Originally Posted by El Capitano
Interesting. Do you have some reading material for that, I'm quite curious as to what he does?
Interesting. Do you have some reading material for that, I'm quite curious as to what he does?
Just Google "Putin diesel price" or something similar, there are quite a few articles about it, he is in constant battle with energy companies and now that he's coming back as president he's going to push their shit in, he's already said that.
Also people talking about profit margins, it's very easy to make a huge profit look like a low % on paper, it's very, very easy and most energy companies do it.
OK, I Googled that phrase and what came back was, well, not much. There's lots of tough talk, but very little by way of figures.
Well OK, I assume you have figures to back up your claims. Perhaps you could provide them instead of just throwing accusations around.Also people talking about profit margins, it's very easy to make a huge profit look like a low % on paper, it's very, very easy and most energy companies do it.
Well I don't have any figures for what Rans is going on about but having worked at an accountancy firm for a long time, I can say at least for tax purposes, there are a lot of ways to make money look like it isn't there.OK, I Googled that phrase and what came back was, well, not much. There's lots of tough talk, but very little by way of figures.
Well OK, I assume you have figures to back up your claims. Perhaps you could provide them instead of just throwing accusations around.Also people talking about profit margins, it's very easy to make a huge profit look like a low % on paper, it's very, very easy and most energy companies do it.
Hello? Oh, hello! I'm sorry it's a very bad line. No, no no... but that's not possible, she was sealed in to the Seventh Obelisk after the prayer meeting. Well, no, I get that it's important... an Egyptian Goddess loose on the Orient Express. In Space. Give us a mo....
... don't worry about a thing, your Majesty; we're on our way.
Brilliant reply.Interesting. Do you have some reading material for that, I'm quite curious as to what he does?
I've never worked at an accountancy firm but I can say that anyone who isn't aware that there are lots of ways to make money look like it isn't there and that lots of corporations do this (probably all of the big ones. shit, I know small businesses that do this) is astoundingly naive.
1. Google better, last February, I think, he told them to lower the prices or else. And the prices dropped quite a bit. He has a pretty big task as he has to force all the billionaires that cashed in on the Russian privatisation to invest the money in Russia's energy sector/infrastructure. And he will force them, it's not a bit secret that he's called a couple of Russia's wealthiest and told them to decide where they want to invest, also he told them to build a stadium for the World Cup out of their own pocket.OK, I Googled that phrase and what came back was, well, not much. There's lots of tough talk, but very little by way of figures.
Well OK, I assume you have figures to back up your claims. Perhaps you could provide them instead of just throwing accusations around.Also people talking about profit margins, it's very easy to make a huge profit look like a low % on paper, it's very, very easy and most energy companies do it.
And the numbers bit: I don't have them, it's not like you expect a big company to say "we will make our expenses look a lot bigger than they are and pretend we're not making much money", it's just common knowledge that dodging the tax man is every rich man/company's favorite hobby.
It's got the right in uproar. "Sacking our boys while the pen pushers go on strike!!!1!" and so on.
Though, while it should be noted the headline is "No civil servant cuts" the first paragraph makes it clear that, in actual fact, some 30,000 posts are being eliminated. It's just they haven't had to resort to compulsory redundancies yet.
OTOH, sacking a load of the scientific/technical employees at the MOD and then bitching about the amount spent on consultants to replace their work is pretty stupid.
(Note, I would never claim that the way the MOD works is anything other than fucking retarded. But we're hardly alone among in the West in having a military procurement process driven more by flagwaving, domestic politics and retardation than actual need)
I've heard a lot about food prices being specifically out of control at the moment. Food and energy inflation in the US is 2.0% last I remember
Well that explains why I've gone under budget this month. These numbers come from where I haven't noticed an increase in cost I have however spent less.I've heard a lot about food prices being specifically out of control at the moment. Food and energy inflation in the US is 2.0% last I remember
I don't know what's going on in the UK right now, but my statement is still generically true.This is total bullshit. Real inflation in the UK is extremely low provided you discount energy and commodities prices.
Inflation in the UK is illusory and mainly the result of rip-off energy bills from the oligopoly of under-regulated providers, and high food prices worldwide.
Perhaps that's true, but I prefer to live in a country where politicians don't generally make offers they can't refuse to businessmen.
Why are you surprised? The pen-pushers are the ones who decide where the money is spent.
It's not really that simple. Yes, you can fiddle with numbers to various extents, but remember what their incentives are. For financial accounting, you generally want your profits to be as high as possible, because those are the ones that the markets look at when deciding your stock price. Since most of the CEO's pay comes from stock options, he's generally going to want to increase the margins by as much as he can get away with. You want to minimize earnings for the purposes of tax accounting, but that's a completely different set of books, so you can even sometimes do both. I doubt oil companies are so concerned with PR that they'd tank their stock prices in order to lower their margins. The more obvious explanation is that they just spend a lot of money.
"Make no mistake, Communism lost a big argument - one we know today as the 20th century."
That's all well and good, but sitting around crying about the energy firms making £110-odd profit from a £1,100 bill is still silly. If you think they're actually making much more than that, fine, but you'll still have to show some justification for that belief.
Yes, I'm not saying they don't have big expenses, they do, but it's a lot easier to do your math when you can just take whatever expenses you've got, add 10% profit and sell that to the clients who only have 2-3 alternatives(sometimes even less) that have the same price ± a few %. :tinfoil hat:
I really have no time for anyone who believes its a great idea to replace pencil pushers with (expensivily) trained policemen, doctors and soldiers who would have otherwise been doing there actual job instead of (inefficiently filing papers).
Good to know. What's your opinion of people who simply think that fewer pencils ought to be pushed?
"Make no mistake, Communism lost a big argument - one we know today as the 20th century."
Consumer confidence is low because of the toxic effects of public sector cuts. VAT increases, public sector wage freeze and an order not to replace public sector workers (attrition) would have probably reduced the budget by exactly the same amount.Noone in Europe is seeing serious growth - there is literally zero evidence that, for example, hugely increasing borrowing in order to pump money into the economy through welfare, infrastructure spending, tax cuts etc would in any way help. What it definitely would do however, is hugely increase our cost of borrowing as the market got spooked.Yep, we're trying to cut the deficit, by depressing the economy and increasing the deficit.The thing is that if Labour had be reelected and continued on with their "We can spend our way out of this" policy, it would be be the current levels of borrowing plus a whole lot more. We would be in with Italy and Greece at levels of market confidence.
The cuts might not be doing much yet in practice, but they at least show that we are trying, instead of just relying on the magic checkbook of invisible money.
The UK currently has the lowest average yield on its long term debt Europe. That is a sign that the governments plan is the correct one. Its all very well saying "lol no growth" but you simply arnt going to grow if noone else you trade with does and consumer confidence is so low, regardless of gov spending.
And you'll see soon enough just how fickle bond markets are, we will be in an official recession next year and considering all of the token kenysian tactics Osborne is now flinging at the wall, you'd bet that his advisers are probably hearing something else about the long term prospects of the economy.
They are usually the same ones that believe that there should be less laws, less regulations, that people can govern themselves if only we got out of the way, etc etc.Good to know. What's your opinion of people who simply think that fewer pencils ought to be pushed?
Unfortunately human nature and the complexities of reality prevent libertarianism from actually working in anything but fantasy.
Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc.
So you're trying to tell me that everything governments do needs doing?They are usually the same ones that believe that there should be less laws, less regulations, that people can govern themselves if only we got out of the way, etc etc.
Unfortunately human nature and the complexities of reality prevent libertarianism from actually working in anything but fantasy.
"Make no mistake, Communism lost a big argument - one we know today as the 20th century."
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