"and for my next trick..."Whilst on the subject of ineffective political activism and the people on the mainstream Left of British politics being up Bollocks Creek without a paddle...
Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister in waiting, came out with a blinder yesterday and announced that health and other public sector workers were going to receive a below inflation pay rise this year.
In the words of good old Gordie...
"The overall awards come within the inflation target at 1.9% demonstrating our total determination to maintain discipline and stability and continue with an 11th year of sustained economic growth."
- Gordon neglected to mention that, whatever La La Land inflation targets the government may set, the real rate of inflation for ordinary people is something like 4 to 9% which means nurses will be receiving an effective pay cut of as much as 5% in real terms.
- He also neglected to mention that giving lower paid staff an effective pay cut will have virtually fuck all impact on the rate of inflation.
Inflation has a LOT more to do with the 800 billion pounds of personal debt (all paying a lovely rate of interest to the banks) that's been whisked out of thin air and pumped into the country since he took charge and nothing to do with whether a nurse can pay her electricity bill next month or not.
Could that staunch socialist Gordon be making low paid workers scapegoats for the excesses of the financial services industry (it's been a cracking year for bonuses BTW)?
Perish the thought
That 800 billion pound increase in personal debt and all the lovely shopping that went with it has also been the major contributory factor to those 11 years of sustained 'growth'. The only problem being that people are starting to have trouble servicing it.
Fuck it, I'll write it out in full
800,000,000,000 ... pounds
that's on top of the
600,000,000,000 ... pounds
that was there before Brown took over. Making a total of, give or take the GDP of a few small countries
1,400,000,000,000 ... pounds
of personal debt which was spunked away on over-priced housing and tat that's mostly in a landfill by now and which people will be obliged to pay off, with interest, at some point
Gordon 'Bubbles' Brown and his good buddy Alan 'Even Bigger Bubbles' Greenspan off for a Friday night drink at their localHmmmm, lots of lovely debt and lots of lovely pay cuts for low-waged people who can't keep up with the price rises facilitated by that debt.
And there's no way Gordon doesn't know all this. Only he's not owning up to it.
"I like making these... they're pretty..."Naughty Gordon
My money's on him hoping to distract everyone with a spot of Terror and some Enviro-twaddle. Tony's been doing a pretty decent warm-up act
Media pundits are predicting that Gordon is going to take over as leader of the Labour Party and consequently become Prime Minister in a few months' time because there are no other Labour MPs who are strong enough candidates to oppose him, and even if there were they wouldn't muster enough support from their fellow MPs to be nominated.
Which says a lot for just how terminally fucked the Labour Party is
And the really hysterical thing is that they're running the place
And it gets even funnier
The only viable alternative is to vote the Conservatives in
My, how we laughed
Everyone is going to have to download twice as many ringtones to straighten this particular mess out
... and remember, in times of economic uncertainty gold is always a safe investment. I suggest stocking up here
.
10 comments:
Theatre Nurse, Freeman Hosp Newcastle upon Tyne. Salary £42k.
Public sector workers are not poor.
The UK has a Stasi economy with one half living very well of the other half.
I've ranted about those miscreants before.
Public sector employees have had inflation-busting rises for years, I know of several people who have left Investment Banking to work for the state as the pay and benefits are now so good. What I do think is bad is the distribution towards failing management rather than employees at the "coal-face", but much the same thing is happening in the City. The bonuses have been record but the distribution towards the lower-ranks have been worse than I've ever seen in my 17 years in finance. It makes the "greed in good" eighties look rather conservative (with a little c).
Oh my, the current gold price makes me honestly worry. Stef, stop telling the truth, I'm getting afraid.
I would never claim that all public sector workers are poor
We've now got the highest paid General Practitioners in the Europe
I'm talking about the low paid public sector workers not all of them
Ditto for low, or lower, paid private sector workers - I didn't mention them because good old Gordie doesn't have a direct hand in what they're paid but the same thing applies
That 1.9% figure is going to be used to beat down wages for the bulk of people, public and private
And, yup, the name of the game is inequity in income distribution - and inflation and debt accentuate that nicely
Re. the 50% thing and Stasi economy. Yes, we've had a dose of that. But how much of that money ends up with private companies - the PFI crowd, the Capitas and all the rest?
A lot of tax has been paid and a lot of money spent but for some reason the skankier end of life in the UK just keeps getting skankier and skankier...
@wolfie
Love that Greenspan picture on your post BTW
@Tony
The great news is that, in spite of the recent gold price rises, Argos are still able to maintain their low, low prices
http://tinyurl.com/yqxegf
Everyone is going to have to download twice as many ringtones to straighten this particular mess out
I can see the future now, one where a father and non morbidly obese son stroll the lush, verdant streets of deptford in matching silver jumpsuits.They pause before a giant bronze thumb otside the people's casino; "just think son...it all started with a text...we must never forget the ringtone revolutionaries"
@paul
"ringtone revolutionaries"
Comedy Gold!
Don't mock, at least they're doing something!
www.masturbateforpeace.com
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