@ mike cobley
'There is no place for private sector/market mechanisms in the provision of public services'
really?
er what then are pharmaceutical companies doing sending out eye candy female salespeople selling drugs under patent to the doctora at their hospitals and surgeries?
I thought `Siemens made operating equipment and Phillips made MRI scanners, must be a mistake. The list is endless.

What has most of the comments on here got to do with Standard and Poor? Nothing! You should all go away and set up your own blog.

(track record) Let's not go there 1%. I may after start talking about your previous economically discredited Labour government's appalling track record!!

Rating agencies? one of the most bizarre creations of the financial services industries.

There you have three US companies scaring the shit out of most governments.

I am not sure whether the Chinese government gives a stuff.

Who are these companies accountable to? Their shareholders no doubt but no one else.

Since they stuffed up before the GFC and during it, why does anyone take any notice of it.

Most people or consultants if they stuff up big time they get the sack. What about rating agencies, they are consultants.

Who pays for their services??

Surely they weren't paid for their bad advice as discovered during the GFC.

Where is reason and logic in all of this.

IMO their power is beyond reason.

You went there Luddite, and looked stupid yet again, your feet must be seriously deformed, if your not shooting them, there in your horrible mouth.

Your thoughts are appalling and worthless Luddite, like the CDO's, please remember that.

You do talk Luddite, but have nothing to say.

Living in a country with a firmly regulated financial services industry,
The outfall from the current crisis is not causing panic so far.

Perhaps our govt debt is not of US or European proportions.

I wished I could say that of private sector debt.

What a lot of people in Europe and the US find hard to accept is that the decades of living of credit have come to an end.

Living within one's means is the key to overcoming it.

It involves pain and no one wants to experience or endure it.

What is happening is the recession we had to have, in order to knock some sense into people businesses and governments. The ways of the last three decades have been the wrong ones and the chicken have come home to roost.

A sick person usually takes the medicine subscribed by the doctor with the expectation to recover.

In most countries affected by the living beyond their means sickness the people and governments do not want to take the medicine. They hope for a white knight or a miracle.

In the real world those two don't exist.

So accept that only hard work and being industrious will get you out of the hole plus complemented by living within your means.

Looking for an example, take your ideological glasses off and look at China.

Yes they do not have Western democracy and you can't criticize the government.

Do remember if you haven't got a job you can't eat freedom.

Being able to tell the govt that the are a bunch of useless cretins doesn't pay the electricity bill or the rent.

Living under Chinese conditions may not be your answer but a lowering of expectations will be a start. Then telling the govt to care for the 99% rather than just the 1% is the next step and don't take no for an answer.

Many people don't grasp that a people owned corporation (the people are the shareholders)can work as efficiently as a private shareholder company.
All that is required is competent management, an independent board and run on commercial lines with the aim to be profitable. The dividends are paid to the people shareholders. All the people need is for their government to organise the setting up of the corporation (s) and exercising oversight on behalf of the people.

Don't overlook that dividends are taxable and thus the people pass on a share to the govt for the cost of governance.

This isn't communism. communism failed because it did not involve the people. The one party rulers considered the people as enemies, to be used and poorly rewarded. An approach doomed from the beginning.

A one party rule over time becomes fossilised and thus is unable to adapt to changing circumstances.

Power for power's sake is a recipe for disaster over time. Just look at
periods of life of repressive rulers, dictatorships if you like.

Rulers come and go but the people are there until the end of the world, of course there is an ongoing renewal of generations.

For rulers you can also substitute empires. None of them are indefinite.

If Eurozone nations do get downgraded and at this time it is still a big IF then this will be a massive vindication of the UK governments fiscal policy and the final nail in the coffin of the Euro.

The UK and coalition are on track to be the only major economy to have a AAA.

Does Labour still think it would be worthwhile downgrading the UK credit rating so that they could go on a borrowing and voter treat spending binge to secure power for the Labour elite?

Clearly some of you have forgotten that as recently as last week there was concern that the UK's AAA rating would be lost. I hardly think that is a reason for smugness, especially given how much more the Tories are having to borrow in order to pay for their unemployment schemes (remember, they are making cuts that they don't actually seem to understand - laying people off and preventing them paying tax means borrowing has to increase to have them on the dole) and the cuts will have to continue for three more years. The UK won't be AAA-rated for long.

"In addition to the banks, they got £1 trillon from the tax payers and they will never reembourse us back that's why we are having these austerities plans."

Utterly, utterly false, but I can see why you'd want to believe that.

The average full time public sector worker is on £28,802.

Perhaps we should change the old adage to:
"whoever you vote for, Standard & Poors get in!" or
"whoever you vote for, the bond market gets in!"
That's certainly how it feels at the moment.

@Mr Danger

Mean, Median or mode? I suspect mean. The heavy weighting of those in the upper realms of the pay scale would have an effect on the outcome of the 'average', making it appear far higher than it really is for most workers. In reality, you will be hard pushed to find a lot of public sector workers on anything close to that. Also, where did you get that figure from?

Mr Danger:

As you don't provide a reference for your figure, we dont know what it includes: is this the whole of the UK? Are the armed forces included? Is RBS included (as it is in Scotland)? How skewed is the number by Chief Execs' 150k+ salaries?

One also needs to take into account more than just a figure; no bonuses, no 'perks', slow movement 'up the ladder', no company cars, no overtime etc.

I guess most public sector workers get a generous pension (oh wait...)

S&P, another incompetent bunch of shysters. They gave AAA ratings to Freddie Mac, Fanny Mae, Lehmans, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley etc.
It seems the more incompetent and corrupt the more likely S&P will give you a triple A.

Re Saving Money with Public Sector Cuts.

The MOD have spent billions on procurement over the past decade and failed to procure a single piece of equipment worth having. All those billions were spent in the American private sector, not ours. It doesn't matter how many civil servants there are on £18,000 or £100,000 a year, they are all a waste of space and the whole lot should be sacked and those billions spent elsewhere.

It has been known for some time (but rarely publicly stated) that the ratings agencies reflect not the viability of nations, companies, etc etc, but the state of mind of investors and their stance with regard to whatever nation or company etc etc. Investors are not concerned with the debt of nations, except where it impacts on the money that can be made (and how quickly it can be made). There is no sober analysis or sage appraisals going on here, just pressure, threats, and greed.

Shinsei67:

"It has costs in poorer public services but on a purely financial basis it does cut the deficit." But the two aren't seperate- public services save money and are a prerequisite of a strong private sector- we educate people so they can have skills, help them so they can raise children well, and provide business with the infrastructure needed etc.

nourredine: Agreed- there are scores of private companies reliant on the public sector for business. If public services are cut, the private sector also suffers greatly.

@Mike Cobley

You raise an interesting point. Why aren't investors interested in the debts of nations?

Computer says 'no'.
Bunch of tossers who, given their sound recommendations for the dubious financial prcatices that fuelled the credit crunch, have about as much credibility in the real world as as a swimming pool employing Jaws as a lifeguard.

How unfortunte that the financial twonks who make decisions based on their smoke and mirror predictions don't live in the real world.

Annamint:

"Also although public sector cuts may have the illusion of saving money (In a mathmatical way)."

If you work through all the sums of the tax generated through spending and that spending boosting the economy (it's called a multiplier effect and a well-known economic tool) then it is still clear that the government saves money by sacking people.

Otherwise governments faced with fiscal deficits would just hire more people.

So unless you think the governments of Ireland, Italy, America, Spain, Germany etc etc are all stupid then you must realise that the mathematics does work as I have said.

Of course, for every teacher lost there is a net loss on the overall quality of education of the UK population. And for every NHS worker sacked. Etc

And that does have a cost.

So the question is therefore one of balance.

Hence the reason the government isn't sacking all 6 million public sector workers tomorrow in order to clear the deficit immediately but "only" 710,000 over the next four years.

to Shinsei67
You seem to forget that not only public sector employee contribute to the tax but also the nhs worker and the teather put in the pension scheme that is sustainable and affordable.
So your mathematical equation is not complete.

ooops cut half off.

Total economic ,social and political domination of Europe.

Rob, ah one little difference you fail to mention...the private sector requires a profit. Remember thats why power, water and telephone had to be sold off...as the public sector could not run a profitable business!!!!!!! Strangely the same faces stayed in place ,just got paid more. Surely its logical that Private sector companies must charge more for a service than a public sector one. oh public ones cannot be as efficient...Bulldroppings.

My daughter in the public sector and aged 27, gets £30,000 a year. Her friend, aged 27, in another part of the public sector, gets £29,000. They are neither of them teachers. Lots of teachers get more than £30,000 a year, don't they?