Good blog summing up the Labour experiment nicely

[leeslover]

You see those on low incomes are also in the least stable employment - people who gave relied on benefits before and might well do so again in the near future. Cuts in benefits and the heavy stick approach to jobseeking while sick are as much an attack on low income workers as they are on people who don't work.

Well, that's horse:censored:. Stop making the working classes, such as people doing a hard days work in a factory, a supermarket, a warehouse, a fast food shop, on site, or anywhere else pay for the lazy who would rather sit at home watching TV. These people know who the dossers and wasters are, even if you can't see them from the ivory tower.

[opinions4u]

If the Olympics brings in more than it cost, the country could end getting a decent amount of money. Considering it cost about £9 billion then 1% of that is still about £100 million, which is a decent sum of money. However, I have no doubt that it is much more complicated than that.

I tihnk the cost of the Olympics is about £12bn.

 

There is not a hope in hell of it making a direct profit.

 

While I don't doubt that the development around the Stratford area will see significant growth as a result, it will almost certainly be matched by decline elsewhere not too far away.

 

I'm not aware of an Olympic Games ever being profitable for the host nation. And this one is by far the most expensive Olympic Games ever. So I'll go out on a limb - this will be the biggest loss making Olympic games EVER.

 

The nation does have two windfalls due - by 2012 the banks have to repay £250bn from the Special Liquidity Scheme (which replaced the wholesale funding that vanished from the market in the Credit Crunch) and are on course to do so. This will repay the debt issued to prop them up in the first place, so nothing sexy will happen with it. Sterling may strengthen slightly. It should also be noted that this money is repaid to the state as people repay their mortgages and businesses repay their loans. Pre-2008 this money would have been lent out to new customers. So when you hear politicians moaning about "banks not lending" one of the main reasons is that they have priority debts to repay imposed (not unreasonably) by politicians.

 

The other windfall is the equity stakes in the Lloyds, Northern Rock and RBS. While NR is small fry, once the Lloyds shareprice goes over 75p the state will be showing a paper profit for the bailout - price is currently 55p. RBS is currently valued at 43p a share - when it hits 53p (I think) then the state will have made a profit there too. While they still struggle to make money and the prospects for growth in banking are bleak, there's no chance of selling these holdings and recovering the equity invested in propping up the banks. But when the day does come it will almost certainly see a profit for the state - that should immediately be used to repay the debt issued to bail the buggers out in the first place.

 

You see those on low incomes are also in the least stable employment - people who gave relied on benefits before and might well do so again in the near future. Cuts in benefits and the heavy stick approach to jobseeking while sick are as much an attack on low income workers as they are on people who don't work.

One of the things I haven't seen the coalition do is create an environment that will allow or encourage the private sector to expand. Where are the enterprise zones? Where are the improved capital grants / low interest loans directly from the state to encourage outside investment? Where is the support to the middle aged bloke who's just had 2 year's redundancy money from the local council to encourage him to invest that in a new enterprise (rather than sit on his arse for a few years waiting for somebody else to make it improve) allowing him to turn the shock of redundancy in to an improved prosperity for his family that goes on to allow him to employ others?

 

No employer's national inusrance on taking people on for a year is all well and good, but most decent business plans are for 5 years and when NI contribtutions do have to be made by an employer this becomes a tax on recruitment.

 

Cutting the size of the public sector makes sense to me. Failing to put measures in place to allow the private sector to grow is a criminal neglect.

Edited May 15, 2011 by opinions4u

[rudemedic]

I tihnk the cost of the Olympics is about £12bn.

 

There is not a hope in hell of it making a direct profit.

 

While I don't doubt that the development around the Stratford area will see significant growth as a result, it will almost certainly be matched by decline elsewhere not too far away.

 

I'm not aware of an Olympic Games ever being profitable for the host nation. And this one is by far the most expensive Olympic Games ever. So I'll go out on a limb - this will be the biggest loss making Olympic games EVER.

 

This link would refute a lot of what you said.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

[24hoursfromtulsehill]

Well, that's horse:censored:. Stop making...

 

I'm not making the working classes do anything. There are far fewer genuinely indolent people than you think there are, and also far more deserving targets of taxpayer opprobrium, such as the banking fraternity.

[mikejh45]

There are far fewer genuinely indolent people than you think there are,

 

Have you any stats to back that up, Mr. T or is that a gut feeling/personal opinion?

[24hoursfromtulsehill]

Have you any stats to back that up, Mr. T or is that a gut feeling/personal opinion?

 

Well now let's see. Leeslover thinks that all unemployed people are indolent. Leeslover thinks that all benefit claimants are indolent. Leeslover thinks that new-born babies are indolent. This is palpably untrue. Therefore, I am right.

 

You're right in a way. Leeslover should identify the lazy people of his lazy myth by number before I can tell him for a fact that he's counted too many.

[24hoursfromtulsehill]

...we might be waiting a long time before he produces anything convincing - or even remotely acceptable. He might make something up, but that's hardly the same as proper information.

[leeslover]

Well, to return to a theme we hit upon during the election, i read just the other day that the great majority of incapacity benefit claimants were found to be either fit to work, or, intriguingly, stopped their claim during a recent government study. But then, we all know that the sick has been a massive doss for years. Well, nearly all of us. Lots of genuinely unemployed people out there, most of them find work, its the ones who choose to stay there that i have a problem with, just like most people do.

[mikejh45]

...we might be waiting a long time before he produces anything convincing - or even remotely acceptable. He might make something up, but that's hardly the same as proper information.

 

Now there are people who are genuinely in need of assistance and nobody would deny them that help. However, we do have a number of people who can be described as 'indolent' and this number could be as high as Mr. L believes to be true or as low as you believe or somewhere in between and that moves the discussion on......what should be done about the 'indolent'? The Coalition, in my opinion, takes the view that a cut in the welfare budget takes place first and that the relative department(s) will cut their cloth accordingly irrespective if the true cost is higher. Whereas, Labour in the death throes of the last government, ignored the problem, again in my opinion.

 

How do we get back to a welfare system that caters for those that need and exclude those that want? Yes, we should chase those at the top end, both individuals and businesses that don't pay their genuine share of taxation but neither should we ignore those "significant few" who choose to ignore their responsibility of contributing.

 

I await someone to chainsaw the above!!!

[opinions4u]

This link would refute a lot of what you said.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

They suggest I'm wrong on the profitability of SOME Olympic Games. But figures can be used in various different ways to prove a point and nothing in that link suggests accounting standards used are the same, or identifies income and costs clearly.

 

Regardless, if I'm wrong so be it (can't be arsed researching it!).

 

£100 million, which is a decent sum of money

In terms of the UK Government? No it isn't. It's diddly squat. It's 100 cruise missiles flying at the Libyans. It's 750 GPs paid for a year, then fired because there's nothing left to pay them with the following year. It's 3 days interest on the part of the national debt that provided the Special Liquidity Scheme to prop up the banks. It's 0.1% of the tax collected since Brown imposed a new tax on pension schemes in 1997.

 

It's sum that would allow HMRC to raise personal allowances by £15 for one year only - giving each taxpayer an extra £3.

 

It's the amount a top footballer will earn during his playing career.

 

Don't kid yourself that a few million here or there makes the slightest different to the nation's finances.

'

Edited May 15, 2011 by opinions4u

[leeslover]

How did something calling itself the, "labour," party turn into something defending people who would rather not do any labour? Answers on a postcard please.

[garcon]

When a party is supported by those at the bottom of the pile (who are too stupid to realise that party abandoned them in 1995), it is in the direct electoral interests of that party to ensure those people stay at the bottom of the pile.

[oafc0000]

@ zeros - if you want to speak for working class people, you need to stop speaking for none working people as if they were the same. You might kid the Independent readers but the people themselves who go out and work hard for lower wages know that there are people taking their tax money to sit on their arses. Whose side are you on?

 

I wouldn't say I am anyones "side" other than what I deem to be fair and right...