Comments on: Waste Not Want Not

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 17:39:00 +0000

when considering the rights and wrongs of taxing the large financial bonuses paid out to people of the city of London one must understand why the City of London is so profitable. This stems back to the need to run an empire. Back then we needed to send one person to India to run some large area on his own. It was absolutely essential that this person was honest and had integrity. For over one hundred years the top schools such as Eton and more recently places such as Gordonstoun, instilled in the young ones cleve psychological rewards for being honest and telling the truth. I remember myself lying and the Master of Gordonstoun asking me to walk to the town of Elgin but “nobody will check on you”, such that I could have stayed in my dormitory and not done it. These psychological sorts of punishments had the effect of instilling honesty in the children. Over 100 years, the lower classes copied the upper classes, so that the only dishonesty we hear about in low classes is the small “fiddle” which pales in comparison to the dishonesty in places such as latin america. Britain is perhaps the only place in the world where you take your change in the shop and do not count it. It turns out that anyone with money anywhere in the world wants to put the money in London, as this place is safe. Consider that the Swiss government cheated the jews out of their money, and more recently (in the 1980s) a large German bank borrowed large sums overnight and declared itself bankrupt in the morning, something no English bank has ever done or ever will do. In our society there is trust and hardly any checking of any sort. In summary, the success of the City is due entirely to the culture of the British people, and the money flows everyday for that reason. These traders, bankers and lawyers simply benefit from this, the money comes into their pockets as commission. Surely, nobody in their right mind will think that the bonuses are actually earned!!? For this reason, these bonueses and profits should be heavily taxed by Gordon Brownn. The Chineses and others are listing their companies in London for this reason of the honesty of the British culture and nothing else. Surely nobody could imagine that these ignorant traders and bankers and lawyers have any knwoledge? Can any of these accountants compare with the engineers and scientists who run silicon valley? of course not. They know nothing but they just happen to have their mouths on this open tap of money that pours into the City and take their 1% commission of it. If more flows in then they make more without any effort.

By: Quinn

Quinn — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:28:00 +0000

Thanks Ian.

When it comes to pensions, I think all schemes have to be realistic and adjust to circumstances; many final salary private sector pensions have been wound up or closed to new members, and I don’t think public sector pensions should be immune from such economic realities.

That said, often the argument put forward for reducing and reforming public sector pensions is merely because they tend to be more generous than those in the private sector; in effect public sector employees should receive what amounts to a pay cut, not for economic reasons, but because in that one part of their terms and conditions they happen to be better off than many private sector workers. Why? That could mean a school dinner lady having a reduced pension simply because it has better conditions than the private pension of a chartered accountant.

I don’t think that argument is sustainable, really.

By: ian

ian — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:09:00 +0000

I notice from one of the Amazon reviews of the ‘Bumper Book’ that one of their targets is Public Sector Pensions. They seem to be peddling the same old myths and ignoring the fact that pensions are a contract between employer and employee.

I think you are probably right - their objection is not to what goes on in government but to government itself. Which is not to say that government is perfect - it isn’t, but I have seen nothing in the last 35 years to suggest that it is particularly worse than anywhere else. I reserve my own venom for the insurance industry…