United Kingdom 01 (Dec 10 to Jan 12)

[kennynah]

UK's 4Q GDP contracted 5%; ie -ve 5%

oh well...

i guess most punters back home not too keen on UK's GDP....becos, the negative GDP in last quarter 2010 is NOT 5% ... it is just -ve 0.5 %

[winston]

i guess most punters back home not too keen on UK's GDP....

I think it's not only punters back home. I think the whole world dont really care about UK GDP's

[kennynah]

and for good reasons... they have quite insignificant global economic impact relative to China, usa, combined eu zone..

in fact, they still live in their "empire" past.... a self induced importance...

[kennynah]

currently in UK, employees who think they have been wrongfully dismissed after 1 year of employment can sue their employer... at no court cost .. which means, even if they were unsuccessful, they pay nothing...

the present gahmen is trying to change the law, pushing the 1 year to 2 years... all in the effort to encourage employment...

this is a tangible step to boost the employment situation....

what is our gahmen doing?? still encouraging employing security guards at the casinos? skills upgrade for old folks so they can clean rubbish and wipe tables at macdonald's?

[kennynah]

just passing on a political system of check and balance they have in UK...

for every ministerial position, there is a "shadow" minister, serving to scrutnise policies coming out of the ministry supported by the present minister.

thus, the chancellor of exchequer (ie, the finance minister) has to contend with answering questions by the shadow chancellor of exchequer, say, when he wants to raise taxes...

such shadow ministers are part of the gahmen... they are not seen as political "oppositions" but a healthy check and balance element...

now, i cannot imagine any ruling regime subscribing to this system...heck, in fact, i dont see how we ever can have any meaningful opposing voice in parliament, at the rate we nincumpoops vote...

[kennynah]

the UK government and the four pillar UK banks, Lyoyds, RBS, HSBC and Barclay's, have come to an agreement on lendings and bonuses as of Wed 9feb.

in essence, the banks have agreed to lend 6% more than the previous year, in the tune of some GBP160bil and in exchange, the chief bankers are allowed to receive their 2010 bonuses amounting to between GBP1.25mil to 2mil in shares. these amounts are about 2/3 of their previous bonus payouts.

[kennynah]

there's been a latest political issue on debate in UK parliament involving the rights of prisoners to vote for their chosen candidate for goverment.

european union ruled that prisoners shd have no such rights and since uk is part of EU, this ruling shd apply in ther country. however, house of commons do not agree.

and the debate goes on....

[kennynah]

inflation is a key topic of discussion by BoE and the UK government recently..i suspect it is prepping itself to raise IR very soon...

cameron is under pressure everyday on issues regarding :

budget deficit cuts
government grants cuts
rising inflation

[kennynah]

in the almost 3 months, i count at least 4 stabbing cases in UK, mostly within london..

security is really not very good...

you've got to leave Sngapore to realize how relatively secure our streets are...

[kennynah]

very recently, i had the task of looking into subscribing to a home-broadband/tv/phone package...

like in singapore, in the uk, they too have a gamut of service providers... you probably heard of the more famous ones, like british telecom (bt), sky and virgin media...but they do have others like talk-talk, o2, thaitv, etc but they dont offer all 3 services..

like singapore telecom, in the uk, bt too works like a GLC...slow and with an attitude... but cheap...

like starhub when it first started its cable vision, in the uk, virgin also uses cables to reach homes... and they don't have the last mile pulled to many places, mine included...so, great asset, badly deployed...

that leaves us with Sky...and they are relatively more expensive than bt ...

headache...

but i think...after reviewing several sites..such as this below...Sky's the way

http://btcomplaint.co.uk/2011/01/bt-com ... -and-fast/

from this experience (see Life thread to get the meaning of this word), it's funny that some of us in the telco industry always had a very good impression of BT, as a world class carrier... you only have to be here for a while to hear of their horrendous customer service