I read Escotrogen's post with interest, he advocates getting banks to part with their money but that is what lead to this whole global crisis in the first place. We have to make cuts in expenditure and they have to be severe enough to start to swing the economy back.
It always amuses me that people automatically assume that wages in the private sector are so much better than the public sector. In most cases they aren't better at all and the public sector pensions are the envy of the private sector and, in many cases, still include final salary schemes that have been almost wiped out in the private sector.
Forget the high rollers that Labour keep harking on about, they are out there but not in sufficient number to make a realistic difference even by taxing them out of existence. Take away the very top private sector earners, in the middle and below the wages between the two sectors aren't that different and at the very bottom public sector wages are usually more generous that the private sector with hardly any public sector workers on minimum wage.
The private sector has been cutting its cloth for a while now as firms struggle to cope with the recession, now it has fallen on the public sector. A pay freeze now is not a pay cut because we are in negative inflation so the salary you earn this year is automatically worth more than the same salary last year. The idea of pay awards is to keep your spending power at the same level year on year, it is not a reward or a promotion, if inflation is negative there is no need for a pay rise anyway.
It always amuses me that people automatically assume that wages in the private sector are so much better than the public sector. In most cases they aren't better at all and the public sector pensions are the envy of the private sector and, in many cases, still include final salary schemes that have been almost wiped out in the private sector.
Forget the high rollers that Labour keep harking on about, they are out there but not in sufficient number to make a realistic difference even by taxing them out of existence. Take away the very top private sector earners, in the middle and below the wages between the two sectors aren't that different and at the very bottom public sector wages are usually more generous that the private sector with hardly any public sector workers on minimum wage.
The private sector has been cutting its cloth for a while now as firms struggle to cope with the recession, now it has fallen on the public sector. A pay freeze now is not a pay cut because we are in negative inflation so the salary you earn this year is automatically worth more than the same salary last year. The idea of pay awards is to keep your spending power at the same level year on year, it is not a reward or a promotion, if inflation is negative there is no need for a pay rise anyway.