Lib Dems prove once again they are not fit to govern

[Scoobos]

Nooooooooooooooooo!

[Robinho]

Well what I see is that you stick to your ideology while being very selective with the use of empirical evidence. You seem to ignore things that don't fit your ideology. That's a trait I've seen in many economists.

Where have i ignored something that doesn't' fit my "ideology"?

[Mich the Tester]

Nooooooooooooooooo!

whs

[Robinho]

How ironic that you've ignored my last post.

[cykophysh39]

Then they should show they care buy paying more money for their products for the convenience of a local shop. If they are not willing to do that, then they can have no complaints that there is no longer a shop.

How much further from the point do you want to get? So far that you just don't want to make any sense?

The emphasis here is on sustainability, obviously prior to the speculators coming to town things were at a sustainable level in the town. The small town obviously had a centre of gravity which attracted people into the centre, which translated in them "spending money". However, obviously this sustainability did not translate into profitability for the bank in the first instance. Obviously in response to Shareholder demands to increase profitability, the back responded in closing the least preforming branches. A case in point where profitability trumps sustainability.

In order to massage a figure on a balance sheet, to provide a more attractive figure to another balance sheet, i.e. an investors balance sheet, the heart of a town was ripped out.

The situation is exasperated by the fact that now, people are unable to actually "pay more money to shop locally" , because in fact that are unable to take money out locally. Thus resulting them to obviously travel to a town that obviously has a brank, providing the facilities to withdraw money, a centre of gravity, upon drawing money, this money was obviously spent in the that town. Further eroding the prospects for businesses in thier local town!

The cycle shop is an interesting conumdrum, obviously the arrangements for the cycle shop were one of a sustainable nature, in that the owner could provide a value added service to his community at a price that A. His customers could afford and B. Could keep him in a comfortable lifestyle whilst doing something he obviously enjoyed.

Upon arrival of the speculators, they try to sieze on opportunity to make a profit, in order to satisfy the demands of returns from investors (private equity works that way), they tried to increase prices for rent, which obvioulsy would drive up the costs of goods, to an unsustainable level, beyond the reach of the local people.

There lies the crux of the debate, where is the happy medium between sustainabilty and profitability?

We have been on the path the "Profitability" for the last few decades but unfortunately have not been cognizant of the how we are going to maintain it!

We are now looking to profitability to try dig us out of the hole that profitabilty put us into!

[SueEllen]

This is true. In France in particular there is a civic pride that motivates workers to give a reasonable service. They do however still service on their own terms rather than on the terms of their customers (the public they serve) So education and healthcare are pretty good. However where every country falls down is in servicing those at the very bottom of the pile. In all these countries (I am not sure about the Nordic ones) but there exists about 10% of the population with no work and living in relative poverty.

Nordic countries intervene early on in childhood to show children what the state and in turn their society expects from them. Hence the free or heavily subsidised nursery care for every child.

If the authorities think the parents are still lacking even with that amount of intervention they get more involved. The idea is to stop children becoming future prison statistics and costing the state, in turn society, more.

Unfortunately not all Nordic countries can cope with immigration from certain Muslim countries, as like with the politically correct in the UK, they bend over backwards to accommodate these people's bigoted and sexist attitudes. So you will hear stories in some Nordic countries such as a Muslim helper giving all the male children in a class milk first before the female children, which would not be accepted in the UK.

Clearly the public services are failing in Germany as much as they are failing here. by failing I mean that they are failing to prepare particularly the poor and young to compete and join in with the rest of society.

This is not the fault of the rich or a lack of money it is the fault of the government in failing for example to give children a decent education.

In one way you could argue it's a fault of the rich as if you can afford to educate your kid privately and do so, then you don't have a vested interest in making sure that useless teachers in a state school are removed.

It's shown that state education in this country has a postcode lottery. (I'm a product of it.) If you are lucky enough to go to a state school with enough upwardly mobile immigrants and/or middle class parents then you will get a better education than if you go to a state school with working class and under-class parents who threaten to punch teachers' lights out.

[SueEllen]

How much further from the point do you want to get? So far that you just don't want to make any sense?

It was good to leave him to re-read and ponder some of the points we were making rather than to spoon feed him answers to questions.

[Robinho]

How much further from the point do you want to get? So far that you just don't want to make any sense?

How does this not make sense? If the citizens of the town found it beneficial to use the local shops then they would be prepared to pay a premium for the convenience which would have allowed the businesses to stay in existence. As they found it more cost/time efficient or better to go to other shops, then they obviously can't complain if the shops in town goes.

Wouldn't it be nice if steam trains were back. Yes how twee that would be, but..... would you be prepared to pay more for your rail fare to see them back? No i doubt it, which is why they don't operate today. If people liked steam trains so much that they would be prepared to pay a premium to cover the increases expenses and more then steam trains wouldn't go away. But people weren't and they died, just like the shops in this town.

You argue that closing the bank to increase profits was unsustainable. Well, if it increased profits for the bank, this means.... the individual branch was unprofitable. And lack of profit is definitely unsustainable. The bank is not a charity, thus it was well within its rights to closed.

[Robinho]

It was good to leave him to re-read and ponder some of the points we were making rather than to spoon feed him answers to questions.

You are a moron.

[Scoobos]

Rob, its not black and white.

People can't pay a premium for a service if they haven't got a source of income to be able to earn the premium.