CB Saint

"euphoric glee" do me a favour. We have been royally shafted by th French and Germans. What ever came out of the talks was going to be bad for the uk.

When the Tobin tax is introduced in Europe (if it is now they have lost their cash cow) I reckon all the European banks will relocate their non eu operations to London to avoid the tax. After all their city spivs just as bad as ours.

Psml

Certain aspect of eu employment law is ok, other aren't. The working time directive in it's current form is ok, however the French have in the past wanted to impose a mandatory 35 hour week using this legislation. He agency workers directive is an appalling piece of legislation that is hurting the very people it was supposed to protect.

Most of this wil all be academic anyway, if the markets decide that the Eurozone hasn't dealt with the Euro issues well enough. For the euro to function Germany has to accept that it will have to supplement the southern med states (seem likely?) and assuming they swallow this, unfortunately they have got the money, not in the amounts that is required to sort out the PIIGS once and for all. SO nothing has changed. We have had a in out of treaty side show and more procrastination from the politicians.

You are right, it only accounts for 1,000,000 jobs and £70bn in tax revenues

Heard portillo on five live this afternoon. His view was that the Tobin tax was placed by our European partners in the knowledge that we would veto it and appear to be the bad guys, whilst creating a smokescreen over the fact that the eurozone have done nothing to address the fundamental defects of the euro An interesting take, I thought

There is a lot of people coming out and saying that we have done the wrong thing. What I don't see is any solutions or commitments to what should have happened. The Labour hierachy are making generalised statements about showing weakness or mishandling negociations. What they don't say is what they would have done.

That's outrageous - why doesn't he pay for his own FFS.

MLG - you are in luck http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16082311

See above

This is about the transaction tax ida that was floated recently. The euro politicos thought that this would be a good money spinner especialy as 80% of all revenues would have to be paid from the City of London. Actually a transaction tax would be a good idea but only if the whole world adopted it - it would certainly curtail the speculative trading somewhat

Current - Lionel Messi - he played the best 45 minutes of football that anyone has ever played when Barca took Arsenal apart.

As i understand it, what we are seeing is a 600 year old image of this planet being 600 light years away. So if they, the inhabitants of this planet are gazing through their telescope at us they will be seeing an England at odds with Europe, christians and Muslims not getting along and a corrupt bloke in charge of Italy....oh!

I speak to a large number of Greeks both professionally and personally. Discounting the obvious antipathy that they have towards the Euro as a result of recent events, most have been fairly anti euro. For the average man in the street the only real difference they have noticed is the cost of living has risen dramatically. Overall the general felling was that they rather have kept the drachma. They are massively frightened about their future. If they stay in, they will be facing years of no growth whilst they come to grips with their debt issues with Germany callling all of the shots (you only have to wind the clock back to the 1940's to understand why most Greeks find the thought of having to kowtow to the germans so distasteful). If they crash out or are thrown out, they face a future that no one can predict.

Turkeys voting for Xmas, anyone? Now that we have career politicians, they need a decent pension, because what else are they going to do when they don't get re-elected. After all they sacrifice so much, so that we can have a better life

"Mrs Merkel said France and Germany wanted to see "structural changes which go beyond agreements". The two leaders said they wanted treaty changes to be implemented by all 27 EU member states, but if that was not possible, just the 17 states which have adopted the euro." From the beeb Here we go, "you know that treaty that you didn't vote for, well we need to change it fundamentally" I wonder what they are going to try and foist onto us this time.

That was the bit you beat me to!

UHY owning PFc - seems improbable. Massive conflict of interest

One of the things that the public sector have done well, is the level of personal contributions that are required. I only wish that when I started in the big bad world that my employers had done the same for me, instead of letting me figure it out for myself many years down the line. What I do know is that "they need to get on with it and have the final soltion sorted out and then leave them alone. All this chopping an changing does not encourage people to save, as they do not trust that the goal posts will be moved again. Whilst this is about public sector pensions at the moment, I am sure it is having a detrimental effect on the private sector employee's view of pensions. In fact, in the words of a 22 yr old employee today when asked if she was joining the contributory scheme - "what's the point, it won't be worth anything when I retire"

My initial thought was that it is easier to blame the police than to look inward and accept the responsibility for one's own actions. It was amazing how much anger towards the police was aimed in the direction of electical retailers and not police stations

This is the same irrespective of sector - women take time out and work part time in the private sector as well. So for the purposes of comparison they negate each other. That is not to say that this is not important, it is, however this is more an issue with pensions as a whole as opposed to being sector specific.

So, if I read that right, after say 45 years - you would be entitled to 56% of the final salary as well as lump sum of 20 months salary. (unless there are limits) So taking the social worker they would have a pension of £15,120 pa and £45,000 lump sum. Or if you were starting now, an annual pension £20k pa and no lump sum (again assuming no limits) Just saw BTF response as well - beaten to it

Come on play fair, if you are going to exclude the highest earners from your figures, you should discount the lowest earners as well. I think comparing average pensions is somewhat misleading as the figures are distorted by those people who only worked in the public sector for say 10 years and didn't accrue a full pension. I would like to know what the average pension is for those people who have managed to accumulate the full pension. That would make a much better basis for comparison.

Verbal - are you bored this afternoon? You seem to be chasing Jackanory all over this forum today