government are killing us.

Just how "safe" are the so-called US Big Six?

2013-05-15T13:09:45Z

"No Lehman Moments as Biggest Banks Deemed Too Big to Fail

By Bob Ivry - May 10, 2013 1:30 AM GMT-0230 .Bloomberg Markets Magazine

There may be no government action more universally reviled in the U.S. than bank bailouts. Republicans and Democrats, financial industry lobbyists and watchdogs, Wall Street executives and President Barack Obama say taxpayers should never again rescue a failing bank.

Former Fed attorney Cornelius Hurley says bond buyers prove that too big to fail still exists.

Deniz Anginer calculated how big banks received $82 billion in implied U.S. support from 2009 to 2011.

To make sure a future crisis won’t force governments to intervene, international regulators are requiring the biggest banks to borrow less. Three years ago, U.S. lawmakers passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act -- with provisions to liquidate a collapsing financial institution and end the perception that some banks are too big to fail.

“Because of this reform, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” Obama said on July 15, 2010. “There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts -- period.”

Investors, it turns out, don’t believe that, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its June issue. The people who lend money to the largest banks are betting that Uncle Sam will toss a lifeline to a giant should it stumble, according to a study by Deniz Anginer, a World Bank financial economist.

Bondholders who lend money to the six biggest U.S. banks are so convinced the government will bail out these institutions that they are willing to accept lower returns -- a marketplace subsidy worth $82 billion from 2009 through 2011, Anginer calculates.

$102 Billion

These six banks -- Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc., (GS) JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC). -- have also benefited from tax breaks and Federal Reserve largesse since the end of 2008 in the form of additional income from the central bank’s mortgage-bond purchases and the interest it pays for bank deposits.

All told, the financial advantages for the six biggest banks since the start of 2009 amounted to at least $102 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The big banks have the taxpayers standing behind them, so people who lend them money know they’ll be paid back,” says Cornelius Hurley, director of the Center for Finance Law & Policy at Boston University and former assistant general counsel at the Fed. “That too big to fail no longer exists is not credible.”

The firms that rate the creditworthiness of banks say the likelihood of a government rescue hasn’t gone away. Because of the implicit promise of bailouts, Moody’s Investors Service, the second-largest U.S. ratings company, has boosted the scores for the six banks. Each increase in credit grade makes borrowing less expensive.

Junk Risk

In a March 27 report, Moody’s displays a bar chart of its credit ratings for the banks in blue. In green bars, it shows Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo would be rated two grades lower if the taxpayer backstop didn’t exist. Moody’s boosted Morgan Stanley (MS)’s score by two grades for the same reason, even though it had downgraded that bank in June 2012.

The scores for Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan (JPM) are three grades lower in the green bars.

Debt sold by the holding companies of Bank of America and Citigroup (C), the second- and third-biggest U.S. banks by assets, would fall to junk status without the implicit government guarantee, Moody’s Senior Vice President David Fanger says.

“They have a high probability of government support,” Fanger says.

‘Not Solved’

No less an authority than Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke says the biggest banks are still being rewarded because of their size: He used the word “subsidy” at a March 20 press conference. Having banks that are too big to be allowed to collapse remains a major issue, he said.

“It is not solved and gone,” Bernanke said. “It’s still here.”

Some investors say the federal backstop is a good thing.

“The biggest mistake that could be made would be to allow significant banking institutions to fail,” says Gabriel Borenstein, managing director of New York-based Enclave Capital LLC.

“The sequential events that would follow, largely driven by psychology, cannot be quantified,” Borenstein says. “Another Lehman Brothers collapse could trigger a potential implosion.” Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was the third-largest U.S. investment bank in September 2008 when its bankruptcy filing deepened the longest recession since the 1930s.

20 Years

Buyers of big-bank debt have been counting on government aid for at least 20 years, says Anginer, who’s also a professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s Pamplin College of Business in Falls Church.

He’s researched the issue with Viral Acharya, a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and Joseph Warburton, a law and finance professor at Syracuse University. They collected more than 84,000 data points for 567 financial firms going back to 1990.

The researchers looked specifically at the difference between what the banks paid creditors for borrowing money and what investors earned from owning U.S. government debt. They subtracted that number from the same measurement for smaller banks and, taking into account differences in risk unrelated to bank size, determined the value of the implicit government subsidy.

The discount for the top 10 percent of banks from 1990 to 2010 was worth, on average, $20 billion annually. In 2009, as lending dried up and the government aided the big banks, the borrowing discount ballooned to about $100 billion.

‘Well, No’

Anginer says he decided to do the research after hearing bankers and Treasury officials say the 2008 bailouts were a success.

“People at the banks were saying, ‘We paid our money back with interest; everything’s great,’” Anginer says. “Well no, it’s not. There are other costs we should be looking at.”

The reason investors accept lower returns on bonds issued by the largest banks isn’t because those firms are more careful than their smaller competitors. It’s because they believe the government will prop up the big banks if they falter.

The researchers reached that conclusion by isolating a series of risk measurements that affect the cost of debt. One is called maturity mismatch -- how much the banks had been able to borrow short term, for which rates are usually lower, while lending long term. That practice helped doom Lehman Brothers when short-term loans dried up in 2008.

Research Methods

They also applied a calculation created by Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Merton known as distance to default, which is usually used to predict bankruptcy. The biggest banks behaved no more safely than smaller banks, the researchers found.

Anginer did bank-by-bank computations of the discounts at the request of Bloomberg Markets. He subtracted the customer deposits of each firm from the interest-bearing liabilities.

The big banks’ borrowing advantage swelled to $37.2 billion in 2009 after Congress authorized spending $700 billion on bank bailouts. The discount decreased to $29.9 billion in 2010 as the economy improved and to $14.6 billion in 2011, Anginer found.

The decline doesn’t mean the subsidy will disappear anytime soon, says Edward Marrinan, co-head of market strategy at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. The discount will probably continue to fall as investors become more confident that the government will allow big banks to fail, Marrinan says.

“We’re in the middle of a natural process of moving from implicit support to where the banks will be at arm’s length from taxpayers,” he says. “That process might take a long time.”

‘Don’t Believe’

Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Timothy Sloan says too big to fail is already over. “I don’t believe there’s a government backstop, and I disagree that there’s a benefit,” he says. “We don’t think we should be bailed out. If we do a very poor job, we should be fired.”

Additional costs the largest banks bear must be taken into account when tallying the advantages they enjoy over small ones, says Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan.

“Each year, we spend billions of dollars on people, systems and technology related to regulatory requirements, and we have higher capital and liquidity standards,” he says. “Those and a range of other factors add up to make claims of a supposed funding advantage less credible.”

On a global level, big banks are treated differently because of their size. The Financial Stability Board, an international oversight group created by the Group of 20 countries, has deemed the big six systemically important financial institutions, or SIFIs.

Extra Capital

These large banks must fund themselves with as much as $2.50 in extra capital for each $100 in assets. They also must have the $7 per $100 required for all banks. The so-called SIFI buffers need to be in place by 2019. U.S. banks are already accumulating the extra equity.

“While size can provide certain benefits, including diversification and economies of scale, it also attracts higher capital charges, which add to costs,” says Michael DuVally, a spokesman for New York-based Goldman Sachs.

Spokesmen for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America and Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, both based in New York, declined to comment.

Lenders have also benefited from the Fed’s policy of buying mortgage bonds through quantitative easing. Wells Fargo, which originates almost one-third of U.S. home loans, gained $2.07 billion from that program, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bank of America received $1.16 billion, followed by JPMorgan, with $767 million, and Citigroup, with $332 million.

William Dudley

Quantitative easing helped push the average 30-year-mortgage interest rate to a record low of 3.31 percent in November. William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, says the central bank wanted to drive it even lower.

Lenders increased the difference between the rate they charge mortgage borrowers and the interest they pay to investors who buy the mortgage bonds. For years, banks added 50 basis points, according to the New York Fed. In December, the difference widened to 150 basis points. (A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.)

“This suggests that originator profits may have increased,” Dudley said at a public meeting in December 2012.

Too big to fail will remain a political issue. In April, two senators -- Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Republican David Vitter of Louisiana -- introduced legislation requiring the biggest banks to fund themselves with less borrowed money. They also asked the Government Accountability Office to calculate the advantages of being systemically important.

The GAO report will be published next year.

As the U.S. economy has improved, the dollar amounts of advantages enjoyed by the six biggest banks have decreased. Yet too big to fail persists, a legacy of the 2008 financial crisis and a reminder of the bailouts so many people love to hate. "

David A

Cheap Labour

2013-05-15T09:41:40Z

Interesting article in the press today. Migration "expert" Professor David Metcalf has warned that food prices will rocket if farmers are forced to employ British Pickers to replace thousands of Eastern Europeans who have been doing this work since 2005 and who will move on to better jobs when border controls are relaxed. To my knowledge, fruit/vegetable picking has never been a well paid job and even British workers are unlikely to be paid a penny more than the minimum wage. That being the case, how much are farmers paying eastern europeans? Why are farmers and other employers being allowed to get away with paying immigrants lower wages instead of employing British people, and where are these better jobs that eastern europeans will move on to? Something doesn't add up! It was announced today that unemployment has increased by 15,000 and although not mentioned these figures will be swelled during the next 2/3 months by thousands of school leavers and graduates joining the dole queues. Sod the Eastern Europeans.

What are you going to do with Colin Brewer

2013-05-15T08:54:34Z

Mr Cameron,
A councillor represents the people. Mr Brewer wicked comments about Disabled Children surely is a resigning matter. If you are not aware it is on the Cornwall Council website/facebook/twitter. He reiterates his earlier horrible views on disabled people and further insults us by saying farmers when faced with a deformed lamb will shoot it - bang really Mr Cameron. Is this right?

I was a disabled child and have faced crap over the years but he brought back all the old anger back. Its not easy being disabled with welfare reforms looming and suffering with a disability.

Get this "man" out,

Rhonda and John Flack

Re: bank lending

2013-05-15T05:43:30Z

This from Bloomberg yesterday:

U.K. Exit From EU May Really Happen
By Clive Crook May 14, 2013 7:30 PM GMT-0230

Visiting the U.K. over the past week, I realized for the first time that Britain might actually leave the European Union. Of course, it has talked about this eventuality, on and off, almost since it joined -- but for years the constant whining could be dismissed as so much background noise. Things have changed. Attitudes are hardening, and by promising an “in or out” referendum on EU membership after the next election, Prime Minister David Cameron may have put the country on a course that will force it to choose.

If the referendum Cameron promises for 2017 were put to voters tomorrow, the U.K. would probably leave. According to polling by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, only 26 percent of Britons think Europe’s economic integration has helped the economy, and only 43 percent have a favorable opinion of the EU. Other recent polls show steady (though mostly slender) majorities in favor of exit.

Cameron will have to win another election to keep his referendum promise. His government is unpopular so that’s no sure thing. But the opposition Labour Party will probably have to promise a referendum, too, once the 2015 election comes into view -- especially if the U.K. Independence Party, which is committed to an exit, keeps gathering strength. (UKIP already attracts more support than the pro-European Liberal Democrats.) It’s hard to run on a platform of denying voters a choice.

New Treaty
Cameron isn’t a Euro-skeptic: He’s the pro-EU leader of a party that’s long been bitterly divided on the issue. To hold the Conservatives together and keep the country in the EU, he wants to draft a new European treaty that is more to Britain’s liking before a referendum occurs. The other EU leaders say they want nothing to do with this.

It’s a point that British advocates of exit have seized on. In an article in the Times last week, Nigel Lawson, a former Tory chancellor of the exchequer (and no knee-jerk Little Englander), said he expected nothing from the renegotiation and would be voting for exit. Several other former ministers have said the same.

Here’s the surprise: These interventions weren’t greeted as reckless or sensational, as they once would have been. Suddenly, exit is on the political agenda. Much of the City has turned Euro-skeptic as a reaction to what many see as a vindictive regulatory assault from Brussels. U.K. businesses used to be strongly pro-EU, but that’s no longer so. What once might have seemed an idle or even absurd threat has become a real possibility.

I think the question of whether the U.K. should remain part of the EU is a closer call than either side wants to admit -- and, just as Cameron says, it all depends on the terms. If the EU responds to the economic crisis with new strides toward a United States of Europe, the costs for the U.K. will surely outweigh the benefits: Britain just doesn’t want to be part of that enterprise. If EU membership will require eventual membership of the euro area -- and that’s the prevailing model, as though the crisis had never happened -- Britain should again say no thanks.

As free trade becomes the global norm, the benefits of open access to Europe’s markets are less and less confined to EU members. Cameron, visiting President Barack Obama in Washington this week, discussed the proposed U.S.-EU trade pact, among other things. The U.S. has signed free-trade agreements that span the globe. The U.K. could do the same.

Better Arguments
At the very least, Britain’s pro-EU forces need better arguments. They say Cameron shouldn’t have raised the issue in the first place, implying it’s better to deny voters a say. What are voters to make of that? Pro-EU politicians keep repeating that exit is unthinkable -- but never really say why. What makes Switzerland’s relationship with the EU unthinkable? They think Britain should be leading Europe, that it maximizes its global influence that way. Well, that’s just delusional. Why should Britain expect to lead a union of 27, soon to be 28, countries?

Let’s take Canada as a thought experiment. It’s a small economy next to a big economy. Its global influence is limited by its size, of course. Would it be better off as part of the U.S.? Would its influence in the world be greater? And wouldn’t Canadians be giving up something they value very highly? The pro-EU cause should find some answers to these questions.

For Europe’s sake, as much as it pains them, the other EU governments should acknowledge that Cameron is right about the need for a new constitutional settlement. The Pew survey shows that disaffection with the EU is by no means confined to the U.K. Grievances aren’t concentrated in the south, either. Support for the union in France -- co-architect of the whole project -- is actually lower than in Britain.

Can it seriously be maintained that Europe’s economic calamity raises no questions about the EU’s constitutional direction, that the commitment to “ever closer union” enshrined in the founding documents can’t ever be reviewed, and that the euro system, despite its recent difficulties, is fundamentally sound? That’s what the EU’s leaders are asking an increasingly dismayed European electorate to believe.

Cameron’s critics say he’s the trouble maker. I don’t think so. The real threat to the EU is the other leaders’ bizarre refusal to acknowledge what’s happening.

(Clive Crook is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

David A

Re: More European Union

2013-05-15T05:27:23Z

As Aus$ drops to US.986 and Can$ drops to US.979, and Euro lurches down again to 1.185 against Sterling thanks to the amazing 200 billion rabbit out of Uncle Sam's conjuring hat, in today's Times, after Lord Lawson's revelations on Europe, David Cameron cuts a rather pathetic figure...

This leader in today's Times:

"Britain in Europe

The Prime Minister’s disastrous handling of an EU vote has made him look weak when he had Labour on the defensive

Last January, in a long-awaited speech, David Cameron announced that he would offer the British people a referendum on whether the country should remain within the European Union. If he hoped that this move would stop a surge in support for UKIP or quieten his own troublesome backbenchers, he was mistaken.

The promise of a referendum came with various caveats that undermined the credibility of his promise. The first was that any vote would not happen until 2017 after a Conservative general election victory. The second was that it would only occur after renegotiation. Most Eurosceptics are not optimistic that renegotiation will succeed. In his groundbreaking article for The Times, Lord Lawson of Blaby argued that renegotiations were likely to be as “trivial” in their results as those delivered by Harold Wilson nearly 40 years ago.

It was further contingent on the Prime Minister’s word being believed. More than 100 Tory MPs, led by John Baron, had warned Mr Cameron that voters had heard too many politicians promise referendums, only for those promises to be broken. That was why they alighted on the idea that the promise of a referendum should be enshrined in law, which the Conservative leader had refused to do.

Mr Cameron now finds himself in the humiliating position of having to back a Bill to ensure there is a referendum, a move that only a week ago he had rejected. Furthermore he knows that his coalition partners and the Labour Opposition will block the measure. Now the belated addendum to the Queen’s Speech will wander the corridors of the Palace of Westminster hoping to bump into a Conservative MP lucky enough to come in the top three of the ballot for Private Member’s Bills. Even if the Bill finds a sponsor, its chances of passing into law are small because Labour and Liberal Democrat opponents are likely either to vote against it or simply talk it out.

The tactics have been a mess and the Conservative Party has paraded itself in an unflattering light. This is unfortunate because Mr Cameron had placed himself in a strong position by promising the people a choice. No one aged under 55 has had a say on Britain’s membership of the European Union and that union has changed fundamentally since Britons were last asked if they wanted to belong to what was then called the European Economic Community.

A pledge to hold a vote also had the electoral merit for the the Conservative Party of putting the Liberal Democrats and Labour in the awkward position of looking as if they did not trust the electorate to have a vote on an institution that shapes so many of our laws.

Our relationship with Europe will need to be recast whoever is prime minister after 2015. The eurozone crisis is likely to require its members to move towards further fiscal and political integration, which will automatically change the nature of Britain’s place in Europe. This country needs a debate about the type of EU that is emerging and the prime minister of the day will need to articulate a new vision, which he is then able to back up in negotiations. At the end of that process the people must have the chance either to confirm or to reject the new terms of membership.

What the last few days have confirmed is the unhappy relationship that Mr Cameron has with large sections of his own parliamentary party. It has not just been backbenchers rebelling against his European policy. To Downing Street’s displeasure, Cabinet ministers have declared their willingness to leave the EU in certain circumstances. The Prime Minister must work harder at achieving consensus in his party. A more collegiate style of leadership will reduce the likelihood of having to adopt positions from which he later has to retreat."

David A