Private equity - Good Heavens! George Osborne has got this one right.
The British labor union umbrella group, The Trades Union Congress have echoed calls by some of their member unions for the Government to take action against private equity companies.
Far from becoming obsolete as its membership declines, the labor union movement in the UK has gained a new lease of life. One reason for this is the Labour Party government’s massive expansion of public sector employment. Public sector employees are more likely to be union members than people in the non tax-funded sector. Another reason their influence has grown is that a number of high profile scandals (Ecclestone, Powderject, Mittal and now Cash for Honours to name but a few) involving donations to the Labour Party becoming subject to intense media interest, have made potential donors to Labour Party funds reluctant to come forward. This leaves the trades unions as the most significant funders of the Labour Party. Without them, Labour would be even more bankrupt than it is.
Union leaders have branded private equity companies as “amoral asset strippers” and “casino capitalists”. What they are really concerned about is their belief that private equity takeovers of companies sometimes result in an immediate reduction in the workforce as the new owners seek to improve the profitability of the company.
This is just old fashioned anti-capitalism dressed up in new clothes and is really a dim-witted response to the phenomenon. See this well written critique of that mode of thought.
Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne has taken a break from clobbering holidaymakers to make some very sensible points about the contribution private equity companies make to the economy.
The astonishing thing about Osbourne’s speech to the British Venture Capital Association is that he actually urged then to take a principled stand against their critics. He said,
You should not stay silent. You should respond to these attacks. Let me tonight set out three ways in which you can do just that. First, you should make the case for your industry with self-confidence and openness. You should not hide from the country the wealth you create for us all. I congratulate those among you who have been at the forefront of doing just that. Putting your head above the parapet takes courage – but it is only when you are above the parapet that you can fire back.
Does anyone get the impression that George Osbourne is finding life under the politically-correct David Cameron a little bit stifling?
Comments are off for this postGlitch 100 word
“Damn it,” he twatted his GPS, “bloody upgrade full of glitches.”
“Ah so you’ve no idea where the hell we are then..” responded his
companion. “I don’t suppose we could ask for directions.”
“Um, not wise as we sort of stick out here.”
“You mean we do not look inbred and sometimes barely human?”
“Pretty much yeah. We are going to have stop moving for a sec and lets
this damn thing reset itself.”
“Modern technology vs. Deep Ones ingrown cunning and sense of
direction.” He paused”it’s a bloody wonder they haven’t won!”
“It’s the near-the-sea problem they have”
1 commentNew listing service…
Be interesting to see whether its any good as there are so many about it has to be said.
Comments are off for this postRichard’s clanger
I am wont, when my beloved comes home from work in time and vegs, to sit on the couch to watch Richard & Judy together. I take great delight in watching the couple make arses of themselves on a daily basis. Last night was a particularily good one.
They were discussing a new show which conjectures on what would have happened if the dinosaurs had not been wiped out by an asteroid. He said that he enjoys this sort of historical conjecture…thinking about things like if Germany had one the WWII. This clanger was especially good since the company that sponsors them is called Schwartz.You will see on their site a number to call for people ripped off by their phone-in competition. The show is really going from strength to strength.
Comments are off for this postFinding my inner Cartman
I find myself hearing Cartman in my head while watching the news in the last fews days. Am I in touch with my inner fat arse? Well no, not really, its more like my inner hippie loather. A few minutes ago Sky interviewed a professional hippy who is all frothy Trident replacement.
Not only is smelly ole hag spewing rubbish about Trident and nukes (they are illegal according to whom?) but she has filled her two children with her dross. The older one, who was born at a demo, was even wearing a Palistinian scarf to make him look even more daft. Obviously she didn’t bother to teach her kids about hypocrisy or irony.
I really do loath smelly terrorist-supporting surrender hippies.
Comments are off for this postGet yer flights
A few weeks ago I was full on planning the honeymoon for the end of May. In the end we did the sit in a travel agent and hash it out method. But that is not before we did quite a bit of research online about where to go and what is available. One thing we needed was Flights to Caribbean and it was very helpful to see how easy (or not) it is to get to different destinations. In the end we settled for the Mayan Riviera (like the French one but with human sacrifice). This post is sponsored.
Paging Bram Stoker
Yet again I am in possession of a hot story which has eluded the attention of the blogosphere. It reminds me all too well of the critical flaw in Chrtien’s “Me too, Bill!” Kosovo War: The failure to appreciate that these people were truly, deeply nuts.
Mind you, the Serbs come off as kind of weird, too:
THE BODY of Slobodan Milosevic, the late president of Serbia and butcher of the Balkans, has suffered the indignity of having a wooden stake driven through the heart in a ritual “vampire exorcist” attack.Days before the first anniversary of Milosevic’s burial in his home town of Pozarevac, a young self-confessed “vampire hunter” and paid-up member of the local chapter of The Resistance, presumably to the Undead, dealt with the mortal remains of the late dictator in the time-honoured Balkan fashion.
The first anniversary of a man’s death is a significant date in the Vampire Hunters’ Almanac, apparently a well thumbed handbook in Serbia and other, even darker corners of the Balkans. Milosevic’s significant anniversary date fell yesterday.
Concerned relatives are anxious to avoid a repeat performance:
Slobodan Milosevic’s daughter Marija Milosevic has hired security guards to protect her father’s body from vampire hunters.The self-styled vampire hunters have already made one attempt at driving a wooden stake through the former dictator’s heart to ‘stop him returning from the dead’.
Oh, sure. Now she thinks of it.
Comments are off for this postMobile notary
You never know where you will be when you need to find a notary. Rather than waste money calling information why not use your mobile to find that notary that you need? It will find a notary for you anywhere in the US. They are adding notaries every day to make sure they have everyone covered. This post is sponsored.
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