Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's down the pan we go...

[dippyhippy]

Absolutely Biomech!

Its this complete lack of common sense when it comes to spending our money, that has got us into this mess!

Very nice to speak to you again too, after all this time.......

[Biomech]

You too Dippy...

 

.. and notice how none of them have responded.... nothing changes.

[dippyhippy]

Noooooooo!!!!

Tell me this isn't so!

I haven't seen any sign of the dreaded thumbs......hidden thumbs,now that is sinister!!!

[megilleland]

This article was on the BBC H&W local radio website today: The gravy train rumbles along. My emphasis. Herefordshire Council wouldn't do this - would it?

 

 

Pay-off to Worcestershire council head Trish Haines defended

 

Trish Haines joined Worcestershire County Council in 2007

 

Worcestershire County Council has defended its decision to spend about £95,000 to help fund its chief executive's early retirement.

 

Trish Haines announced on Monday she would be stepping down "next spring".

 

The Conservative-run council said it was paying the money directly into her pension scheme after mutually agreeing she would not be given severance pay.

 

Her departure comes a month after the authority announced £90m of cuts with more than 600 jobs going by 2017.

 

The opposition leader on the council, Labour's Peter McDonald, has described the payoff as "absolutely obscene".

 

He said: "There can't be any justification for this because people who are out there working at the sharp end don't get treated like this.

 

"They're being threatened with cuts, redundancies, reducing working hours, zero contracts which makes this even more outrageous."

 

 

Smaller salary

Council leader Adrian Hardman said Ms Haines's retirement was in "the interests of the efficiency of the council".

 

"Trish Haines has served us very well but we need a new chief executive who has a fresh outlook," he said.

 

"There is no redundancy or severance payment because it is a mutual separation that we believe is in the long-term interests of the council."

 

Mr Hardman said the authority would run a recruitment campaign during the next couple of months to find a successor to Ms Haines.

 

He said it planned to pay the new chief executive about £25,000 a year less than the £176,000 she was paid last year.

 

Ms Haines said her time at the council had been a "fantastic final chapter" of her career.

 

"I am particularly proud that despite very challenging financial circumstances, the council has improved the services residents said were most important to them," she said.

 

[bobby47]

In other words, she wasn't any good at her job, they wanted her to go, she didn't mind going and to sweeten her tooth, they slipped her the best part of one hundred thousand pounds as a thank you for seven years paid employment.

Good grief! And still this culture of sucking at the teat of the rate paying public continues unabated. And ain't it funny, even in her hour of demise, as she faces the exit door, humiliated and saddened that she has had to leave the gravey train, she still chants the management speak mantra of pointless speak that was collected and stored on some pointless business management course, 'I am particularly proud, despite very challenging circumstances we have improved the services for our residents'. I suppose I should be grateful she didn't use the term 'service users' to describe the rate paying public who've just made her wealthier than you and I.

It makes you want to spit. This culture is far from gone. There's no stopping them spending public money to reward oneanother for failure.

[Ubique]

From Worcestershire CC website -

 

Trish's background is in social care, and her career has included a variety of management posts in Berkshire, Suffolk, Warwickshire and Hereford and Worcester County Council, specialising in organisational development and management of change in Social Services.

[dippyhippy]

And we are all supposed to be delighted that her replacement will only be offered a salary of £150 thousand pounds!

Goodness gracious, what a bargain!

I am sure the prime minister doesn't take home much more than that, and he's got the responsibility of messing up more than just Worcester council.....!!!

[megilleland]

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Take a look at this website: Positive Money to see what this game is all about and how it affects democracy. Were the rate payers asked if they would like to contribute to Trish Haines windfall? And so on down the chain. This game with money is not only happening locally, but nationally and internationally.

 

Democracy

In the 5 years before the financial crisis:

Government spending = £2.1 trillion

Commercial banks lending = £2.9 trillion

 

80 board members from the 5 biggest UK banks have greater spending power than 650 MPs

 

Inequality

% household income transferred to banks through interest payments is 

9.4 % for the poorest income group decile and 

1.4 % for the richest income group decile.

 

Debt

Each year £100-200 billion is paid to banks as interest. This is equivalent to £2400-4822 per person.

 

Outstanding personal debt stood at £1.424 trillion at the end of February 2013.

 

Between 1993 and 2008 household savings dropped from over 10% of disposable income in to 0, whilst UK consumer debt rose from about 60% of GDP to 100%.

 

Jobs and Business

Between 1997-2007 only 13% of the newly created money was lent into the real economy, the rest went into mortgages and finance.

 

Environmental Impact

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Albert Bartlett, 2004

 

The UK money supply doubled ~ every 10 years from 1970 up to the financial crisis

 

CO2 emissions double ~ every 35 years

 

Everybody needs to sign up to this campaign to change the system.

 

 

[Biomech]

Inequality

% household income transferred to banks through interest payments is 

9.4 % for the poorest income group decile and 

1.4 % for the richest income group decile.

 

 

I think this one is a little misleading. Richer people have a bigger pot which means their % outgoing per subject, food, petrol... interest payments, is going to be smaller. They also have a bigger stash of cash to purchase things with which means they take out fewer and smaller loans and thus have less interest to pay.

 

If you haven't, you should watch the Banking section of the Zeitgiest film, interesting viewing.

 

For your pleasure;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiCv6KTJs50

 

If you can't be assed to watch, in a nutshell;

 

Banks own/create money - lend to government at % interest - government can't pay interest because that money doesn't exist - banks create more money - inflation/debt cycle results.

[Biomech]

You might prefer this one, there's a bit more that's not included in the one above. And there's parts 2 and 3 if you fancied watching them too

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbvCxMfcKv4

[megilleland]

Can someone explain why we have to pay more and yet they expect to offer us less?

I mean seriously, I'm happy to do more but not if I have to pay for it, Jesus Christ.

 

Biomech I am afraid this is the name of the game. When are the authorities going to realise that if some people are unable to pay now, how are they going to pay in the future. Just read that:

 

 

Centre for Social Justice says poorer people 'bearing brunt of storm' as debt hits £1.4tn – almost as high as economic output.

 

The report, written by the former Labour work and pensions minister Chris Pond, found that:

 

• Personal debt in the UK, including mortgage lending, stands at £1.4tn – an average of £54,000 per household compared with £29,000 a decade ago.

 

• Consumer debt had trebled since 1993 and now stands at £158bn;

 

• More than 8m households have no savings, including half of low-income households;

 

• Outstanding debt on credit cards has almost trebled since 1998 to reach £55.6bn;

 

• There were 300,000 arrears on mortgage in 2012 – with 34,000 homes repossessed. This is a reduction of 30% from the peak of the recession but a 60% overall increase since 2006.

 

Also

 

Conveniently £45 bn of student loan debt has not been included; that is set to increase to £80 bn by 2015 when those graduates will have each paid £9k pa tuition fees.

 

"While it is often hard to prove causation, there is a clear relationship between the following and problem debt: unemployment, family breakdown, addiction, and poor mental health` The authors neglected to mention profligacy, stupidity and narcissism". 

 

*profligacy, stupidity and narcissism" - this sounds familiar for our present council doesn't it?. Unfortunately if governments want growth then we must all go into more debt! This is madness.

 

Positive Money video: Why is there so much debt?

 

 

[megilleland]

 

Click on graphic to enlarge

[Bill Thomas]

Core this is a 3 year old thread! I would of started a new one and just made a reference to the original. No mention of the amount that is spent on overseas aid or how much money is being ploughed into the migration issue.