Top Job Cutter in Greece Worries about Going Too Far

It's sooooo easy to grow the state son. Nobody will complain as everybody pays for that and somebody else will worry about it. You either manage the beast or somebody else will force you to do this. The leviathan that is the state has to be kept under control. And the best time to do this is when there are boom times. Otherwise you will have to do during bust times. 

Read and weep son. Your taxes are going to Greece to fix this issue. 

Love

Baba

Top Job Cutter in Greece Worries about Going Too Far - SPIEGEL ONLINE
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/top-job-cutter-in-greece-worries-about-going-too-far-a-901234.html

---

Antonis Manitakis has the most thankless job in Greece. Tasked with slashing the grotesquely bloated public sector, he is hounded by troika officials, reviled by his countrymen and afraid of cutting too deep.

Appearances are deceiving on Klafthmonos Square in downtown Athens. Three imposing bronze statues, the “Monument to National Reconciliation,” shimmer in the bright spring sunshine. But demonstrators at the base of the monument bring to mind the original purpose of the square, the name of which translates into “Lamentation Square.” Until 1911, when the Greek constitution guaranteed all civil servants jobs for life, government bureaucrats who had been let go after a change in government used to come to the square to publicly express their outrage. 

In the Sorting Office

Kannu

You are living through some very interesting times where technology is destroying old ways of living and doing business. 

This is an example of how giant monolithic businesses fall apart when they cannot handle structural change. 

When very large trees fall, they take many other trees with them and leave a swathe of destruction around them. So one has to be careful from three perspectives. One, how to manage this tree fall from society's perspective. Second is to ensure you don't get hurt by the tree fall. And third is to ensure that you learn to profit from this tree fall. 

People usually only see one perspective. But the trick is to see all three as they are all interrelated. 

So have a think about it, we will soon stop needing paper based mail but parcels and other bits still are required to come to our door due to home e-shopping. How do we ensure this happens? How can we manage otherwise? And where can you invest in alternatives so that you can profit from this collapse in the post office? 

Something to think about son. 

Ps: was happy to hear that you are settling down and liking college. If as you say, that its easy, then challenge yourself by spending time in the library or do other stuff :). See the lecturers in the online university. 

Love

Baba

In the Sorting Office
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n09/james-meek/in-the-sorting-office

---

In the Sorting Office

James Meek

Somewhere in the Netherlands a postwoman is in trouble. Bad health, snow and ice and a degree of chaos in her personal life have left her months behind on her deliveries. She rents a privatised ex-council flat with her partner and so many crates of mail have built up in the hallway that it’s getting hard to move around. Twice a week one of the private mail companies she works for, Selektmail, drops off three or four crates of letters, magazines and catalogues. She sorts and delivers the fresh crates but the winter backlog is tough to clear. She thinks her employers are getting suspicious. I counted 62 full mail crates stacked up in the hall when I visited recently. There was a narrow passageway between the wall of crates and her personal pile of stuff: banana boxes, a disused bead curtain, a mop bucket. One of the crates has crept into the study, where the postwoman’s computer rears up out of her own archival heaps of newspapers and magazines. Should these two streams of paper merge they would not be easily separated. The postwoman hasn’t given up. She had a similar problem with the other private mail company she works for, Sandd, a few years back. ‘When I began at Sandd in 2006 I delivered about 14 boxes of mail every time,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t cope and at Christmas 2006 I had about 90 of these boxes in the house. By New Year’s Day we had 97. There were even boxes in the toilet.’ The postwoman is paid a pittance to deliver corporate mail. She hasn’t done her job well, yet so few people have complained about missed deliveries that she hasn’t been found out.

Across the world, postal services are being altered like this: optimised to deliver the maximum amount of unwanted mail at the minimum cost to businesses. In the internet age private citizens are sending less mail than they used to, but that’s only part of the story of postal decline. The price of driving down the cost of bulk mailing for a handful of big organisations is being paid for by the replacement of decently paid postmen with casual labour and the erosion of daily deliveries.

Italy Post Office May Depend on Nepotism to Cut Costs

This made me blink. I quote:

Italy’s postal service, the country’s biggest employer, has proposed an innovative way to cut costs and usher out older workers: nepotism. Under a draft plan detailed to unions, postal workers at 140 branches who agree to early retirement can cede permanent job contracts to their children. The “heir” must be at least 30 years old with a high school diploma. Talks on the policy are at an “advanced stage,” and it could be implemented by early October, said Walter de Candiziis, head of Failp-Cisal, the union that first suggested the plan in 1997.

Under the new proposal, postal workers can deliver job security to their kids, at a time when most Italian companies are shying away from offering such jobs for life. For employers, the permanent contracts are difficult to break when staff cuts are needed and they require more generous social-security contributions that increase as the worker ages.

Presumably the idea of just cutting the jobs would not apply, eh?

This is also interesting and I didn't know this.

Nepotism has deep roots in Italy. The word derives from the Latin for nephew and has its origins in the practice of popes elevating their nephews to the position of cardinal to create papal dynasties.

EU asks who will pay for high-speed Internet

I quote:

In the consultation, the Commission will be asking whether Internet access should be a public right and how the EU's current rules, dating from 2002, can be tweaked to include the bloc's goal of providing 'broadband for all'.

This ties in with the Spanish EU Presidency's goal of making high-speed Internet compulsory across the bloc, aimed at improving Web access in rural areas (EurActiv 18/12/09).

Who will foot the bill?

The EU plans to revise rules governing access to the Internet and telephones throughout the bloc. Yesterday (2 March) the European Commission launched a consultation asking whether money for wider broadband coverage should come from the public purse or from industry coffers.

these guys talk as if there is no cost to the public purse, leeches and parasites, these govt agencies. So they turn around and portray this as if the public purse is an in-exhaustible bottom less pit of funds which are free. Well, its not free, somebody has to pay for this. If somebody wants broadband, let them pay for it. Sheesh. But I am fine with their behaviour, the bond markets will kick away their govt debt crutches all. robbers, all of them.

Remember this, you faceless thieving robbing bureaucrats, the more you load on the public sector, the more you draw away from productive investments. By forcing this kind of behaviour, you make situations like Greece and Ireland more possible. We in the private sector then end up paying for it twice, first by paying for this kind of investment in the first place and then second to get rid of you guys. But remember, who would hire people who can only spend and not add value?

Spending a cool £0.5 billion on politicians

Coolness personified. We are ending up spending half a billion pounds on about 29,000 people on top of the political tree. I quote:

The number of politicians and their advisers on the UK public payroll now tops 29,000, The figure includes councillors, MPs, peers, MEPs, members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies and their staff. Their total cost is estimated at more than £499m for the year 2007/8.

Please bear in mind that this figure doesnt include the MEP travel or expenses which could bump it up a wee bit. But why are we surprised, take a look a the growth of public sector in the country over the last 100 years.

 

So what' the share of the economy this year?

Almost 43% is being generated off the back of the 56% generated by us. Now that’s not a parasite, that’s a cannibal. How long and how much would these blood sucking buggers suck our lives out? Compared to that kind of spend, 1/2 a billion is measly change, no?

To the Public Sector Workers, fear is coming!

Ireland is facing severe economic dislocation. This isn't the place to talk about what happened, the link tells you more about what’s happening in Ireland, I quote:

• Ireland became the first eurozone economy technically in recession in September after two quarters of negative growth.
• That month, with concerns mounting about the health of the country’s banks, the government ignored the complaints of other EU member states and guaranteed the entire €440bn liabilities of its six domestic financial institutions.
• In late December, Mr Lenihan returned to the banking crisis, announcing a €5.5bn recapitalisation, including – controversially – €1.5bn for Anglo Irish Bank
• International investors have also given Ireland poor marks. Today only Greece in the 16-member eurozone is considered a worse credit risk and pays more to borrow in international debt markets. Last week, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Ireland’s debt outlook from stable to negative and warned it might cut its sovereign debt rating.
• The general government deficit is now forecast to be 9.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 2009 – and that assumes €2bn in savings from planned reforms. Without these savings, the government calculates the deficit will hit 10.5 per cent this year and remain in the 11 to 12 per cent range through to 2013.
• The increased government borrowing needed to finance such deficits could see Ireland’s debt-to-GDP ratio jump from 24.7 per cent in 2007 to more than 80 per cent. Such an increase in public debt would not just entail much higher debt service costs but could damage investor perceptions of Ireland.

But more importantly, what Ireland is doing to the public sector is what is quite interesting. Now that’s something that the public sector workers in places like the UK and other places in Europe are shuddering to read. Let me quote from this site:

• Mr Cowen forced in a new pension levy for 350,000 public sector workers and froze their pay. The average public sector worker, on €45,000 a year, will now pay €62.50 a week into their pension fund.
• Ministers took away the early childcare allowance from the parents of some 30,000 children. Payment of the allowance for the remaining 350,000 children will now be cut off once the child turns five, and the amount handed out will be cut from €1,100 to €1,000 a year.
• Adjustments to the National Development Plan
• A cut in the overseas aid budget.
• Mr Cowen is also deferring pay rises due under the national pay deal.

Can you imagine? actually trying to reduce or free public sector pay? Scary stuff.., but I suppose we have to do the same thing over this side of the Irish Sea. This is what they are trying to do in Scotland:

But the leader of the Scottish National party told journalists that efficiency savings of the order demanded by Westminster in 2010/11 and again the following year would lead to 8,700 job cuts across the public and private sector.

Quite interesting days ahead…

Technorati Tags: Public Sector

Bimaru states in India

States and regions also become sick besides companies and human beings. When they become sick, you get a doctor, then you dose the patient with some foul smelling medicine, and then you get better, and to stay better, you keep on doing good healthy things so that you do not fall ill. But then, there are some fellows who will smoke, drink, eat fatty foods, then get a heart attack, and then continue on with being a bad old egg.

But what's with Bimaru in the title? It is a play on words, the word itself stands for 4 Indian states, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. When you select those letters together, they mean sick (Bimar in Hindi means sick). And yes, Sir, they are sick in terms of almost every socio-economic indicator that is going.

Obviously, the reasons are multifarious, but mainly is because of the venality of the politicians of all stripes. Corruption is rife, illiteracy rampant, health is poor, economics horrible, generally a sad old reflection of what India's missed opportunities are. What makes it even worse is that these are poor states in a poor country, but other states have done much better. I realise that somebody has to come bottom, but when we are talking about poverty levels which are at or below starvation levels, then being at the bottom has severe implications for rest of the country. It does not also help that these states are some of the most populous in the country.

One would expect that every state would be hell bent in trying to improve its investment climate so that jobs are produced and better quality of life is achieved. But no, most of the leaders of these states are too busy being corrupt and feathering their own nests. By and large, they are a venal lot, seriously. And having had experience of living, studying, working, running firms in these states, I can personally say that the situation isnt improving fast. For entrepreneurs, it is tough, really tough. When you have borrowed money from your father's General Provident Fund (pension fund), and have invested in the anticipation that you will provide sufficient returns so that your old man is not left on the street, the last thing you need is your own government and its officials being like vultures, bent on capturing your hard earned money. Well, perhaps it is too much to expect, but what exactly are the problems facing entrepreneurs?

The World Bank recently released a paper comparing the investment climate in 16 Indian states for which they had data. Here's their main graphic which shows the investment climate in the 16 states.

So what did the author evaluate to make up the index? This is what I mean by saying that the issues with these states are simple but implementation needs just simple hard work. Nothing magical, just keep on plugging away at it. Here are some of the factors relating to infrastructure: Hours of power outages last year, Hours of telephone outages last year, Percentage of sales lost in transit, percentage of sales lost due to power outages, Days of inventories kept for main input (proxy for quality of transportation). What about inputs? Excess labor, Cost of finance: value of collateral required to obtain a loan, Proximity to raw materials (share of inputs bought by domestic sources) Proximity to domestic customers, Share of firms using new technology, Trade credit: share of sales sold on credit, Trade credit: share of inputs bought on credit.

Finally institutions make a huge amount of difference to the investment climate and the authors included security cost, losses due to theft , Manager time spent dealing with regulations, Days spent with officials to deal with regulations, consistent interpretation of rules, Tax evasion (% of sales not declared), Days to obtain a telephone connection, Days to obtain a electric connection, Days to obtain a construction permit, Bribes to "get things done", Share of firms reporting officials request gifts etc. etc.

While one can only exhort the states at the top to do much better, but its the stogy lump of undigested mass of states at the bottom which is the issue. Not only do the good state's get their tax revenues diverted to support these Bimaru states, the diversion of tax revenues is then not invested in productive matters. So, all in all, these are giant holes where a significant proportion of productive wealth generated by India disappears.

The concluding paragraph from the author is particular important but would not be particularly surprising.

The analysis of 46 investment climate variables shows that power, transportation, corruption, tax regulations and theft
remain the major bottlenecks policymakers need to address in order to improve the business environment in India.

Same old, same old. Long way to go, my friends, long way to go.

Technorati Tags: Corruption,Public Sector,Development,Economics,India,World Bank

I dont like the idea of there being no God

There is a small skirmish in a remote corner of the world, where people are fighting over whether or not there is a God. Typically, it is in England, where a bunch of chaps have raised sufficient money to put advertisements on buses and tube trains claiming that there is no God. So you can drink, enjoy and be merry without worrying about what an old man sitting in heaven somewhere thinks of you. Atheism.

But typically, we now have the situation that a bus driver did not like driving a bus with that advertisement. Here are some more examples of people being spectacularly stupid and confusing the line between public provision and private beliefs:

• I refuse to drive the bus because I do not like Blacks/Asians/Vietnamese on my bus
• I refuse to drive the bus because I do not like men wearing skirts on my bus
• I refuse to drive the bus because I do not like women breastfeeding on the bus
• I refuse to drive the bus because it conflicts with my prayer times
• I refuse to drive the bus because I hate internal combustion engines and they ruin the atmosphere
• I refuse to drive the bus because I do not like gays on my bus.
• I refuse to drive a bus after dark because my mother told me not to stay out after dark
• I refuse to drive a bus because I do not like the uniform.

Here's a link to a video to the offending situation. What a joke.

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Atheism,Public Sector,United Kingdom

Govt ministers 'couldn't run private companies'

A survey was carried out of the chief executives of UK top 100 companies and this is what they said:

Comparison with the most successful business leaders in the country reveals that the people running public services lack appropriate experience, have near impossible tasks to do and are never in their job for long enough to engage properly with their departments."

Remember what I said? why does public provision have to be done via public sector? Or why government is so bad in this? Not surprising at all.

But well, yes, but that's what democracy is all about, they want average people to run themselves, not technocratic people. CEO's usually get up there based upon merit. Politicians get to the top by skullduggery, pandering to base instincts, being populist and being slightly stupid. If they were very smart, then they are seen as a threat. Witness the reaction whenever a politician shows any sign of using big words, the media dump on him.

So not surprising at all. What do you do? you make it a question of the government deciding what service to provide and at what service levels, while the actual provision is provided to others. But slowly and steadily, government will be chipped away as efficiency and effectiveness will take importance over populism.

Public service provision by public sector?

There seems to be an inherent assumption that public services such as hospitals, police, roads, infrastructure, garbage collection and so on and so forth have to be provided by the public sector as well, soup to nuts. And this is what bugs the heck out of me.

Recently, at a club for technology, public sector and business executives, a minister came in to talk to us about how the public sector is responding to globalisation. Incidentally, this is a great club, you get to hear some great people and meet even better people. Quite a lot of my knowledge of the public sector provision and senior government workings comes from this wonderful institution, but this time it was a bit of a rambling speech.

What it boiled down to was that globalisation was hitting public services with change on a very dramatic basis while the public sector delivery model was clearly not up to the mark to keep on supporting this. So what he is pushing the public sector to be more risk taking, more entrepreneurial in public service provisioning.

Now, nobody actually objects to public service provision, not if they do not understand what a nation - state is all about. It is about common values, language, culture, geography, history and yes, even public service provision. The fact that there is just one currency note type across the country and everywhere that note is accepted and that it needs public service to make sure that it is fine means that public services are required.

Same with the concept of universal public provision with the post office. In other words, this is a provision which means that the state has to make sure that a letter posted in one part of the country will get to another part of the country, irrespective of the distance travelled, deliveries will be made on regular intervals and so on and so forth. What is actually required is different from country to country. But it is there. Here's a fascinating discussion over what to do with this provision and how to standardise it across Europe. But most importantly is that how do you fund it?

And this is my problem, if the government run public sector does not know how to handle it or provide that public service provision, then instead of trying to get all risk takers and corporatist about it, just put in a regulatory model overseeing the service provision and farm that out to the private sector. Why press the public sector to get excited about this?

Now this is at variance with what is actually happening on the ground. See here for a fascinating story. The private and voluntary sectors are providing a stonking £80 billion of public services, 6% of GDP and I quote:

A government-sponsored study by DeAnne Julius, the economist, revealed on Thursday that those sectors supply a third of public services – everything from National Health Service treatments to bin emptying, IT, back-office functions and RAF pilot training. The market is worth £79bn, employs almost as many people as the NHS and accounts for 6 per cent of gross domestic product, making it a larger industrial sector than pharmaceuticals, automotive or electricity, gas and water. It also has considerable potential for further growth both at home and abroad, the study is expected to conclude.

So the minister and the actual situation on the ground are totally different. And something that I like. Now you might quibble over whether or not the garbage collection is a public service or not but hey, the British public has agreed to do so (and I agree with that) and has outsourced it to private provision while making sure that the service delivery is purchased by government. Neat, no? and as you can see from the article, they are trying to sell this model across the world. Shame the minister did not know about this.

Technorati Tags: Outsourcing,United Kingdom,Public Sector

Kenya's cabinet 'soaks up 80pc of the budget'

In other words, to spend 20 pence, it requires 80 pence. But dont get excited, this kind of a skewed ratio is very common. I quote:

Of Kenya's annual budget of £5.4 billion, more than £4.3 billion will go on 93 ministers and their government's general running costs. Only £1.3 billion will be left for roads, schools and hospitals for Kenya's 38 million people.

This reminds me of a time when I was in school. A course called as Military Science was offered in our college. And I was quite puzzled, so I asked one of the chaps who was taking that course. What are you doing that course for? He said, well, because I can get a job in teaching Military Science. So when I asked him, so you are studying Military Science so that you can teach military science to students who are learning military science in order to teach military science.

Does anybody see anything wrong in that argument? Same with what my father told me about this Indian body for promotion of science and technology. All the budget was taken up by salaries. So what on earth and how on earth will the promote science and technology? You cannot travel, you cannot buy anything, you cannot pay even for electricity...

bizarre.

i only wish they had to justify their spending somehow, but too bad, they will never do that.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Private sector expands UK role

Its full of good news today!, now we see the private sector expanding its role in public service provision. More and more is good. Where you do not have scale or competitive advantage, why deliver it yourself? Bring more on, I say.

Read, applaud and egg on.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

When a Government robs Peter to pay Paul, it can count on Paul's support

So let me see if I understood this.

• Public Sector employees are public SERVANTS!
• Public Sector employees are the public as well!
• So when they go on strike, they are essentially striking against themselves?

Confusing or what?

When a government robs Peter to pay Paul, it will always count on the support of Paul. In this particular case, Paul is asking the Government to rob both Peter and Paul to pay Paul. Now is that stupid or what?

The White Elephant Salesman says that White Elephants are good!

The British MP's committee rightfully castigated the UK Government and the EC for wanting to find this white elephant of a public sector behemoth. But never under-estimate the power of the public sector to suck on the tit of the taxpayer. Read this full column in the FT and try to figure out 2 things (1) what's the tangible cost benefit analysis to my tax pounds investment and (2) why did the private sector not invest the money that you have to come to me? No answers!

When will these chaps stop this habit of hitting the taxpayer for elitist projects?

I suppose the writers are totally disinterested observers in this Galileo project?

Read and Weep!

Why the Galileo project must go ahead
By Pierre Bartholomé and Kevin Madders

Published: November 18 2007 17:55 Last updated: November 18 2007 17:55

Galileo, Europe’s answer to the US global positioning system, is in trouble. Finance ministers are squabbling over a €2.4bn ($3.52bn) funding gap after a private consortium pulled out. A committee of British MPs has called for it to be put on ice unless there is a more convincing cost-benefit analysis.

The system was supposed to be available from 2010. Its accuracy would be measured in centimetres, not metres as with GPS, and visibility would improve – making it perfect for aircraft and other purposes, adding up to a huge civilian market. But GPS III, due in 2012, will also be more precise and reliable. So, if Galileo comes on line only around 2013, as present estimates suggest, it will not be able to steal a march on GPS.

Given the strength of the case against, it is hardly surprising to find ministers tongue-tied when defending Galileo. However, we believe Europe should go ahead with Galileo – but only under certain conditions.

Galileo is a technological place-marker. Have it, and you will be a leader in understanding and exploiting the potential of one of the biggest technologies to have arisen in the past 50 years. Shun it, and you will end up less well equipped to reap the benefits of positioning from space.

It is true that investing only in applications, not the system itself, could produce some of the benefits. But not all. There is no substitute for knowing a fundamental tool such as this one inside out, for the simple reason that we do not know many of the applications yet. The best way to make the innovative jump comes from making and then running the system.

There is no doubt Galileo can fulfil this role. It is superbly designed. We do not think it necessary for Galileo to be better than GPS III. It needs to be equivalent, so that Europe is in the game. If it stays out now, it will be much harder ever to get in, because this is technology that evolves rapidly.

There is also the chance that the additional services – for example, early warning of failure for safety-critical users such as airlines – will pay handsomely. The market is there. But this is not really the point when one enters a world game such as this. Contrary to what the UK House of Commons transport committee’s report suggests, not much trust can ultimately be placed in mere cost-benefit analysis with fundamental ­enabling infrastructures of this kind. Such analysis tends to be too crude because hard data are necessarily unavailable.

It was for the same reason that the UK could not see the value of communications satellites for Europe in the 1970s, which in fact turned into a ­powerful market for applications such as television and the internet.

Spatial positioning technology is in the same league as previous fundamental technologies, such as transistors, computers and mobile phones. We must get on with making sure the chances can be seized.

However, there are many ways ­Galileo can come unstuck, especially managerial and political. It is essential that delays are minimised. The system’s design should not be tampered with to play catch-up with GPS, for example, or downgraded as suggested by the transport committee report.

The European Commission must assume clear ownership and top-level management responsibility, and equip itself to exercise the role of supremo effectively. All those involved will have to allow it to meet its targets, working with and directing the European Space Agency as prime contractor.

European Union member states must resist the temptation to interfere in the project once it kicks off anew. On the Commission’s side, it needs to be more pragmatic about allocating work between countries. The normal rigours of open competitive bidding will ­probably have to be relaxed for this case. The Commission should aim for a compromise.

Policymakers need to stop duping themselves and others: it is idle to assume commercial revenue will cover all operations costs. The EU must plan for a sustaining budget. However, it should also look at the merits of slicing up and auctioning individual Galileo commercial services as the market ­ripens. The EU should guarantee far better transparency.

If ministers endorse a Galileo reorientated on these kinds of premises, it can turn the system into an asset for the citizens and security of Europe.


Mr Bartholomé, former head of the European Space Agency’s satellite communications design team, and Mr ­Madders are partners in the consultancy, Systemics Network International. Tony Ballard of Harbottle & Lewis also contributed to this article


All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

A Muslim Car????

Another state owned firm tries another wheeze to make fools of its customers and enrich the politicians. Welcome, Sir, would you like a Muslim Car? I sometimes think that their brains have dribbled out.

Read and poke fun at these stupid corrupt carmakers who will now wrap the car in religion!

 

Malaysia firm's 'Muslim car' plan

Proton believes it may have found a huge gap in the market

The Malaysian carmaker Proton has announced plans to develop an "Islamic car", designed for Muslim motorists.

Proton is planning on teaming up with manufacturers in Iran and Turkey to create the unique vehicle.

The car could boast special features like a compass pointing to Mecca and a dedicated space to keep a copy of the Koran and a headscarf.

The idea came during a visit to the Middle East by a delegation of Malaysian politicians and businessmen.

Malaysian press reports say officials in Iran originally suggested the idea.

Safety features or fuel economy is one way of selling a car, but Proton thinks vehicles designed specifically for Muslims across the world represent a huge gap in the market.

Proton is the most dominant car on the streets here but the company has suffered recently after the government allowed more foreign cars to be imported.

The firm has been in talks recently with VW about a takeover by the German car giant.

Technorati Tags: Malaysia , Muslims , Subsidies , Public Sector

Cool, divide and rule still works

Further to my note about Sarko's fight against the ossified and fossilised French State, he has negotiated with one union and they are happy. That leaves the rest of the unions hanging in the wind. And as you know, according to law, if one union agrees, then rest have to fall in line!

Technorati Tags: France , Unemployment , Public Sector , Worker Rights

Round VI in France

So they have gone on strike as I talked about here. This promises to be interesting as the public doesn't support the strike to any great extent and technology is changing the life of the public transport, the only line running in Paris was the one which was fully automated, something like the Docklands Light Railway in London.

Technorati Tags: France , Labour , Public Sector , Employment , Pensions , Strikes , Transportation

India to host world toilet summit

Well, this is scatological in nature, but despite the slightly risque' nature of the post, there is a serious element to this topic. Lack of good sanitation is one of the top 3 reasons for ill-health and sickness. Specially where fecal matter gets into the water supply, that provides a one way trip to the hospital.

Not only that, because of the lack of good sewer system, the disposal of the sewage is manual which is terrible from the perspective of human dignity. Lower caste Hindu's are frequently associated with fecal matter cleaning. Disgusting.

And the most hypocritical part is, people will happily walk in filth, dirty their surroundings, and then walk back inside their houses which are spotlessly clean. Bizarre, ignorant twits.

Hey, you can also generate energy from this crap (if you excuse the pun!)

Still, a good initiative indeed but I am slightly cynical. Remember the quote? "its easier to arrange for a global conference on clean environment than to pick up a chewing gum wrapper from the pavement and drop it into the waste-paper basket".

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Key workers priced out of 'most' towns

This is ridiculous, how can we afford to run a state like this? I quote:

Key workers including nurses and teachers are priced out of seven in ten towns and local authorities in the UK, research by the Halifax found.

The situation has to be rectified quickly because we play around with our essential services at our peril. While they are generally not hitting the headlines, these essential service works are the steel framework of the state. Whether we look at policemen, nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. all these very worthy folks are crucial for a good economy.

Technorati Tags: Public Sector , Employment , Housing

France to cut 22,921 jobs in public sector next year

As a firm believer in small government, this news is great!, When was the last time you heard about a government actually downsizing? But now you have, and the amusing thing is, that this is reported from the Official Chinese News Channel!

Also see this report on France's budget.

Technorati Tags: France , Jobs , Public Sector