Bah

So what you're saying is there's been 22 years to sort that particular issue out, of which New Labrador have been in charge for the latter 50% of it, and no-one has bothered to sort it out?

Hardly a defence, is it???

You mean, were.

Where do you think all the money being pumped into the banking system is coming / going to come from, eh?

Erm, to be honest, why would any government be 'responsible' for privately owned / listed companies pissing money away?

Much as I don't agree with the government meddling in listed / privately owned companies, they had absolutely no choice under current circumstances.

All being well, the money they put in now will be repayed, with interested, in future years once the system recovers - the money is being exchanged for stockholding in the banks, which can be re-sold at a later date.

FWIW, I refuse to vote for any of the 3 main parties in the UK.

That's looking like a pretty poor investment now....

Right, I've been considering this one recently.

I'm not convinced that anything major has changed in the world of pensions that isn't directly related to current life expectancy.

When my dad signed up for a final salary scheme, way back in the 50s, you would work from the age of 16 to the age of 65, then retire. If you were lucky, you got 10 years before you were 6 feet under. Many of his colleagues didn't make 5 years of retirement.

These days, people appear to expect to work for 35 years and retire for

Someone please explain how that can work, unless you're willing to invest at least 50% of your gross income in a pension fund from the day you first begin working?

The fact is that, to maintain decent pension payouts, we will all have to work on beyond 65 - I suspect it'll be more like 75 by the time any of us reach retirement age.

It's a pyramid scheme - works so long as there's lots of new stuff coming from the bottom, ie a continually booming economy. Oops...

So yes, combination of life expectancy and the pyramid not being the right shape (the latter being true for a long time, not just recently).

cheers, clive

It's still got just over two years to run. That's the thing with bonds. GEBs never make as much as the best performing stuff, but as I said, the worst you lose is the interest from a savings account.

I wasn't arguing it was...

I was asking Conor to clarify his statement. ;-)

Maybe not, but we'll all end up carrying the financial can either way.

All being well being the key phrase.

All the time I've got a roof over my head and I'm not reduced to fighting in the aisles of Nettos for the last potato, then I don't view all this as a necessarily bad thing really.

Plaid Cymru - when all is lost, keep warm setting fire to a cottage or two.

Same here - I think it has made things look a bit iffy on the (current) job front (getting increasingly edgy about that one, to be honest) - but, we've been pretty careful with money, so I have enough in the bank to pay off the Sportwagon and will have several months worth of pay as a redundancy settlement if it all goes Pete Tong.

'Plaid Cymru - come home to a real fire'

Well... it isn't common knowledge around these parts yet, but I was laid off last week.

Not too fussed about diving straight back into corporate IT if I'm honest, and I'm looking at a van on Friday - got lots of pies lined up to stick fingers into, and a van is key to some of them.

LOL

Alison's firm is part of Scottish Power, who are in turn part of Iberdrola spain.

They announced that they are officially doing crap, and if they didn't do something they would be insolvent in 3 months.

So they are splitting the business down the middle. The profitable side is going to stay as part of scottish power, doing things like mains repairs and replacement.

The other half will stand alone and fight for new install business like the new Anfield and a shopping centre in Wolverhampton and a housing estate. All these contracts are signed for when the projects start, but all the projects are now on hold.

They are killing the whole marketing dept and redeploying the staff. Same with 8 of the 12 sales/account managers.

Those who can't be redeployed have to apply for any post available. They will get full wages for 3 years and are expected to work their way back up to their current grade/level or get a pay cut afterwards. There won't be any redundancies, but those who can't be redeployed or can't find a suitable position may get a golden handshake exit package, but it isn't as high as legal minimum redundancy. This time those affected look to be regional directors and managers rather than office floor grunts.

Luckily Alison looks to be safe. She is the England complaints co- ordinator. They have announced a england complaints manager so they will need staff. They haven't announced a scottish manager or staff, so it looks like her old boss and her contemporary in scotland are getting re- deployed.

He's just dug a deeper hole, starting from where Blair had finished by entering two unwinnable and pointless wars.

We got bought recently by a large US multinational and to remove 'duplicaion' they're binning a whole load of people globally, including

Luckily I've just been asked to kick off something new, so should be ok as long as I don't f*ck it up haha

That's more than a lot of people are being offered at the mo.

Elder gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Odd how the complaints side of the business is thriving...

Like I said though if they can't get redeployed, and aren't succesful in getting an internal position through application, they get an exit package, something like one weeks wage for every year they have worked. And no need for a minimum notice period like there would be in a redundancy, just their contract notice.

That's bang on the legal minimum redundancy.....

Aye, after three years if what you've said above is correct... so like I say, that's a *lot* more than other people in similar circumstances are being offered at present, and a lot of time to find something else whilst on full existing pay if you're unhappy with the subsequent role you end up in.

I get around 5% of what I spend rebated on my credit card bill, rather than cashback in the supermarket checkout sense of the word. On a good week I could perhaps put £600 through the credit card purely for work expenses, so I get £30 for nowt. Barring the hassle of hanging onto a million receipts.

Who's that with?