The Tube Drivers Strike.

Good Luck Jim, your sight is such a precious thing. Keep us all informed

Cannot say about UK but here in Oz we have the CFMEU, the most militant union you could ever wish for. They are mainly building and any job they are on always goes over time and budget. Problem is no major building can be done without them as they control all the building workers. Currently there is a royal commission looking into the general matter of unions and some of the stuff coming out is putting a lot of people, including the leader of the opposition under so very hard pressure, he was a union leader atone time.

Jim, hope the procedure went ok.
regards
Vic

Glad to see you back on the keyboard Jim, but take it easy as keyboard work can be a strain on the old peepers

Thanks chaps for your well wishes.Yesterday when I came home I couldn't see the screen atal still not as clear as I would like but having said that I've got about another 4 days of drops to do,I cant believethe distance that I can see,I considered my self dangerous on the road even with glasses so I haven't driven for years.This morning when I got up I looked through the window at the cars in the avenue and I was surprised that I could read all the Reg Plates something I haven't been able todo for a long time.The place I went to is a private clinic doing NHS work,I know if I went to a NHS hospital they would've chased me regarding my other eye that has quite thick cataracts but not much vision in in because of scarring.Anyway this clinic is going to do it in 6weeks time,I think I may have just overdone it here screen going a bit blurre so I will close it down,

Regards,
Jim.B.

#72...Heard stories about the same bloke John, although he may have a baby face so did one of the infamous gangsters in Chicago in the 30"s, wouldn't trust him to post a letter. The reason I would never vote for the Labour party out here, they are nearly all from the top echelons of the same and carry on in the same manner using other peoples money mainly for their own lifestyle. Don't have any real regard for any politician even less for the above mentioned. He came to the forefront during the time those two miners were trapped underground in Tasmania, stood on the bye lines shouting the odds against the mine owner, never saw him volunteering for any rescue party however. His knowledge of world affairs must be zilch. Apart from what his mother in law tells him. Cheers JS

INDEPENDANT FINANCIAL ADVISORS.
Getting somebody fired from their job is not something to boast about but I have no regrets about one individual who I had fired.This individual was a IFA and he ripped a customer of mine off who was not a very bright person.My customer was telling me that he had remortgaged his house and part of the deal he was told by this IFA was that he had to take out a Endowment Mortgage not only that but he had to pay three years premiums in advance which he would have deducted from his loan.I asked this chap to bring his paperwork down to my office and I would have a look at it.It turned out that it was not an endowment but in fact a life insurance it was a product that had been sold to this chap under false pretences and was of no use to him.I took the paperwork to the mortgage brokers office and on seeing the owner pointed out how this man had been ripped off by his IFA.His bottle went he refunded the three years premiums in full and fired the IFA allegedly.The reason this IFA did this of course was his greed for big commission.
John Sutton is quite correct regarding IFA's earning ten times what tube drivers earn and quite honestly the ones I knew would earn that money by hook or by crook even to the extent of falsifying application forms such as monthly income. Where they knew the applicants income was not high enough to qualify for the amount applied for they would inflate it not caring that on his income he would be in trouble meeting the monthly payments and could be repoed.That didn't bother them all they could see was the ££££££'s commission.
PPI.Banks could face a bill of £33Billion because of mis-sold PPI.I remember IFA's selling PPI to people who could never use it such as OAP's and people on invalidity benefit for life,the applicant being told if they don't take out the PPI they cannot have a loan,what a rip off to earn a bit of commission.So it wasn't just a couple of IFA who sold this PPI it was obviously thousands of them.
Maybe I was a bit harsh on john Sutton but he was slagging the tube drivers off and if you slag people off you cannot or should not expect not be slagged off in return.So we accept that John was a honest and upright IFA,the point that I was making at the time was,tube drivers were out doing an honest days work which is more than I could say for many IFA's that I came across in the past.
Regards.
Jim.B.

There have always been Bent Salesmen conning people just for their own commission.
In the 50s and 60s I knew a few door knocker salesmen. [Good Morning Missus, I`ve come to get you in debt] type of selling.
When Unit Trusts, and investment stuff like that came out they all switched to that kind of selling but still the same.
One told me, the Company slogan was, When you go to bed at night, bang your head on the Pillow seven times and say Seven times, "All Punters are Bastards, All Punters are bastards, Get them in debt, get them in debt."
Also , they were told,... "Behind every door is a Bastard, and your job is to get them in debt, because if your in Debt they will not come round and feed your kids and pay your rent." So they believe it like a fanatic.
.
I and everyone who worked for ESSO when we became redundant with a large Lump Sum, ESSO provided us with the very best of Financial Advisers and all Fees paid for by ESSO. I know several lads who had been with ESSO since starting to go to sea, maybe 30 years or so, [ I was only there ten years, ] have actually become Millionaires through the good investment advice that was given them.
.
So there are some excellent ones around but Finding them and not the baddies is the hardest job.
There are always some very convincing Con men out there just waiting to take you to the cleaners.
Cheers
Brian

Lets get this straight.Why does Jim always get agitated when anyone has a go at union action.
We are talking here about some of the best paid employees in the country who are holding the the country to ransom at the behest of some left wing bullyboy who will still get his 100000pound(or more) salary no matter what wages the drivers give up or low paid wage earners lose because they couldn't get into work.We are talking about greed here.Pure greed and envy.
With regard to crooked financial advisers.there are quite a few, but why tar all of them with the same brush.If a vicar runs of with the church funds does that mean we must not trust any vicar.
You will find that most of the crooks get found out fairly quickly and get the boot.
I ran my own brokerage for 20 years and passed it on to my son.It is significant that 90% of my clients stayed with him and referred more clients to him with the business being many times larger than when I had it and now has over 100million under his management.
I seem to recall jim that you were in the financial business and get the impression that it was the small loans business(I could be wrong).If you were in that business I think you will know some of the cons that go on there.
I had 2 clients that owned quite large loan companies and am aware of the cons that go on.
Let me put it this way.In todays world the union leaders that call strikes that inconvenience the public at holiday time and other key times are low life scumbags and should be shot or become labour politicians(again)

Hi John.
Sorry I must take issue with you over your comments about building unions, I was a delegate in the BWIU the fore runner of the CFMEU; who's amalgamation I opposed. But every big job I was on came in under time and budget, Westmead Hospital was one of the biggest jobs in NSW for some time as was the big Parklea prison and both came in beneath the time and budget, many of the ski scrapers in Sydney where the same. Unfortunately the building industry is now full of criminals both in the unions and in the Builders side, the fighting is over who gets the best out of it. the union doesn't control the workers they all go to the meetings and are doing ok out of what the union gets for them. This doesn't detract from my dislike of the conman who now leads the Labour Party, you will always find a bad apple in every basket.
Cheers Des