h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone has to pay for public sector service.
Such payments become a burden when the public sector needs to serve itself.

Just a small point about private schools and hospitals - where do people think the teachers and the doctors and support staff and nurses etc come from in those places? Do you think the institutions pay for their education and training? If private medicine had to pay the state back for the the investment it made in their staff then the cost of providing private medical care would be astronomical so we are all indirectly subsidising 'private' clinics and schools in any case.

In the case of faith schools being better than secular state ones - is it surprising when they can limit their intake to those whose parents are prepared to jump through hoops and prove that they can stump up money to the church over a long period? They take children of parents who have invested and are therefore interested, which at primary level at least is more than half the battle.

With faith schools it isn't even directly related to any money the parents might give to the church: only token amounts, if any, come back.

The issue with selective schools is that they select out either a) the children of those parents who are best able to navigate the selection system (which sometimes involves religious hypocrisy) or b) those children able to pass an exam at an arbitrary age. (Shocking to think that people may have their lives mapped out from age 11).

In either case any statistical comparison is simply ruined: to compare the performance of the selective and comprehensive sectors is statistically invalid. Utterly. Cherry picking population data just isn't allowed. So if we say that selective schools do a better job than comprehensive...we know this how? All we actually know is that the brightest pupils with the pushiest parents do better. No excrement Mr Holmes.

But remember...*Faith schools are part of the state sector*. They are even administered by local authorities. The only difference is that they have 'St' in their names.

...well that and they do get extra money from the church. If that is not the case how can they have any justification on selecting based on church attenndance? Why are they allowed to be selective at all or why isn't that selection based on exactly the same rules as all the other schools? This was my point though - they do better because they are selecting their intake.

Around here the parents have to jump through many hoops to get into the church schools and once there are constantly bombarded with requests for money for the church. It turns out I'm too much of a moral person to get my child into a faith school. When we don't get a place in our nearest one (actually beginning to think I prefer the secular one in spite of the much larger class sizes) I could consider an appeal on that basis, just for a laugh. Don't think it will make any difference to where the boys go to school...

Anyhow, my main point about private education and healthcare is that it is subsidised heavily by the state anyway.

Post 81 fell on stoney ground try this.

As a private 'service' industry Google employs 20,223 people around the world, receiving a resume every 25 seconds from eager job-seekers, hiring an average of nine new employees a day.
Working for Google has certain advantages, but this giant of a search engine takes the welfare of its employees seriously . Employees can eat all they want for free from a vast choice of food and drink, whipped up by in-house chefs. Other perks include free haircuts, dry cleaning and laundry, child care, car services, chiropractors and five onsite doctors available for employee check-ups; all free of charge.
Google has its own state-of-the-art gym . . . offering weight-training and a host of exercise machines, rowing machines, lockers and shower rooms, and two swim-in-place wave pools. Professional massage therapists are available. The company trains and educates it's emploees and runs it's owm library. Office cleaning and other services all achieved and not a public sector worker in sight.

Without doubt Google could set up an education system for the kids of employees.

>>Without doubt Google could set up an education system for the kids of employees.

Oh, quite possibly. But don't forget that Google works on a system of taxation known as 'Advertising'. You and I generate their profits by a levy on many of the products we purchase.

Actually...the taxation comparison doesn't *quite* work. We have a certain degree of democratic control over our taxes.

Did you thing teh interwebs was a free gift?

thing -> think

You also have a choice as to whether or not you need Google.

You may have a point there. But damned if I can work out what it is,

Hang on...am I being thick here?...don't purchasers pay for advertising *whether or not* they use Google?

Meh. Google was a red herring in the first place. We know already that AB likes to veer off at random so that he can moan about not being understood.

Money goes out in taxes that is spent upon things over which I have little or no control.

Sock it to me baby

>>Money goes out in taxes that is spent upon things over which I have little or no control.

It's a common misperception that democracy means getting everything your own way.

It would seem to be common perception among certain sections of the democratic society of today that everything they 'want' will come their way irrespective of need and who pays, but the originator of the thread may consider the course that you have chosen as off line.

I have a 'need' for lunch.

Well...hold on to your chair...I don't necessarily disagree.

Except that a lot of the 'Needs' are precisely those things provided by public services. The 'Wants' are the things people aspire to be able to afford in a low tax regime.

You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need



Stones.

To be serious though, the future will be about the essential needs that we absolutely should protect. But that's may be the difference between what Labour and the Tories consider essential needs. Given the evidence of history, I prefer to go with the Labour party. The future will be difficult though, whatever.

And seriously that's why I hope many who are tempted to vote for other minority parties such as Libs or Greens..when it comes to it, vote Labour. Though I don't know enough about the internal politics of other parts of the UK such as Wales, Scotland and NI, and the Libs won't say who they may support in a hung parliament. Well yes can you really blame them?.it's the only way to get anyone to vote for them. But really I've little time for people voting for such parties, given the absolute urgency of things at present. It's all very well having high ideals, anger about what's gone before to do with 'New Labour' and foreign policy, but that's when we wealthy and the economy booming.

*The future will be very much about things at home, IMO; and protecting the most vulnerable in our society.*

"Without doubt Google could set up an education system for the kids of employees."

Yep, it could do. But what happens if you want to change employers? What happens if you get made redundant? I think it's fair to say that in the US that many people find themselves tied too tightly to their employers already - leave and you lose health insurance etc. That's a real limitation on practical freedom, and it allows employers (not necessarily google) to treat their staff far worse, and/or demand far more from them, than would otherwise be the case. Yes, I may hate my job and be sure I could do better elsewhere or on my own, but do I want to give up health benefits for my sick partner or pull the kids out of school and separate them from their friends? Reduce job mobility and you reduce competition, enterprise, and innovation. And that's bad for everyone. Offering employee benefits is one thing, and that's good and fine.... take it too far, and it becomes a bit...well... cultlike.

And all this has been tried before, and it didn't work out at all well. Factory housing, factory schools, factory shops, part-payment in vouchers... it was all tried before in Victorian Britain, and it was disastrous.

Also.... do we really want corporates providing education? The hands that already rule the world should not be let near the cradle, in my view. I do NOT want my employer knowing details of my family - that's frankly frightening. And.... actually most people don't work for giant multinational megacorps, but for much smaller organisations that couldn't possibly afford such benefits.

>>But really I've little time for people voting for such parties, given the absolute urgency of things at present.<<

A for you Effers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/01/labour-gordon-brown-hard-man

Yeah, yeah, yeah. April Fool Do you think I'm stupid? Actually don't answer that?

But yeah. Go bruiser Brown. Step outside Posh Boy, I like it

Pinniped - The link you provided in post 57 seems to have slipped by unnoticed.
I'll try it here :- F19585?thread=3140234&post=94378344#p94378344