Unemployment in the UK

[Hugh]

One miner once said to me," they should not be allowed to buy coal from Poland"!!! I replied that car you have out side wasn't made in UK. No British cars are to expensive!!!! Hm Hm Hm

[stevepas]

Unemployment in the UK is classic example of the hypocracy, treachery and incompetence of decades of governance.

In the 90's labour used to say that the tories fiddled the figures (very true)
so when labour got in I expected the holier-than-thou new tory or is it new labour ethics to gives us the real figures as per their various quotes 'its not 2.5 million its more like 3 million' well it came as no surprise to me that it carried going down just like the tories!

Thru the thatcher/blair and any other regime we have heard them talk about getting unemployment down only for them to allow do/opposite actions.

Here follows just some of the job destroying activites the political systems believes in.

Thatcher oversaw a catastrophic decline in our manufacturing industry, I heard somewhere that removal of import duty was a thatcher thing? I need to verify that one.

Companies like the evil kraft* buy up cadburys for example then close it down and export the jobs abroad to poland** even tho brown told them they can't.

(*I was once told by an employee of kraft that the polish plant was held to ransom by the polish mafia, they would cut-off water/electric to the plant for days at a time until a payment was made, I wonder if the kraft management had factored that into their costs of production versus the brum plant?)

(**surprised there is anyone left in poland, where I've worked I'm normally outnumbered 10-1 or more by foreigners)

Call centres re-located abroad, that gets rid of lots of jobs.
We all know the benefits of the above, the hassle I've had this year with these types of centres, astonishing!

Allowing the likes of Siemens to have the train contract.
Siemens has a 'track' record of bribing officials for contracts, fined by usa, germany and the eu (1 million+ euros)
That helped put the last uk based train manufacturer bombadier out of business.
The most unbelievable thing tho is that Siemens apparently tried to poach staff from Bombadier because Siemens doesn't have the necessary staff to do the job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hn-onWJHVg

eu red tape and costs
yes there is need for a certain degree of regulation as is demonstrated by the financial crisis, but specifications for banana straightness?!
I think the tax payers alliance has worked out the cost of the eu (the only club I know that penalises the member) and the cost of the red-tape and membership excedes our trade with the eu.
eu regulation/laws has allowed rapist and murderers to claim compensation.
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/eu/2010/10/raiding-someone-elses-piggy-bank.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1355403/Prisoners-vote-EU-human-rights-court-mockery-UK-justice.html

EU costs are difficult to calculate tho, because the eu's books have not been signed of by the auditors for about 16 years, due to discrepancies and exceptionally loose accounting practices.
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/eu/2011/02/transparency-probity-needed-eu-spending.html

Give the eu credit tho they have a fraud dept...........
...............headed by Siim Kallas a former communist, who became the chief of the Estonia national bank, whilst he was in charge the estonia gold reserve dissappeared!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.ashleymote.co.uk/?p=237
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8252958/EU-financial-watchdog-systemically-sabotaged-fraud-investigations.html

EU's two parliaments,
constant transportation of an entire parliament, filing cabinets included, between luxembourg and strasberg is just the tip of the iceberg.
Each month at strasbourg for four days cost to you over 200 million euros.
http://brusselsstrasbourgstudy.eu/4.html

Stick those costs on as a tax and you soon become uncompetitive and lose jobs to china etc.
In fact we cannot finance it now even tho we have economy strangling levels of tax, its not enough, as we found out from the note left by the last outgoing government 'the coffers are empty!'

[caminito]

 I have got to agree with you

we were governed by people of very low intellectual capacity

       The fact that Gordon Brown believed that the financial crisis would be over in six month proves just that. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer for 10 years or so and then the Prime Minister for around a year when the financial crisis struck. The causes and mechanisms of the current crisis were actually quite easy to understand. And even a look at previous crises in history should have caused more caution rather than such stunningly bullish assessment.

    What makes it worse is that other politicians, especially Members of Parliament, let Gordon Brown hold such high offices. This proves that they were of equal or lower intellectual capacity than Mr Brown or it suited them. In a street language but as a fair assessment at the same time: a bunch of idiots. The former is assertion is particularly shocking as Gordon Brown was not even a charismatic figure. This makes the latter more plausible: there was a number of politicians who knew that the financial crimes that led to the financial crisis were committed by the financial industry and knowingly allowed them to happen. The motivation for abetting these crimes is another matter: nepotism (a relative or a friend working in the City), financial gains (having business interests in the financial industry), hopes for future gains (getting good roles in the financial industry in the future: so-called being a part of a revolving door tradition between the City and the government) or something else.

[stevepas]

 The fact that Gordon Brown believed that the financial crisis would be over in six month proves just that. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer for 10 years or so and then the Prime Minister for around a year when the financial crisis struck. The causes and mechanisms of the current crisis were actually quite easy to understand. And even a look at previous crises in history should have caused more caution rather than such stunningly bullish assessment.

    What makes it worse is that other politicians, especially Members of Parliament, let Gordon Brown hold such high offices. This proves that they were of equal or lower intellectual capacity than Mr Brown or it suited them. In a street language but as a fair assessment at the same time: a bunch of idiots. The former is assertion is particularly shocking as Gordon Brown was not even a charismatic figure. This makes the latter more plausible: there was a number of politicians who knew that the financial crimes that led to the financial crisis were committed by the financial industry and knowingly allowed them to happen. The motivation for abetting these crimes is another matter: nepotism (a relative or a friend working in the City), financial gains (having business interests in the financial industry), hopes for future gains (getting good roles in the financial industry in the future: so-called being a part of a revolving door tradition between the City and the government) or something else.

spot-on


What I've written is probably the tip of the iceberg a think there is enough ammunition available to overload an entire server farm

Default setting for a politician
(only overridden by the rare politician who has an additional feature called morals or ethics)

Expenses setting - fiddle to the utmost.
the scale of corruption and greed is astonishing (half had to pay expenses back)
(7 of them have been arrested for fraud)
Even tho Blair loosened the claim rules it still wasn't enough for their greed.
They give the rules to an 'independent' group and if they don't like what the 'independent' group say they amend them!!!

Favours/additional perks setting - always ready for a favour
eg, mandelson eu commissioner for trade,
add his relationship with deripaska (russian metals magnet)
low and behold import duty into europe for a certain metal from russia is lifted.
QED

Ulterior motive setting - always on

Lie setting - always on
WMD (see 5 wars blair)

Believe one is beyond question, law, reproach setting - always on
if it all goes wrong grudgingly admit it, say sorry and I will take responsibility but never actually do so.

U-turn/renege feature - always on

To the average politician words are as valueless as our currency.

[Maisie]

Yes Hugh we have to consider the fate of bright young people who commit to going to university to get degrees only to find that there are not many jobs out there for them after they have graduated.

( My eldest grandson is at university at the moment and I worry if he will get a job with his degree after graduation ).

This jobs-shortage is not a simple problem and it effects all of the folk out there that want to work.

Many of the less-educated folk are either stuck on jobseekers allowance because they cannot find a decent job or they are stuck on benefits - or no benefits - because they will not accept the low-paid and menial work that is all that is available to them.

What is in fact happening is that the British jobs market is being turned into a peasant market where people are being forced to accept jobs that will not make their lives fulfilled or give them any happiness in the future. Most people recognise these jobs when they are described as being dead-end-jobs.

I think a fundamental problem is that manufacturing that requires low-level skills has largely disappeared from this country to places where labour is cheap eg. China, India. This situation is unlikely to be reversed, as each of these sub-continents has vast numbers of people willing to work for a pittance. So people in the UK who are unable or unwilling to improve their employability be learning higher level skills will continue to find it difficult to get work - there are too many of them for the low-level skills job vacancies.

[Angelo]

Business and the need for PROFIT has exported many of the unskilled jobs to low wage countries. However Mr Burberry, Mr Dyson et all still sell their products to us. I presume because of the lower costs that they make higher profits. I wonder where they go ?
Now for our economy to work you need people to buy these products, however if they have no jobs, they cant buy them ! It's a merry go round which if starved of the power will eventually STOP !!  
Job=Money=Trade=Jobs.             Take one part out and it all collapses.
 
A good example of competence inthis is Rolls Royce, who make one of the finest aero engines ever. The Trent Turbofan. Investors in people !
I expect there are other companies like them, but sadly too few. Our biggest failure is not to take advantage of what we have invented. We buy turbines from Denmark, when we had a factory in the IOW. Which closed thro lack of investment. We buy trains from Germany, when we have a perfectly good factory in England. We invented the Hovercraft, VTO Jet Harrier, just the tip of the iceberg, etc,etc. All seeming to end up being sold back to us by other countries.
I read today that the number of applicants for university places is down 10%. Because of increased chargees on fees. There are no shortage of young people willing to get the skills, but the means of doing so is being removed from them.
Whilst the politicians continue to fiddle and play polotics, we burn !
Government & Industry need to step up to the mark ! Joined up thinking ?

[Maisie]

I agree that there are plenty of young people who would like to take up university places - if only they could afford to. However, the other side of the coin is that  a university degree has been increasingly devalued over the years - because so many new 'universities' with low entrance level requirements have sprung up.

Too much emphasis has been placed by the government on Higher Education and not enough on skills training/apprenticeships. One of my sons completed an Advanced Apprenticeship with National Grid and now has: qualifications equivalent to anyone who has spent three years at uni, practical skill relevant to work - and a job.

Also, by definition, most people have an 'average' IQ, which won't enable them to achieve university entrance. Many, many people have lower level IQs, and these are the ones who need unskilled and low-skilled employment - and there are not enough of those jobs around these days. As you say, Angelo, the profit motive is the root cause of this issue- the question is, how is that to be addressed. Communism has been shown to be unsustainable in the long term.

[Angelo]

Oh I agree Communism is not the answer, but I am beginning to think that Democracy is also failing us.
As for IQ, I don't think that should be a criteria for getting a job. I would consider that IQ is a false measure.
Just look at some of the wonderfull decisions made by people with reportedly high IQs. IQ guarantees nothing.
For example I would not necessarily say that successful businessmen have high IQs. On the contrary.
I know people who can read a book of 500 pages in a day, but they are not clever people, they don't know how to use their talent. That is something completely different.
Artists on the other hand, Scientists, Mathematicians, use their IQ to great effect and benefit all of us.
Education in all its forms needs to be made more specific to what is required, and apprenticeships are a good example. Some university degrees are  frankly a waste of time,media studies,surfing two examples.
The guidance and direction from the top is pathetic !

[stevepas]

I think a fundamental problem is that manufacturing that requires low-level skills has largely disappeared from this country to places where labour is cheap eg. China, India. This situation is unlikely to be reversed, as each of these sub-continents has vast numbers of people willing to work for a pittance. So people in the UK who are unable or unwilling to improve their employability be learning higher level skills will continue to find it difficult to get work - there are too many of them for the low-level skills job vacancies.

There are still alot of low-level jobs in this country, the governments says that indigenous english don't want to do them that is why we have the bow doors open on immigration.

Watch Grimefighters for the truth (I only see White Indigenous english down the sewers)
I see plenty of asian presenters on telly. (now thats a low dirty unwanted job)
I've never shared digging a trench with an immigrant, only brits.
Reality is amusing.

The jobs are there but filled by immigrants, the last three factories I worked in I was outnumbered 10+ to 1 by foreigners.

[stevepas]

Ahh, The god of growth. Fronted by the thin veneer of democracy.

Was Bp trying to grow its profit margin, by saving on health and safety?

We must grow/expand.

Why do we need more houses have we been busy producing children?
According to the government, its not enough children, so it can't be that.
Surprise it only leaves immigration.

We must grow/expand.

Rent is apparently at record highs (supply and demand), that will help the youngsters.

We must grow/expand.

Lets fill this most densely populated nation in europe (england) to max capacity, no-one will be able to work because to get to work will involve pushing a column of people off beachy head.
Any signs of traffic jams yet or congestion? Ask a commuter
We could tarmac the whole of england?

We must grow/expand.

Democracy is too easily corrupted, a cast iron constitution that can't be nobbled is required to keep them in check.
Based on common sense and sustainability,
eg  a sustainable land/population ratio.
re-balance the manufacturing deficit.

Communism is the same as democracy just without the 'illusion' of choice.

We must be sustainable.

Current status
Immigration, unsustainable.
Economy, unsustainable.
Banking system, unsustainable.
Democracy, unsustainable.

Sustaininism,
eg can we afford to let bombardier go under, check manufacturing deficit, if negative then the answer is obvious.

In fact the whole thing could be run by a computer,
pre-set rules,
eg Human......query can we spend money on a war?
Computer.....no, reason we are already in debt and you are breaking moral and ethical protocols.

Human.....should we give banker fat bonus?
Computer....no, fat bonus was used to attract 'right talent' and the 'right talent' broke all the rules. Fat bonus also breaks sustainability, greed, moral and ethical rules.