What do you mean by that?

The lines between public and private companies is blurred. With banks, they are largely taxpayer owned, and in some ways the pay of top executives is very much the business of us as tax payers. However, a contract is a contract, and although I'm no legal eagle, I would imagine that there would be little that could be done to get around a contract saying someone is given a 400% bonus as part of their package.
Where the previous government missed a trick was by not getting more involved in how the banks actually worked when they nationalisded them. It could have made the situation much better.

On the subject of infrastructure, again there are companies which you could call semi-public sector. The likes of BT & E.ON. They are private companies, yet the government wants to have their cake and eat it. They want to tell players in the energy market what they can charge, and how much profit they can make, but also rely on these companies to have the capital to invest in the future. new power stations, new broadband networks all cost billions of pounds. The reason energy companies are percieved to make large profits isn't because they are greedy and want to make loads of cash, they are huge organisations, with a huge investment in infrastructure without which the country couldn't function.

It's impossible to cap earnings in the private sector, it is simply market forces at play. The workforce is the work force. If they want a cut of profits, they need to become the bosses and start their own business. Harsh, but that is capitalism.

Don't forget, the large salaries taken by directors are often taxed at 40% to 50% so they're putting more money into the country than the whinging masses of worker ants.

And, by they way, I have been on strike for the last fifteen years but nobody has yet noticed and I am still collecting a wage.

If you're talking about the directors at the city banks, very few of them will be paying anything like that amount, and many will be paying no income tax at all.

You cannot equate a general election where you will at least you have a representative even if you don't vote, with a call for a strike which will have an adverse effect on so many people. This isn't some march around the streets. How can you claim to have a manadate for such a serious thing as a major strike based on the views of around a quarter of the workforce. If this had been so important as to consider a strike to be the only option, would not a majority of the workforce have taken the trouble to vote?

Negotiations are still on-going and terms may be improved further, but the offer on the table is still much better that the majority of the population can hope to enjoy. One of the reasons our country is in so much debt is these sort of overgenerous pension agreements that were made to the public sector which even in the good times were unsustainable.

Even with all these cuts our children and grandchildren will have to work until they are 70 or 75. Do you feel comfortable with this prospect? Would you feel comfortable if many jobs would be lost as an alternative to keeping the same pension terms? As the outgoing Labour Chief secretary to the Treasury said in his note "I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left"

I do not blame the unions for negotiating such good terms. I blame the governments that accepted them without thought as to how they could ever be paid for. Of course it is a bad situation to have some agreed benefits taken away. But where they are so obviously out of step with the rest of the workforce as a whole and in particular with the private sector who have to produce the wealth to pay for part of these pensions, then some sort of change has to be made.

If you look at what is going on in the rest of Europe you can see in almost every country there are changes being made to reduce unaffordable benefits. Real austerity is being forced on these overspending countries and unless we make voluntary reductions in our pension/benefits/services expectations then we will be a short step away from a simliar fate.

How on earth can somebody you didn’t vote for and don’t agree with be representative of you?

So you think that 70% of 25% is a democratic majority to call a strike do you? IMO it's a selfish minority prepared to heap misery on many innocent workers, children and families, the majority of whom will have far worse pension terms, yet will be expected to pay in their taxes for these strikers.

A bit like George Osbourne? Who apparently (according to Channel 4, but not denied by him as far as I know) legally avoids paying millions in tax.

Don't forget though folks, "we're all in it together."

I never said there shouldn't be regulation. I am pointing out that it is the shareholders who are the owners of these publicly quoted companies who having put their money in therefore becomes their say and not ours. Thats the way it is! If we don't like a particular public company then we have the right to vote with our feet and not buy their goods or services. ie don't use Vodafone if you don't like them.

Only a few banks were bailed out and as we the taxpayers have shares these then yes we do have a say through our MP's.

Not so. I am saying that a low percentage turn out in a general election cannot be used to justify a very low percentage turnout in a ballot to strike which has a negative effect on so many other people, particularly when the reason for the strike is pure self interest for around 25% of that workforce.

Yes the bailed out banks should be classed as state owned until they are sold so they should be subject to tighter control. There is some regulation including some new stuff but we have to be careful about regulation that puts us at a dissadvantage to the rest of the world.

I mean that it is the private sector that creates profits with private investment which is then taxed. This is in the income side of the account while the state sector costs are in the outgoings side of the account.