Latest council cuts proposed - YOUR ESSENTIAL SERVICES AFFECTED

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kit on February 25, 2011 at 9:51

Sounds like it all kicked off last night! Ash shab yourid isqat al nizam, even.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on February 25, 2011 at 10:24

Will, you not cultured!

 

Hugh is in revolutionary spirit and may lead us with latte in hand. The words Hugh quotes translate from the Egyptian national anthem as;

 

My country, my country, my country...!,
You have my love and my heart (ref) 

 

Something politicians only bullshit about! Ask the Irish voters today.

 

You could sing about saving the Queen Will .... :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on February 25, 2011 at 11:49

Despite the delay starting the circus budget meeting last night, I'm told that the webcast went ahead and staff involved worked on it until midnight. Obviously someone's in line for a WOW award.

It should be on the Council's website later today. Worth watching for the deputations, though not much else.

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by alex on February 26, 2011 at 21:21

Hi Will,

were you present or are you just rehashing the inaccurate reports you've read in the local papers?  There was no violence, just worried and angry residents wanting to stop their public services being wrecked by politicians of all parties.  There was one chalked slogan on a council table, and one door accidentally broken when people were trying to get into the council chamber.  The mindless vandalism is the unnecessary damage being done to our public services which we all rely on.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on February 27, 2011 at 10:55

I think Will was there willing on the cuts because he believes it'll make a Hoyle lot of difference. Being a tory voter in a labour/liberal heartland must be frustrating eh Will. :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on February 28, 2011 at 9:26

". . . malicious cuts to frontline services that the council are making yet protecting back office and support service jobs."

Any actual evidence for the allegation of malice?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on February 26, 2011 at 0:38

P.S. Some people have had trouble watching the webcast. This link should work.

If you're running Windows and it asks you to install Windows Media Player 11, you don’t need to. There's a plug-in for FireFox.

For the deputations, jump to 29 minutes into the meeting.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John D on February 27, 2011 at 18:11

@ Alan

● Do you think national Governments should stop issuing bonds?

No, I hold some. Individuals of course are not forced to buy them.

● Or leave all capital investment to the private sector?

No.

● That our Government should have let Northern Rock and other banks collapse?

No and I hope my shares in RBS will recover. I think the Government should have prevented Rock and the others from getting into a collapse situation in the first place.

● In brief what are your views on John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge?

 

Keynes - I think the policy of fiscal intervention at government level is the only practicable option in times of crisis. I am not a free marketeer.

Beveridge - I applaud the Welfare State, although I think he went a bit far when he said ( in his younger days ) "those men who through general defects are unable to fill such a whole place in industry, are to be recognised as 'unemployable'. They must become the acknowledged dependents of the State... but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights — including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood."

 

I do not say that the Government should not play a part in guiding or directing fiscal policy: I say they should have done more of it and not encouraged the Financial Regulators to apply a light touch to the banks' dubious frenetic trading activities which were bringing in much-needed tax revenue which could be used to paper over the cracks in Labour's spendthrift economy.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on February 27, 2011 at 19:30

John, as you well know the practice of comparative advantage has been around for some time (ie. before Labour) and whilst Thatcher seemed to break the unions to reduce wage costs in the UK, she ended up overseeing a speeding up of the process of UK production in many industries moving east, where the cost of labour was cheaper for global business empires.

 

City trading of financial instruments then grew to fund and under write the massive growth in global trade made possible by the cheap labour of newly 'open' countries (from Eastern Europe through to the far east). The UK has been trying replace wealth from lost manufactured exports receipts with the growth in The City financial trade ever since.

 

Such a trade off appears to have faltered and I don't think it was anything to do with which party was in power. You see, tangible things like manufactured goods can be tracked, counted, have real value for an economy. No surprises. The financial world; no one knew who was doing what .... well some knew mortgages were being sold to people on the dole in the US but then, they were the ones earning the commission. :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on February 27, 2011 at 21:14

Comparative advantage is interesting in theory, but of course in practice there are some things that limit its usefulness:

1. People do not live forever.

2. The cost of transportation is variable and can be very high.

3. The earth is not an infinite place where there's "something" for "everyone".

4. Some jobs are crap.

 

Number one is there because economists often talk of a "period of adjustment" which can be (and often is) as much as someone's working lifetime.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on February 27, 2011 at 21:29

Yes, and when based largely on driving down labour costs, as has been the case it's a road to nowhere, or a road that keeps on moving around the world to the next cheapest labour market.

 

My understanding of comparative advantage in student days had been particularly centred on skills base/knowledge/resource (eg. silk coming from China) but the 'new' China has changed the game completely. They're so big and so concerned to keep creating jobs for their own population that resources needed to feed their factories (products from which we all buy) are bought in from around the world, from Brazil to Indonesia to central Africa. The significance of this activity (the scale) by China is fairly new. Cost of resource is no longer the significant factor. Cost of 100 million unemployed is.

 

Of course the more resource cost does go up the more determined the Chinese govt will be to subsidize their exports to the world market by keeping the yuan undervalued. 

 

But, we digress! Back to Haringey. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on February 27, 2011 at 21:15

To add into the pot of background information; the council's long term debt is £600 million and relates to capital investment which the Council has undertaken in previous years and the current year. 66% of this debt relates to investment in council housing. Above figure found under section 'Capital Investments', (page 8 of the pdf).

 

Accounts 2009/10 attached.

Attachments:

• haringey_statement_of_accounts_2009-10.pdf, 1.1 MB

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next ›
• Page