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Thursday, April 01, 2010
"The nobility, united, shall never be defeated!"
In my exclusively private sector world of late, friends have lost their jobs or their businesses; some at a time of life when it will be hard to recover. Companies I have worked with (and for) have gone broke. My own firm has made redundancies. Only one of the students who graduated with my daughter last year has found a paying private sector job. The private sector bore not merely the brunt, but the entire effect of the downturn. Just as (with the transfer of almost a million jobs to the pubic sector under Labour) it took the biggest hit in the upturn - paying ever higher taxes to fund public sector jobs (or pay increases) for Labour's captive voters. People who should not, in a just society, even be allowed to vote - given the obvious conflict of interest they have with the taxpayers.
Meanwhile, what has the public sector borne? Nothing. No cuts. No redundancies. Nada. When I visit England, the tills in the shops in my Northern home town are ringing with sales to a largely public sector workforce unaffected by the crisis. When I visit London, the only English accents I hear in the hotel bars are of public sector employees with suddenly enhanced purchasing power. So when Brendan Barber, Grand Panjandrum of the Trades Union Congress, threatens political strikes against a future Tory government;
I can only utter a hollow laugh.
Labour has inflicted a new aristocracy on our country. A diminishing number of workers in the productive economy now work for half their year to support a whole class of parasites, many almost entirely idle and almost all (apart from the frontline workers Labour likes to focus on) entirely unproductive. They enjoy a higher standard of living, greater job security, more perks, less stressful working lives and pension entitlements beyond the dreams of the private sector workers whose children will be taxed to pay them. The forced labour of the oppressed minority in the private sector (working until the middle of each year to support these aristos) goes far beyond any of the impositions that triggered the French Revolution. Yet now these "New Toffs" threaten to slash and burn what remains of the frail economy if anyone dares challenge their privileges!
It makes one think of cuts that's for certain: the sort a guillotine in Parliament Square might inflict.
"Lazy, greedy, envious people forget where wealth comes from."
Tell me where do you think wealth comes from?
Go to Google News and type in the words Upper Big Branch Mine and you will see where wealth comes from and also the real cost of producing that wealth.
Posted by: JD | Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 01:12 PM
Mr A you have summed up the problem perfectly.
Posted by: CherryPie | Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 12:43 PM
Good points all round.
The private sector certainly HAS borne the brunt of the recession (as I well know). However, I do know a few people who worked in the public sector who lost their jobs - both librarians. I also know a few trainee nurses who have had a helluva time getting work as posts are drying up there, too.
The problem is, I also know of (I don't know them personally, thank God) who has just waltzed into a 30k pa job as a "Smoking Cessation Adviser" and my best mate's workplace is currently advertising for a "Climate Change Manager" (?) for a similar wage.
And this is the problem - what needs to happen is someone needs to go into the NHS or Local Councils and say, "What do you do? Oh a nurse? Fine. A Doctor? Fine. A Health Outreach Officer? You're sacked." Sadly this never happens. When it comes time to make cuts the parasites at the top of these monoliths get orders that their funding has been cut and so it is up to the who goes. In their twisted minds they can't do without the "Carbon Management Team" as the global warming fraud is part of their vision statement. They can't do without The Social Outreach and Diversity Department as they need that for their zippy kitemark they get awarded every 2 years. So who gets sacked? The people who actually do work - binmen, streetcleaners, nurses and the like. And even more perversely, these are usually the people working on 12 or 14k a year.
Yet the leeches, whose sole function is to generate bureaucracy to justify their positions (when they're not on long term sick for months at a time with "stress") grow fat on 30, 60, 100k a year.
(Sorry if there are any typos - for some reason I can only see half the message in the posting box.
Posted by: Mr A | Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 03:06 AM
Me saying I am proud to serve my country was in no way meant to be insulting and I am sorry if it came across that way.
I very much value private sector enterprises and it is my opinion that there is a place for both.
Over the coming months people will see effects of the slimmed down civil service. Some of the services they have come to expect as their right won't be happening. I imagine they will start complaining about it then.
Posted by: CherryPie | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 06:28 PM
Following this with interest.
Posted by: jameshigham | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 09:51 AM
A shining example of clear thinking on a blog that unerringly hits the target, with some gloomy but disturbingly accurate comments.
I'm still inclined to sound a discordant note and say that all is not lost, but we're getting mighty close to the precipice.
Oh, and for the sake of accuracy, Autonomous Mind, they didn't borrow the money to fund the expansion of the private sector. They stole it.
Posted by: He's Spartacus | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 09:03 AM
I'm with the pessimists, it's going to have to get Paris-riots-bad at least before anything changes. People hate politicians but this translates into suspicion of anybody who so much as talks about politics. Tell many people you want the NHS or education privatised and they'll think you are a Nazi.
If you want propaganda, no need to wait for the adverts just watch any BBC drama, that's where all the subliminal nasties are snuck in. Until this changes no hope to change public opinion, and it's a bigger problem than just the BBC.
Also don't think anybody has the answers even if they were to get into power. Don't believe the public sector can be reformed.
Who knows what'll happen come 2005, but it's not going to be pleasant, and at this point many conspiracy theorists are starting to look like sages.
"CherryPie" is a fine example of why we are so so f_____.
Posted by: GandhiSpeaks | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 08:01 AM
and?
Posted by: Tom | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 06:50 AM
Yes, it's a cycle in a way. The economy does well. Lazy, greedy, envious people forget where wealth comes from. They vote for people to punish those who make it and to steal their money to give to them. Then the economy slides (or lurches) and people get frightened. They call in the nasty Tories to straighten everything out (no wonder the poor creatures are so disliked - they play the role that Harvey Keitel played in Pulp Fiction). Labour politicians are all about slicing the cake, not baking it.
I am listening respectfully to your points and I am grateful for your contribution to stimulating a debate. But (unless you actually work in the line of fire) can you please can the "proud to serve my country bit?" It implies, insultingly, that those of us who build or work for wealth-generating businesses, pay taxes and fund whatever it is that you do for us, do NOT serve our country. I am fascinated to know though, if you are a civil servant, how you "pay" your own wages? The government has no revenues other than tax (or tax disguised as fines or other impositions) these days. The civil service is an overhead to Britain PLC. Businesses have to have overheads, but generally the fewer they are the better.
I am sorry to say that it will not hurt the rest of us one bit to slim the public sector. If 75% of public servants were transferred to the dole queue, government expenditure would fall. Those who say their spending power would be lost to the economy are idiots, because the money would stay with those who earned it and THEY could spend it. Those who say their taxes would be lost to the economy are also idiots, as the taxpayer provided them with the money to pay those taxes in the first place (and the government loses more half of the value in administration in the course of fiscal churn).
Of course there would be public servants even under a libertarian government. But they would not vote. They would not have unfunded pensions. They would not be in any sphere of activity that could be done by private (whether commercial or charitable) initiative.
I gather you are in the Ministry of Defence. There would be one of those. But as a Libertarian Government would not consider it had any right to be a policeman or a nanny to the rest of the world, it would be living up to its name, administering powerful air and sea defences for our islands. The present institution might be better named the Ministry of Socialist imperialism.
Posted by: Tom | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 06:50 AM
As an aside Guthrum mentioned the intelligence agencies, they also fit into the realm of public sector workers.
Posted by: CherryPie | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 01:13 AM
It is simply ridiculous, CherryPie, to claim the that public sector is sharing the pain.
It all comes round in cycles. From my living memory in the 1980's it was the public sector that was hit and then more recently the private sector. Now we are moving back into the stage where it is the public sector that is being hit. After the election everyone will see the effects of what happens when the public sector is hit. This time it will be much worse than in the 1980's.
@Dave - I am a Civil Servant and proud to serve my country. I also pay my own wages (which incidentally are quite low despite what the papers would have you believe).
New Labour in conjunction with the media have managed to con the British public over many issues including the public sector. The end result is going to be detrimental to the majority of people.
Posted by: CherryPie | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 11:56 PM
There are two classes of men, those that live off taxes and those that pay taxes.
Thomas Jefferson
So whats changed ! As much as I respect David Davis' theory on the gathering 'endarkening' nothing is ever set in stone.
The DDR had files on everybody, and had a whole raft of 'state employees', but they still missed the revolution when it came, so did MI6,the CIA and virtually every other intelligence agency.
The Public Sector Unions are not threatening this Government with their threats of strikes, they are threatening the next Government and the Voters with chaos if their puppet Government goes into oblivion.
Personally I have no felt so confident of the destruction of Fabianism in thirty years. Because Men and Women of goodwill are working for the 2015 Election year.
Posted by: Guthrum | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 10:43 PM
I could not agree more. It is amazing that anyone working in the public sector could be unaware of all this.
Posted by: Tom | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 06:22 PM
The fact is while the private sector has been shrinking and bearing the brunt of the recession, this government has borrowed horrific sums of money to fund an expansion of the public sector.
The amount of GDP spent on the public sector is up and the numbers employed by the state has increased. It is a form of gerrymandering. This amounts to an additional burden on the private sector.
Added to this we see Labour preparing to increase National Insurance which will mean even more burden for private sector employers, while the public sector impact is borne by taxpayers. It is the economics of the mad house.
Posted by: Autonomous Mind | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 05:47 PM
When did civil servants become public sector workers?
I recall a time when a letter from a civil servant ended with "I remain your humble servant"
As far as I am concerned they remain my servants. I pay their wages.
Posted by: Dave | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 05:01 PM
Friends of mine in the public sector have not been affected. There are rumours of 'savings' that need to be made, but all that happens apprently, is that the staff selected get 'redeployed' by their employer (Local Authority).
And in one department, they don't even get redeployed. The incompetents get sidelined, with the other social workers taking up the slack.
What is really depressing is that people still consider voting for the clowns in power.
Why? Because the government has printed shed loads of money to keep the illusion that our houses are worth something and as long as we have the X Factor, all is well with the world.
If you vote Labour in the next election, you deserve everything that is coming. The rest of us don't, but we'll all end up paying for your shit decision.
We're completely shafted.
Posted by: FLS | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 12:11 PM
It should surprise no-one that such an authoritarian government is more concerned with hiring people to monitor and control work than actually do it! I do not doubt your example. The fact remains (see this week's Economist) that the overall number of government employees (despite Britain's mounting debts) continues to GROW. There are also many people now in "virtual" government employment. Have you noticed that almost all TV and radio advertising is now propaganda? If those ads were cut (as they should be) "private sector" jobs would be lost. The entire staff of Guardian Newspapers works for the government now, because without the public sector job advertisements (always placed in a left-wing newspaper because the government is hiring voters more than workers) the company would die. Employees of charities funded by government are hidden civil servants. And so it goes on and on and on....
Not only has Labour grown the visible public sector, it has annexed large parts of the private and voluntary sectors in a deceitful "off balance sheet" way. One reason why the crisis is more intense and long-lasting in Britain is that such unproductive people spent money taken for them by force from the productive, raised debts against their future ability to do so and failed to make pension provisions because they expected that piracy to continue long after they ceased even pretending to work.
It is simply ridiculous, CherryPie, to claim the that public sector is sharing the pain. I would argue that, as the markets begin to settle, it is actually now inflicting it. It is an aristocracy, and it desperately needs Madame La Guillotine's urgent attention. What's clearly important is that the executioner is a non-authoritarian who would prefer to fire an educational bureaucrat than a teacher, or an NHS manager rather than a nurse. Labour, as you have noted, does not qualify on that basis.
Posted by: Tom | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 05:11 AM
A rough example is 400 jobs to 216 jobs (in the last 4 years). These are people who procure the equipment for to support the troops (who are in those illegal wars as decided by our government). That work force for budgetary reasons are set for a slight cull again in the coming financial year...
Then on top of that the government makes cuts on available expenditure to the new equipments coming into service (even if it isn't completely serviceable), which is detrimental in the long run.
It happens in all of the departments, the people who provide the services are culled whilst the bean counters remain.
Posted by: CherryPie | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 02:30 AM
Do please give some examples of these cuts.
Posted by: Tom | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 01:23 AM
The public sector have been cut just as much as the private sector. Unfortunately the media doesn't publicise a balanced story about what is going on in the public sector. The media focuses on the small minority of top earners in the public sector which muddies the issue completely.
It is quite worrying that people can't see what is going on.
Posted by: CherryPie | Friday, April 02, 2010 at 01:06 AM
In the last couple of days we have had some plumbing work done. The gentleman concerned was pleased to let us have the dates and times preferred. The work was done to our specification. Inevitably we had to endure several hours each day without running water, having to store it and using neighbours toilets. All this reminded me that plumbers are a front line service if you are talking seriously. Water is critical, not simply desirable. At the moment many plumbers have seen work evaporate and major income reductions because of the down turn. They, of course, are private sector. Quite how some categories of public sector people can rate themselves as more important I cannot understand.
Posted by: Demetrius | Thursday, April 01, 2010 at 04:42 PM
Well this may all be academic as the woeful state of the economy is going to take control of the situation and sooner rather than later. It does not matter which government wins the election they are going to be powerless to control the storm that is about to be unleashed. The private sector has shrunk so small now that for it to grow to a size that can adequately support the public sector will take far longer than the time available even if the right policies were in place, which of course under Labour the right policies will never be put in place and under the Conservatives there is no certainty of them being in place either. The state is going to run out of money and it is all going to come tumbling down like a house of cards. Civil unrest is already a factor through union action this will spread to the populace as a whole when inflation is rampant and living standards are decimated and the welfare state unravels. You probably are saying this cannot happen in a modern state like Britain in this day and age and things are not as bleak as all that. I hope you are right and I am wrong but I am not putting any bets on it.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Thursday, April 01, 2010 at 03:04 PM
Excellent post. I too have wondered whether those on the state payroll should really be entitled to vote. These turkeys will never vote for Christmas.
http://suboptimalplanet.blogspot.com/2009/11/tyranny-of-subservient.html
Part of the trouble is that large parts of the 'private sector' are also dependent, to varying degrees, on the state.
Posted by: Suboptimalplanet.blogspot.com | Thursday, April 01, 2010 at 12:56 PM
I am not convinced at all that this state of affairs can be rectified. Not without a "revolution" anyway. Furthermore, the Police are now routinely armed, always wear stabproofs even when moving about within crowds of the disarmed serfs, and are not, imo, on the side of their real employers (us) any more.
Sean Gabb thinks an incoming minimal-statist administration (not on the cards)would be abble to make the necessary changes, in a few weeks. I do not agree any more. The rot has set in too far this time.
In my worse moments, I think the best we can all do here, those of us who can't escape economically, or else who have no desire to go elsewhere, is re-learn a lot of lost skills of survival in a regressing civilisation where the high-points and achievements are in terminal decay, and try to preserve, in our libraries and on DVDs, what was achieved by us and ours, for a possible future society to take advantage of.
Posted by: David Davis_libertarian alliance | Thursday, April 01, 2010 at 08:02 AM