From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: hypocritical Guvmints
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:55:58 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: Edinburgh University

Two items in the Politics section of the Peevetown Occasionally this
week. Sorry they're both Yookayan and therefore parochial, but even Dan
Quayle hasn't done anything to top this crap:

Item The First: The Guvmint here has just stomped on the pay rise for
the UK academics. This pay rise was all of 6% plus 1% "discretionary"
pay. I don't have figures to hand on who's getting the discretionary
pay if the Universities aren't diverting it elsewhere or simply earning
interest. I'm a cynic though since the Guvmint not so long ago made some
loot available to the Universities to allow them to persuade older,
tenured academics to retire. This "persuasion" was with a golden
parachute funded by the Guvmint loot. There seemed to be a number of
academics who somehow managed to "retire" with the golden handshake and
then return to part time work as "consultants". Nice work if you can get
it.

Peeve: I'm not tenured so nobody is going to offer me loot in any form
whatsoever.

Back to the pay rise. The Guvmint tells some committee how much loot the
Universities are getting and then they negotiate with the academics
Union, the AUT. They settled on the 6% which seemed reasonable in an
economy where average earnings are currently rising at 6.5% and
underlying inflation is somewhere around 5.5% The AUT made much hoopla
about how various sectors have acheived a 37% increase in their standard
of living since 1979 and academics acheived only 10% increase. Still, we
knew that we weren't going to get the 33% needed to redress this henious
imbalance. Nobody gets 33%.

Or do they? Members of Parliament apparently get to vote on their own
pay rises. So, on the day after the Guvmint quashed the recommendation
of the Pay Review Committee for Higher Civil Servants (i.e the folks
nearest to MP's in Job Spec) for a 34% increase (the Guvmint decided
that 4% would be a nicer number), the MP's voted for a whopping 38%
increase in their office allowances. These seem to be fees allowing them
to employ their wife/secretary/lover/other to do research and office
work for 'em.

This seems to be double my annual salary anyway so we're not just
talking taxi-fees.

So basically, 6% is too good for us, but what's 38% between friends?

I figure since I'm a taxpayer and I'm employing *them* that myself and
company should get to vote for their pay increase. I'd be too fair
though I guess, I'd link it to the GDP index or something. That'd give
them a reasonable -0.5% this year by the looks of it. I'd probably also
require them to pay a slice of Guvmint borrowing just to make 'em a bit
less keen to borrow money on my behalf.

Peeve: The Universities are Guvmint run.

Item The Second: A Guvmint Minister, David Mellor, Minister of Arts etc.
is currently in charge of a Media Bill to prevent the Media prying too
much into people's affairs when "it isn't in the public interest". Said
Minister has also been metaphorically caught with his pants down with a
rather tasty-looking actress. Some of the Press will do stories on this
one and some won't. Mellor himself figures that his family ought to
resolve their problems in private. Even the Prime Minister apparently
figures there's "no conflict of interest" here. WHAT? How much fucking
more direct does a conflict of interest need to be? This is *exactly*
what was being complained about before the Bill was even thought of. I
know it's editorialising, but I figure Mellor ought to do what umpteen
Tory ministers have done in the last decade and go and spend more time
with his families [ (C) Tony Cunningham on the Cecil Parkinson retiral].

Item The Third (I lied): The latest kerfuffle between the Guvmint and
the Building Societies (Savings & Loan, if it's not a dirty word in the
Yooessay).  I'm beginning to think the Building Societies think they
*are* the Guvmint.  Basically the Guvmint is trying to raise 28 Billion
in borrowing (and I stick to my prediction that it'll turn out closer to
35 Billion).  It's looking for some of it by selling bonds.  Folkis have
bought a lot of these bonds, as per plan.  The Building Societies are
whining that "their" customers are buying bonds instead of putting money
into the Building Societies since the rate is more attractive. Sensibly
the Building Societies start planning to increase their rates and start
whining about how house owners will be unhappy about an increase in the
mortgage rate and how house prices will drop even further.

The Guvmint caves in and reduces the rate on the bonds. Amazing since:

a) the Building Societies don't own any customers, customers can go
where they figure they'll get the best deal.

b) What mortgage rate folks are paying is between them and the Building
Society as per the deal they signed. Guvmint has nothing to do with it.

c) It's almost an admission that the Guvmint was either
   I)Paying more than the market rate for borrowing, and paying it with
     *Our* money.
   II) Being told what to do by the Building Societies.

d) If the Building Societies also concerned themselves with those
members who are *savers*, they'd see that for every borrower that loses,
a saver gains. They seem to concern themselves mostly with those who
have borrowed money from them (who are already tied into 25 year deals)
rather than those whose savings they need to finance the borrowing. I
suspect that this is because they know they've lent some money to some
fairly dodgy folks under fairly dodgy conditions (110% mortgages on
properties that were about to go down in value, at 5 times the salary of
folks who were about to become unemployed) and they don't want to face
the losses when these folks get repossessed.

Come to think about it, Building Societies do seem to have all the
financial acumen of the current Guvmint. No wonder they're in cahoots.

Why the Guvmint concerns itself that house prices are going down I don't
know. If folks plow their life saving into a house (and they all did
because "house prices always go up" and because of the tax advantages)
then the asset just sits there. That's a brilliant investment strategy
for a Country: Let's use the tax regime to encourage folks to invest in
something that produces absolutely zilch. I mean, what would happen if
we encouraged them to invest in industry or something? This piece of
genius is compounded by the Guvmint planning laws making it dificult to
build new houses anywhere that land is cheap. That made house prices
rise a lot for quite a while (trend: 2% above inflation for around 35
years.). This meant that prices rose higher and we had a lot more money
tied into non-producing assets. As I said, pure genius. 

It's time the Building Societies were taken down a peg or two, they're
beginning to act like the Unions used to.

Maybe that's a new strike tactic: Listen Brothers, I don't want you to
stop work, just go and take your money/morgage out of the Building
Society and then they'll tell the Guvmint to give us more money.

!peeve: They're gonna privatise Scottish Water. Judging by the amount of
rain recently, we're gonna have a hell of a lot of it to sell. There's
quite a drought in the south of England too. Get your genyooin Scottish
Rainwater here......

FoFP
Newsgroups: alt.peeves