Quote: Dally "1. To reduce the debate to the fact we are apparently in recession today is silly. As I said, we have major problems which will take years to, hopefully, resolve. The fact is there will be ups and downs in headline figures along the way. '"
It's only silly if you don't want to admit you were wrong in your original post. There is now plenty of analysis coming out from various economists and they are dismissing Osborne's stance it was all down to the Eurozone and even the ONS is saying its down to the purely domestic issues mainly constructiopn that is is suffering from the governments cuts.
The ONS said output of the production industries decreased by 0.4%, construction decreased by 3% and output of the service sector increased by 0.1%.
It added that a fall in government spending had contributed to the particularly large fall in the construction sector.
"The huge cuts to public spending - 25% in public sector housing and 24% in public non-housing and with a further 10% cuts to both anticipated for 2013 - have left a hole too big for other sectors to fill," said Judy Lowe, deputy chairman of industry body CITB-ConstructionSkills, said."
From herehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624rl
Quote: Dally "2. Resources will be reallocated into profitable areas if the public sector shrinks, just as they were after Thatcher's era. It just takes time. Is China more propserous now than during the days of Mao?
'"
What profitable areas? And how do you do this? Is the government to do as I suggested its strategy is, to cut corporation tax and cross its fingers it will work? If not just what do you mean by "Resources will be reallocated into profitable areas if the public sector shrinks"? What does this mean and what magic wand will do this?
What happened after Thatcher was we became a service led economy and guess what? The only thing that is pinning up at the moment is the service sector and what little retail activity their is. The stuff we really need to do it isn't.
Quote: Dally "3. If a public sector manager gets a pension of say £50,000 pa that would be equivalent to saving a capital sum of ca. £1,000,000 (or £25,000 pa for 40 years - how many people can do that in the rest of the economy)?'"
A public sector
middle manager (your original words) will never be on a pension of £50K. You don't have a point.
The handful of council CEO's who earn 6 figure salaries might be. But then I guess the old argument we have to pay the going rate to get the best man for the job so often trotted out to justify high salaries in the private sector doesn't apply in the public sector.
Quote: Dally "4. Just like you, I have no idea whether outsourcing has been cost-effective or not. If it has not been then there has been mismanagement. It probably has been because even if it cost 10% more to collect the bins than the Council doing it through its employees the back offf savings in payroll, personnel management, training, pensions, holidays, etc would be saved.'"
My wife sees the cost (not savings) associated with using private companies. I have lost count of the number of stories she tells me of how the attitude is charge for everything. And councils pay it because they no longer have the old ethos of being custodians of the local finances. Most of them involved in the finance departments are overworked and the level of scrutiny is quite shocking.
At her school to give one example Biffa turned up when they shouldn't have to collect the refuse. Could not gain access so then proceed to charge the council for return visit. Invoice lands on my wife's desk - she refuses to pay it. Or should I say she tries to. The effort involved to sort this out was huge. She got it sorted in the end but there are plenty of other small amounts of money incorrectly billed that the attitude is (because it has to be) that it is not worth the effort to chase up. The books balance, there is money in the budget so stuff the effort.
My wife hates this attitude and has saved the school a small fortune over the years but how many people do you think are like this? Not many is my guess and if this is replicated across the country the costs will be huge overall. And this would not be happening anything like this if the money stayed where it was, within the local authority.