Reply to: Accountants, Lawyers, Bankers and other non-wealth generating parasites ...

[Sysman]

What about firemen? They only work a small fraction of the time they're paid for.

In London's Burning they used to kip on the night shift like my mate in the print industry.

When I lived next door to a fire station they all were running their own private businesses.

Much more productive than kipping.

[SueEllen]

What about firemen? They only work a small fraction of the time they're paid for.

In London's Burning they used to kip on the night shift like my mate in the print industry.

Least there is a risk of them not surviving their shift and they have to see horrible things like the aftermath of road traffic accidents.

Bankers, accountants and solicitors only risk is that the client complaints to one of their regulators and they get to hear about it.

[xoggoth]

Damn, I'm agreeing with SAS on economics again. I must have caught some lefty brain worms.

I don't think our industry is quite as minor as some imagine but we could certainly use a major shift towards production. The obvious problem with a service based economy is the ease with which other countries could take it over, it needs major investment to make machinery.

Solicitors and accountants are largely unecessary, or would be if we had simpler laws and an effective arbitration system. Bring most of the precedent and common law stuff they spend time arguing about into statute law.

[Doggy Styles]

What about firemen? They only work a small fraction of the time they're paid for.

In London's Burning they used to kip on the night shift like my mate in the print industry.

[AtW]

German bank managers can be quite strict about lending money for frivolous expenditure.

You right... they put money into "AAA" grade subprime tulip in USA - had better ROI, at least on paper!

[AtW]

Dunno, but RBS are trying hard. Their Dutch office is right nextdoor to the Dutch national debt, known to the world as ING Bank, opposite a casino in Rotterdam. They've even had their very own zebra crossing built for convenience.

You mean stock exchange?

[TykeMerc]

He attempted to join way back when. But baulked at the idea when his Psychometric Test Results bracketed him as having the same military effectiveness as a sandbag!!! But with less sex appeal!!!

That's going far too far.














Sandbags can be quite useful.

[Paddy]

Funny how skewed the UK economy has become. The best paying jobs involve nothing very productive at all. While very lucrative for those who are accountants, lawyers and bankers how are we going to raise the cash to fill in the black holes of our balance of payments deficit and national debt, since they produce nothing we can sell to the rest of the world?

I have just had to sack a firm of solicitors who were acting for. They have been grossly negligent. I have regularly been pointing out their mistake in the case. What I diid in half a day, they could not do in six months.

What I have found out is that since Tony Blair QC came into power, many of the laws passed have lessoned the liability of solicitors, made them less accountable, more free to charge what they like. Conversely, the consumer has had their right eroded. Similarly the same goes for the banking industry and the rights of the consumer

On my phone call to the Law Society today, I told them that I would get a fairer deal from the Mafia than I would using a firm of solicitors.

My family friend solicitor retired early at 55 (now deceased) in his words “Solicitors are no longer professional. They are at it to get the maximum out of their clients.”

[Old Greg]

A good test, is to imagine what the impact would be if they all went on strike tomorrow.

would we even notice ?

teachers - yes
nurses -yes
binmen - yes

lawyers - yes actually
accountants - strangely yes
Bankers - no
philosophers - no


mind you, we pay people based on how hard it is to replace them, not on how productive they are

How would you know whether you were noticing that a philosopher was on strike if he was on strike? It could be a demon making you believe that you were noticing it.

Funnily enough, in my last contract I did a little work with a philospher, but we would have coped if he was on a one day strike. But if the Philospher's Union had been 'All out indefinite', we would have struggled.

[Bunk]

Perhaps I could switch the question and ask what HTML "coders" such as yourself produce?

Well, at a rough guess, I'd say websites

[shaunbhoy]

Didn't have you pegged as a military man

He attempted to join way back when. But baulked at the idea when his Psychometric Test Results bracketed him as having the same military effectiveness as a sandbag!!! But with less sex appeal!!!

[amcdonald]

You're an advisor to the SAS? Didn't have you pegged by a military man

FTFY

[d000hg]

The clue is in my username

You're an advisor to the SAS? Didn't have you pegged as a military man

[d000hg]

I didn't ask how useful they were.
I asked how will we generate money to pay off our national debt if everyone aspires to be an accountant, lawyer or banker.
These professions don't create wealth, they merely shuffle existing wealth around.

Of course they do. It's just not direct wealth-generation in a way your unsubtle mind can understand.

A UK-based bank can bring in massive profits from other nations, creating wealth within the UK. Even a dedicated accountancy or law firm can bring in money from overseas customers.
More generally a successful company needs accountants to keep it financially safe and solicitors to protect it, so ANY company which is generating wealth on a large scale needs people of these professions.

[shaunbhoy]

The clue is in my username, but only after you shuffle most of the letters around a bit

Yes. But just what does an Assrug contribute?