engineertony

It's a hard life at the top!

Let's hope that Burlesque Coni negotiates himself a good pension that includes generous 'boot polish hair enhancer' and 'lap top payment' allowances.

Let's also hope and pray that the poor man has lasted out long enough to avoid prosecution for all sorts of humanitarian acts designed to help boost his own fortunes and indirectly help his country's flagging economy.

At least most of us can now look forward to cheapo future holidays in BOTH Greece and Italy so there's always a silver lining to a euro cloud/thunderstorm/deluge.

The Germans invested heavily in constructing lots of hotels in the mediterranean; maybe this is all part of a cunning plan for TUI to take over the world of tourism (now their shares have been a bit depressed of late, haven't they?).

'Does anything ever change?'
Yes, but so far, not for the better...
The longer this crisis goes on, the more I fear for the 'lost generation'. I suppose it is inevitable that wages and salaries will be depressed when the oversupply of graduates is so large, but it is, I fear, a sign of a deflationary spiral when salaries for early career engineering graduates in central London are down to £20,000 for those lucky enough to get a start. I just wrote reference for a recent graduate for a job in Devon with a starting salary of £8,900 for a 30-hour week. But sharing the available work around at low pay may be preferable to building an army of jobless young people with no hope. BUt that makes CBI director General's call on big British business 'to prove that executive pay packets are deserved' a joke: when wages and salaries generally are declining, high and increasing levles of executive pay cannot possibly be justified.

Anonymous 1 needed this 'Off the Record'

Dear all
Debt and Credit.
Sometimes the two are synonymous and sometimes not.
We have noted action on debt-citywire- Crackdown on store cards, can we extend it to the banks? Could try, why not?
But there is another fundamental issue to consider, which is credit ratings.
Is it fair or reasonable to have people carry a six year ban on credit, for a small CCJ, or one they have paid off?
This amongst other things can mean that they cannot purchase a house for six years!
Time to unblock this blockage from the system,. and get the Commissioner to look into more sensible credit rating arrangements, not based on automatic six year bans?
Comments please.
Also, have you or some-one you know, ever got caught up in the credit ratings mire?

Prof Eman

Anonymous 1 needed this 'Off the Record'

Dear all
Another way to unblock the house building programme should be to break the monopoly powers of the LPA's (Local Planning Authorities), for example, stop their pathetic abuse of monopoly powers under their delegated powers and recommendations in Planning Committee meetings.
For more detail please see the - Planners from hell. Have you a story to tell - Forum.

Prof Eman

Prof,

Anything is worth a shot I'll have a go.
After working for 50 years and inventing for some 40 of these years, I've got first hand knowledge of the whole scene.
Practically all the firms I've had meetings with are now foreign owned. Philips Croydon, good idea we'll have to consult with Holland, Apex Marine great idea we'll get funding from Aqualung California, Brush Machines Loughborough great idea we'll ask Mirelli Motors Italy for the go ahead, and on and on.
There is not a single Venture Capital Organisation which does engineering start-ups for lone inventors.
At the moment we have hundreds if not thousands of companies setting up as consultants, advisers, help for inventors, patent agents, business link, SMART, etc etc...

There's an army of parasites and bluffers , chancers of every type, seminars and liason groups, exhibitions and presentations, self help advisors, positive thinking lecturers all taking government money and creating nothing.
I'm a member of dozens of these organisations. Typically....the UKIF, the UK invention Forum, mission is to put University spin-out companies in touch with the cash, it has 3000 members at £125 a year subscription. CEO Dr. Gerald Low, PhD in philosophy and theology. there's a hundred others.

Then we have Vince Cable. He has the Technology Strategy Board, with a subgroup, the KTN, Knowledge Transfer Network, with a subgroup _connect, with subgroups in various technology fields e.g. Power & Energy , Defence, and in each of these areas there are subgroups where we discuss our particular talents and skills. It pours millions, like 15 million here, 20 million there, and then he announces that X million has been put into promoting innovation in some area. The Organisation has achieved next to nothing in some two years.

We have NESTA, given 200 million with a mission to use the interest to promote Science, Technology & the Arts. Headed by Lord Putnam a film maker with a panel of art graduates and no engineers he gave everything to his mates in the film industry until they kicked him out and replaced him. They're not doing much better now.
Meanwhile a thousand SMEs are struggling for survival from years of government opposition to Manufacturing and Engineering.

Now it's panic time as Cameron realises that they don't want him in the Eurozone and they could make a financial centre in France or Germany, while at the same time India, Brazil, China, Korea, Japan, and a few more look poised to bury us in 10 or 20 years time.
I think the title of this thread might seem a bit more like "bid farewell to making stuff AND the golden egg of banking."
Inventions by their nature can sound strange and rediculous to those outside the specialised knowledge, nothing new, Frank Whittle with RAF chiefs, Dyson with Hoover, my latest oil well scheme sounds strange to most of the people I've contacted even in Oil & Gas Universities, but I have a working demonstration going on in my workshop right now. Still hardly any interest.
In spite of all the negatives I'll propose what you say to Citywire and tell the tale on this thread.