Facing Down The Unions

Impartial BBC journos off-duty

It's just like old times. The teachers are going on strike, the Post Office workers are going on strike, and even those most essential of essential workers, the BBC journalists are going on strike. The common theme? They're all employed by the public sector.

As you know, the public sector is the last bastion of British trade unionism: 60% of today's union members are employed in the sector, even though it contains only one-fifth of the workforce. And these unions will strike at the drop of a hat - even while Blair's government was busy ramping up their members' pay. 

Here's the latest version of a chart we've posted before. It shows the number of days lost to industrial action annually in the public and private sectors (the figures are rolling three year averages):

In the private sector, the number of days lost annually has fallen to around 100,000 pa, or roughly 0.004 days per employee. However, in the public sector it's running at 20 times that rate. Moreover, while private sector employees have stoically swallowed pay freezes and tougher working conditions since the Crash, public sector unions seem to think their members are entitled to same rewards as during the time of plenty. There is no acceptance that the world has changed, and hence this fresh wave of strikes.

Of course, the Coalition did impose that two year pay freeze, but as we blogged here, in reality that turned out to be a freeze in name only. Depending on how you measure it, pay increased by between 5 and 10% over the two years, and it's still increasing. Moreover, public employees are already paid getting on for 10% more than their private sector equivalents, on top of which they get those famous index-linked pensions that are simply not available elsewhere. As we estimated in the BOM book, the total reward gap could be as much as 30 to 40%. Even after recent pension reforms kick-in, it will still be well North of 20%. 

But credit where credit's due: the Coalition are certainly having a go at addressing the issue. They have reformed the public sector pension schemes to make them less generous, and although there's more to do, over time their reforms will save taxpayers some serious cash. 

And they are now tackling the issue of progression pay - the automatic annual pay increments received by a substantial proportion of public employees. Virtually unknown in the private sector, incremental scales deliver year-on-year pay rises irrespective of freezes or indeed individual performance. George says:

"We will seek substantial savings from what is called progression pay. These are the annual increases in the pay of some parts of the public sector. I think they are difficult to justify when others in the public sector, and millions more in the private sector, have seen pay frozen or even cut."

Quite right George (and yes, we do realise Chancellors have never enjoyed such increments, and you haven't had a pay rise for three years).

But it's going to be a helluva battle, with the teaching unions already launching an all-out assault on the Gove Line. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers passed a vote of no confidence in him and his Chief Inspector earlier this week, and the NUT is following suit. A protracted series of strikes looks well on the cards.

The Coalition must stay strong on this. Closing the public sector pay and pensions gap will ultimately save taxpayers at least £25bn pa. And although it will obviously be painful for public sector employees, they should understand it's a lot less painful than the Irish solution. There, public employees had to accept pay cuts averaging 15%.

PS Did anyone miss the BBC journos who went on strike last week? It should have encouraged more people to try out Sky News, and I suspect a good proportion will not return. A few more outages like that and even Mr Cam might start thinking about break-up and sale. Let's hope so. 

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: public sector pay, unions

Beauty Soup found at Plaza Singapura

The Bijin Nabe (borderline vulgar) is a combination of the freshest vegtables, seafood and chicken cooked in golden Jidori chicken soup. A healthy and very generous dose of collagen is the key to unlocking the secret of beautiful skin by drinking the pot dry.

The soup is stewed until the chicken bones are fully dissolved and then allowed to cool to room temperature. The soup then turns into a smooth and silky pudding that is super rich in collagen.

The 美人锅 is the latest thing at Plaza Singapura, one is likely to queue up to an hour to get a seat.

However, it's worthwhile if you ain't famished! For $25++ each, you get a platter of fresh vegetables, meat and noodles to cook them yourself! The soup is rich, thick and leaves an aftertaste that is indescribable, positively. It is quite unlike any other soup i've tried. "Jitokko" is a very valuable chicken brand in Japan, raised organically through strict quality controls and limited to a number of farmers. Quality stuff!

It's definitely a date place for a different experience. It's loyalty card is very different too. It's like a name card and you collect stamps to be promoted.

Despite the complimentary dessert less than a bite size, simple gestures makes customers happy!

The beauty hotpot is only available for dinner. Ramen for the beauty is available during lunch. Start queuing at 5.30pm or put your name on the waiting list while you go shopping. No reservations are allowed.

Tsukada Nojo

Plaza Singapura, #03-81

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: food review

Problems With The Roller

This may never turn into a Rolls Royce

Now don't laugh, but there used to be a theory that the Civil Service was a finely tuned Rolls Royce. Ministers had only to point it in their chosen direction, settle back in the plush leather seats, and leave the purring giant to convey them effortlessly down the road.

Of course, it was never actually like that in practice, but for politicians keen on expanding the scope and reach of government it was a useful and comforting myth. Attlee's New Jerusalem government reckoned Civil Servants were capable of managing everything from the commanding heights of the economy right through to the allocation of bedpans in their newly nationalised health service. Wilson's government pushed up the proportion of our economy under Whitehall management from 35% to 45%. And we all know what the Blair/Brown government did.

But if your base your approach on a myth you end up with a disaster. And far from settling back in the Connolly leather, ministers spend most of their time flat on their backs under the car wrestling with the transmission.

And this week we've got two very good examples.

First, the latest attempt by a Health Secretary to stop the dysfunctional NHS killing so many of us. The bureaucrats at the Department of Health having failed to come up with anything other than more paperwork, Jeremy Hunt is issuing his own Orders of the Day.

Order Number One. All hospitals and care homes will be officially rated by a the new Chief Inspector of Hospitals.

Order Number Two. Any state healthcare operative who fails to freely confess his own shortcomings will be shot. Well, maybe not shot exactly... but their employing organisation will be given a jolly good talking to.

Order Number Three. Before they qualify, all student nurses must spend a year... well, let's say "up to a year", actually doing some nursing with real patients.

Mmmm... no matter who's sitting in the big leather chair, the NHS just goes on fighting the Battle of Stalingrad. As we've blogged many times (eg here and here), running a huge organisation through top-down orders and fear may have worked for Stalin in 1942, but he wasn't trying to save lives (other than his own of course). In the NHS it's been a total flop: successive Health Secretaries have tried it, and it simply doesn't work.

As for the new Chief Inspector of Hospitals, he's only being introduced because Labour's Care Quality Commission has failed. And the Care Quality Commission itself was only introduced because its predecessor, the National Patient Safety Agency, also failed. A government regulator regulating a nationalised industry is always going to be the public sector marking its own homework. And while the Government Inspector may strike fear into the hearts of employees - witness the hatred of Ofsted among many headteachers - that's because the regulator becomes an instrument of Commissariat control rather than an objective assessor of standards.

And who ever thought it was good idea for nurses to qualify without having a hands-on apprenticeship of feeding and washing patients? When my Mum trained as a nurse back in a flagship pre-NHS hospital, one of  her duties was to make sure the patients in her care were eating and drinking properly: years later she still recalled being pulled up by matron for not cutting the crusts off some old boy's sandwiches. It was the Department of Health - miles away from the sharp-end of patient care - that later ruled that wasn't part of a nurse's duties.

Meanwhile our energetic Home Secretary has announced that she's breaking up Labour's useless £1.6bn pa UK Border Agency. The UKBA has become a byword for ineptitude, with among other things, an immigration case backlog well in excess of 300,000 cases.

According to Mrs May, creating this gigantic immigration super-quango may have looked neat on paper but in practice it was disastrous :

"First, the sheer size of the Agency means it has conflicting cultures, and all too often focuses on the crisis in hand at the expense of other important work. Second...UKBA was given agency status in order to keep its work at an arm’s length from ministers. That was wrong. It created a closed, secretive and defensive culture. The new entities will not have agency status and will sit in the Home Office, reporting to ministers."

This echoes two points we've long made on BOM - one, that bigger is almost always worse, and two, that delegating power to arms length quangos means rule by bodies unaccountable to anyone, let alone us poor schmucks out here paying for it all.

So good for Mrs May.

But not so good for Mr Hunt.

Because although both of them are attempting to fix the broken old jalopy of of Civil Service management, Mr Hunt ought to be trading it in for a superior model.

With border control Mrs May has little choice but to somehow get her Civil Servants working better: protecting our borders is an essential function of government, and she can't turn it over to others. She has to make it work, however hard that is.

But healthcare is something else entirely. It's not an essential function of government, and Hunt should be learning from the workings of superior systems elsewhere. The European Social Insurance systems put customers in charge via their freedom to choose between competing providers. In all likelihood their Civil Servants are no better than ours at running things, but it doesn't matter because they're not required to do so.

Unless we can shrink government back to its core functions we will never enjoy the standards of service we're already paying for. No matter how hard ministers may try, you simply can't build a Rolls Royce from the bits off an old Austin Allegro.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: civil service, nhs, quangos

Know your Date through Date Manners

The phone is contagious. 

Seeing someone check it while with you, makes you want to check it too.

Your date orders as soon as the waiter comes over.
This person wants to be in charge, moves quickly and get things done. He or she likes things done a certain way and could be a compulsive worker. My date made reservations and pre-ordered the menu, i like decisive men.

Your date still can't decide what to order.
This person may struggle with decisions and multi-tasking. But he or she is likely to be caring, wants to feel appreciated and loves spending quality time with others. It's a super positive interpretation of fickle-mindedness. Women are forgiven!

Your date places the fork and knife in the four o'clock position
This indicates a certain level of poise and sophitication. He or she is probably raise to be very traditional, and your table manners is most probably being checked on right now. As you can tell from the picture, we're half hearted with poise and sophistication.

Your date orders too much alcohol
This could mean your date is nervous and have an inability to enjoy oneself in an unfamiliar situation. Or that you may have an alcoholic at hand.

Your date holds a fork more like a weapon than an eating tool
This may be a sign of hidden aggression, so be wary of possible future blow-ups. You may also want to be wary of sleeping beside.

Your date apply salt and pepper on served food before tasting it
This may be someone of superiority complex. It displays a lack of trust in others, and may allude to control issues. Also applies to the soya sauce people.

Oh, and hold a wine glass by its stem, chew with your mouth closed and eat a sushi whole, without dip.

The above is copied from a table mat at Table Manners, a very cool concept bistro at Changi City Point.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: food review

Plan B Kicks Off

Get used to this

So here we are with a government spending far more than it can raise in revenue, building up a catastrophic pile of debt, and facing an election in just two years time. Spending cuts are needed to balance the books, but more cuts this close to an election just ain't gonna happen. What on earth can be done? George is prepping Plan B.

George's Plan A is to pray for growth, and in both the 80s and 90s it was a resurgence of growth that came to the fiscal rescue. Unfortunately, with debt overhangs and busted banks all around us, we're now in a much more difficult position than we were back then. The growth rescue looks to be way off, and George knows it.

Which is why he's now busily working on Plan B. It's the traditional plan for over-borrowed governments everywhere, and its ingredients are as follows:

1. Engineer higher inflation by printing money - in an open economy like the UK it's quite easy because currency depreciation soon gets prices moving up.
2. Fail to index tax thresholds in line with higher prices - that boosts income tax revenues as earnings respond to higher prices (aka fiscal drag), adding to the higher revenues flowing from VAT. 
3. Limit spending in cash terms- hold spending departments to strict cash limits.

Over the last several months, George has taken action on all three components.

First, he confirmed in the Budget that under his new flexible friend Governor, the Bank of England will no longer be restricted to a 2% inflation target. In future, it will be allowed to set itself "intermediate thresholds", such as keeping "interest rates low while unemployment is high, provided inflation is not expected to rise too much". How much inflation is too much? That's for him and the Governor to choose, and you to fret about as you watch your savings disappear down the plughole.

Second, he's increasing the higher rate income tax threshold by only one percent a year, even though inflation is running much higher. The £150,000 threshold at which the top rate of income tax applies is frozen altogether, as is the £100,000 threshold above which the personal allowance starts being clawed back. The higher is inflation, the more harshly these measures will bite, with around half a million additional taxpayers being dragged into higher rate tax over the next two years. Similarly, the threshold for Inheritance Tax has been frozen at £325,000 since 2009.

Third, he announced in the Budget a huge increase in the scope of departmental cash limits. He said:

"The public spending framework introduced by the previous government divided government spending into two halves: fixed departmental budgets and what is called Annually Managed Expenditure. Except in practice it was annually unmanaged expenditure – and it includes almost the entire welfare budget as well as items like debt interest and payments to the EU.  

We will now introduce a new limit on a significant proportion of Annually Managed Expenditure. It will be set out in a way that allows the automatic stabilisers to operate – but will bring real control to areas of public spending that had been out of control."

Exactly how it's going to work is unknown, but the intention is clear enough. And it promises a revolution in the way that welfare spending is controlled. Because instead of pre-committing to pay whatever bill the agreed rates of welfare benefit generate, he's saying the total amount will be cash limited. Benefit rates and entitlement rules will have to be flexed to fit within a cash ceiling, and that will have to include upratings to cover inflation.

As for debt, higher inflation will obviously erode the real value of government obligations fixed in cash terms, notably its issues of so-called conventional gilts. True, its index-linked gilts will have to be adjusted in line with the higher inflation, but since they only comprise one-quarter of total gilt issues, the Chancellor comes out well ahead.

Of course, there is a serious risk that what he gains on the debt erosion swings he will lose on the debt interest roundabouts. If the markets lose confidence, as they did when a similar scam was tried back in the 1970s, interest rates on new gilt issues will shoot up and debt servicing costs will take off. Even so, because the existing stock of debt has such a long average maturity, it will take a couple of decades before the full impact is felt.

So that's Plan B. And it's worth noting what the world's most successful central bank ever has to say about it:

"Government debt fosters the risk of inflation. Central banks, too, are usually exposed to the strong pressure that burdens states with high levels of debt. This is because the higher the pressure on the government to get the public debt under control, the greater is the temptation to exert pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates via monetary policy measures... 

If, in order to safeguard its solvency, the government pressures the central bank to set a lower interest rate than is compatible with price stability, demand increases too quickly, and this ultimately leads to higher inflation. In this case economists speak of a regime of fiscal dominance: interest rates are no longer set according to the requirements of price stability but instead are dictated by the state’s need to reduce its financing costs. 

Measures taken by central banks in the past, under the influence or control of the state, to lower interest costs or to reduce the overall debt burden, have ranged from straightforward interest rate reductions to purchasing government bonds in secondary markets and to direct monetisation of government debt.  

To be able to resist this political pressure, central banks have traditionally been granted a high degree of independence. This was, among other things, a response to the experiences of the 1970s and 1980s. This era of oil price shocks posed a major challenge to monetary policy-makers. It became apparent that countries with independent central banks had much lower inflation rates – and similar or even higher growth – than countries whose central bank was answerable to the government.  

Central bank independence is therefore essential to inspire confidence that the central bank will keep inflation low. However, a high government debt burden can generate doubts about its actual independence and undermine its credibility, even if it has not actually changed its monetary policy course. Once doubts arise about of the monetary policymakers’ capability to defend their independence against political interference, they risk losing control of inflation expectations and thus over inflation itself."

That's the Deutsche Bundesbank speaking - the rock-solid guardian of German economic stability right up to   when the Germans were bounced into the Euro.

My advice? Get down to the building society, draw out all your cash, and get yourself some of these:

Yes, I know - easier said than done. Personally I'm going to contact the Major's old mucker Mr Gomulka who apparently has a lock-up full of them.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: inflation

Another Slice Of Salami Sir?

Glad someone's enjoying this

Long-time readers will know that the 2012 Olympics smashed the world record for salami slicing (see all 2012 posts gathered here).

The first slice - served up when we originally pitched for the thing - was a mere £2.375bn. But after landing the gig, the cost suddenly ramped up to £9.3bn, a fourfold increase. We later discovered the original costing had been cobbled together during a late night Withnail drinking contest down The Stoat and Weasel, but the process bore all the classic grease-marks of ripe salami. That's where project costs are deliberately low-balled so as not to scare taxpayers. One international study found that 90% of such projects overrun their initial budgets:

'The study concluded that lying, or intentional deception, by public officials was the source of the problem: “Project promoters routinely ignore, hide, or otherwise leave out important project costs and risks in order to make total costs appear low.” Politicians use “salami tactics” whereby costs are only revealed to taxpayers one slice at a time in the hope that the project is too far along when true costs are revealed to turn back.'

And in the case of the Olympics, the slices are still being piled on our plate months after the wretched thing ended. So yesterday we learned that taxpayers are being forced to shell out another £150bn - £190bn to convert the white elephant Olympic Stadium into a football ground for West Ham. Well, OK, £15m of that will come form West Ham, but for that we're giving them a £600m+ stadium.

It really does make you want to spit, even if Boris reckons it's the best deal available in the circs. Because if the arrogant Tessers originally in charge of the project had ensured the stadium could be used for football, we wouldn't now need to swallow this additional slice. Even a non-sporty potato like me understands that football is the only sport that could sustain such a monster, yet that point was clearly beyond Her Ladyship Tessa J. Even though her own Sports Minister says he explained it to her:

"The mistake was made in 2006/7 when they ruled football out of a retro-fit design as we had done successfully in Manchester with the Commonwealth Games stadium. I suggested retractable seating like the Stade de France in Paris but they insisted it should be a 25,000-seat athletics stadium. Time and again mistakes are made with Olympic Stadiums and the lessons should be learned for any future similar projects."

Lessons being learned for the future.

If our high spending politicos could learn lessons for the future, I doubt I'd be writing this blog. Value for our money never trumps political grandstanding, and grandiose projects like the Olympics offer the most imposing grandstands of all.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: 2012

The Overspend Gets Bigger

See you at the airport

So what do we make of the budget?

Given his starting point, George did a reasonable juggling job, and managed to sound as if he's serious about getting the economy moving again. His moves on company taxation and fuel duty are welcome, if relatively small... er... beer. His fresh attempt to inject life into the housing market is also potentially helpful, although we need to see more detail before we can be sure it won't simply re-inflate the property bubble and/or expose taxpayers to a huge Freddie and Fannie style default crisis. 

However, looking at the big picture, he failed once again to tackle the rampaging elephant that's still smashing up the fiscal room. That is, he did nothing to bring government spending back down into line with sustainable tax revenues.

Yesterday I took part in a TPA/IEA panel discussion on the budget, and the excessive level of public spending was by far the main concern for both panellists and audience. Unfortunately, nobody could see the current government gripping it this side of the 2015 election, and a Miliband government - with or without the Lib Dems - won't even try. 

By the end of the session I was ready to book a one-way ticket to... well, to where exactly? Cyprus would now appear to be out, and Mrs D's arachnophobia rules out the more exotic destinations. Must get back to researching it.

The following is a summary of my own presentation (some bits are updates of recent blog posts, and I'm afraid there are quite a lot of numbers).

As the Chancellor highlighted in his speech, government departments have been significantly underspending against their original budget allocations. The underspend for 2012-13 is now put at £11 billion, an unprecedented shortfall which has narrowly prevented this year's borrowing increasing above last year's (£120.9bn vs £121.0bn). However, of much more significance is the continuing overspend against the government's revenue base, a problem he did not address in the budget.

The Coalition's first budget in June 2010 set out a path for public spending that saw it rise from £669bn in 2009-10 to £757bn in 2015-16, an increase of 13%. Given the urgent need for fiscal consolidation, many commentators - including the TPA - thought that not nearly tough enough. However, it was justified on the basis that economic recovery would boost revenues and close the deficit, just as it had done after the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s.

Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. Growth has been feeble, and the economy is now (2012-13) 4% smaller than it was forecast to be back in 2010. Worse, according to the OBR's latest forecasts, the shortfall is expected to go on getting bigger, reaching 7% in real terms, and 9% in cash terms, by 2015-16. Over the whole of this Parliament (2010-11 to 2015-16), the OBR now reckons the economy will grow by just 6%, compared to its June 2010 forecast of 14%.

Relative to our economy and its capacity to bear taxation, government overspending is even worse than it appeared in June 2010.

Spending still planned to increase

The following chart shows spending in cash terms (Total Managed Expenditure - TME) since the start of Labour's reckless spending surge. As we know, that surge more than doubled spending in cash terms and even in real terms increased it by one-half. From 2009-10, it compares three plans:

• Labour's final plan
• The Coalition's first plan - June 2010
• The Coalition's latest plan - March 2013 

Key points to note:

• All three plans incorporate a sharp slow-down in growth from the surge years, but there's not a huge difference between them. 
• Spending in 2013-14 is now planned to be £720bn - almost exactly in line with the £722bn "spending envelope" set out in June 2010. Which in the narrow terms of public spending control is pretty precise management, and much better than most previous governments have managed.
• However...

...because economic growth and revenue have both fallen well below what had been expected, as a percentage of GDP spending has turned out higher than planned, and revenue much lower. Spending is now running at 45% of GDP, a mere two percentage points lower than what the Coalition inherited back in 2010. Revenue will once again fall well short of spending, at 38% of GDP, leaving government borrowing an unsustainable 7%.

Spending already far too high

The following chart puts the budget spending and revenue forecasts into context, again showing the entire period from 2000-01 through to 2017-18. The gap between the two lines represents government borrowing.

Key points to note:

• Since the privatisation of Britain's big nationalised industries (which removed a large chunk of trading profits from public sector revenues), no government has managed to raise revenues of more than about 38% of GDP: that seems to be the limit on what is politically acceptable and economically sustainable. 
• The public spending envelope remains substantially oversized relative to sustainable revenue. 
• The projected convergence of spending and revenue over the next five years depends crucially on the OBR's growth forecast being realised. 

The OBR is forecasting average growth over the next five years of 2.1% pa. Given recent growth performance, the continuing problems in Europe, our broken banks, and high energy prices, that may well turn out to be optimistic. If so, the convergence of spending and revenue may not happen at all.

Return to the 70s? 

For example, if instead of 2.1% pa growth, we get a prolonged period of 0.5% pa 1970s style growth, the gap remains stuck at 7% of GDP*. All of which will have to be borrowed.

In its first three years the Coalition has already increased the official government debt (PSND) by well over £400bn. By 2017-18, even on the OBR's forecasts, their increase will be nearly £900bn - more than doubling the debt total they inherited. And the official debt is only one small part of the government's overall liabilities.

Debt piled on debt

According the Office for National Statistics, the government's overall liabilities amount to well over £7 trillion, equivalent to five times GDP. The following chart shows the main components:

Interest on the official national debt is currently running just under £50bn pa. The OBR now forecasts it will increase to over £70bn by 2017-18. 

However, all of the government's liabilities require servicing, and if we add in those public and state pensions payments, along with PFI payments, total debt servicing is already running at £170bn pa, and is set to increase to £220bn by 2017-18. 

That means that by 2017-18, over 30% of government revenues will be earmarked to service past liabilities rather than to pay for current services.

Public spending that doesn't add up

With an increasingly large chunk of public spending earmarked for debt servicing, and NHS, Schools, and Aid spending protected inside their preposterous ring-fence, only around one-third of the spending is available for cuts. Nobody has a clue how that can be done inside George's existing spending envelope, including George himself. 

If we don't get a big shot of growth soon, we are facing a massive spending crunch. Forget public sector pay and benefit freezes: we are talking Irish-style 15% across the board cuts for everything. 

*Note I have calculated the impact of lower growth on the public finances using the OBR's own ready reckoner. It's almost identical to the old Treasury rule of thumb blogged here, and it says that a one percentage point shortfall in GDP raises public sector borrowing by 0.7% of GDP after two years. That comprises 0.5 percentage points on the spending ratio, and 0.2 percentage points off the revenue ratio.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: debt, fiscal policy, tax and spend

Know Benefits of Your Credit Card

Do you check details or make a proper comparative analysis before buying a credit card? If yes then you are an intelligent customer otherwise many users usually buy debit or credit cards only after getting convinced from sale executives. But before buying a credit cards you must ask yourself that which card you want and why because only after knowing your needs you can opt for an appropriate credit card.

Credit cards make transaction easier and if you don’t carry much cash or if any company does not accept cash then in that case making payment with these cards is trouble-free. Even they are useful in times of emergency like you are running out of money but still you need to repair or buy something urgently then you can use your credit card to make transaction. Credit cards not only make it easier to shop even they offer loads of additional benefits as well such as discounts on purchase from certain stores, bonuses, special insurance, etc. Benefits of credit cards are countless and they are not only limited to cash backs, reward points or interest free shopping but a good credit history can provide you many benefits while applying for a loan. Even some banks offer loans to only those who have some sort of credit history.

Some of the major beneficial services that credit cards render are chargeback, extended return policies, extended warranties and price protection. In chargeback scenario your credit card company will refund you the money in case if the company refuses to refund your money for their failing product or service. In extended returns policies as well you can avail advantages like usually retailers restrict returns up to 30 days but many credit card companies extend this policy to 90 days. If you purchase goods using your credit cards then you may also avail several additional gains like extended warranties. Generally Visa debit and Visa doubles the original store warranty or manufacturing warranty. Some other benefits like airline credit and damage and theft protection can also be gained with some efficient credit cards.

If you are an Australian Citizen then you can avail information related to various debit and credit cards from debitcard.com.au. This website provides an introduction to Australian registered banks, building societies, credit unions and many other financial institutions. Here information is obtainable related to an extensive range of credit and debit cards. At this web portal cards are available from major providers along with their comprehensive comparative analysis. Even Australians can check out features, charges, fees and benefits of various card providers from this online source.

To know more about the Credit cards and Debit mastercard visit at www.debitcard.com.au

Gudang grosir baju anak murah - harga pabrik !!
www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: Credit Cards, visa debit card

Make your own Chocolate

Giveaway

CONTEST UPDATE
Yvonne, Grace and Kenneth have won their creations! Check out Yvonne's creation for her boyfriend! Isn't she sweet?

I must say i was skeptical of http://www.cocoa-b.com/ initially because of the strangest additions you can add to your chocolate.

I know strawberry bits in white chocolate is heavenly (my favourite when in Australia), but BACON bits in white chocolate? Or how about ikan bilis and garlic granulas? Sounds like char kway tiao already!

You CAN match normal toppings like fruits and nuts with your chocolate. However, as with all things, i decide to wing it and try the most exotic of the exotic toppings.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Or maybe i'm a closet chocolatier.

I carefully select a combination of the exotic with spices.

DARK CHOCOLATE CHILLI CHICKEN FLOSS

This was inspired by Breadtalk's floss bun which we all love. I didn't think it could go wrong.

The floss don't quite stick to the chocolate, but the chilli dark chocolate combination was a good one. I tasted a hint of sea salt too but i can't be sure. Maybe Cocoa B do screen our recipes just to ensure we don't go horrendous wrong. A little magical dust of a missing ingredient to make us feel like the most inventive chocolatier with award winning creations.


WHITE CHOCOLATE ROSEMARY BACON BITS WITH HEART SPRINKLES

This was clearly inspired when i need lunch. Imagining a slow cooked tender pork leg with rosemary, heart sprinkles thrown in just because.

I don't think bacon bits have much of a flavour to begin with (like in casear salads), but it provides a crunchy bite. It also adds an oily film to your lips. The rosemary was fragrant, it was quite an adventurous choice.


WOLFBERRY LOTUS SEED MILK CHOCOLATE


The healthier choice chocolate is inspired by the soups that my mum makes. I will never chew on wolfberries because it weirds me out. I usually collect them floating in the soup and swallow them whole. They're so small i hope my stomach juices can digest them without effort.

Maybe adding it into chocolate would make the child eat her wolfberries. And i did! The roasted lotus seed is just like a hazelnut. Very similiar to the regular chocolate bar filled with fruits and nuts, but you know its not. It's EXOTIC.

Your creation, their kitchen. Make your own chocolate. Maybe as a gift, maybe as self-indulgence, however you like it, it starts from $7.90.

GIVEAWAY

3 readers can get their creations (100g) delivered! Leave a comment what creation you will make and what inspired you. Remember to include your email!
CONTEST ENDS 26 MARCH.

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Win an ultimate weekend in Monaco with Johnnie Walker

Having just returned from Dubai, where facial masks come with gold certificates, there is another play ground for the rich not too far from Dubai, but in the heart of the Mediterranean Europe.

Monaco!

From now to 30 Apr, Johnnie Walker is offering FOUR fans the trip of a lifetime - the ultimate luxury race weekend in Monaco worth $80, 000 per person.

Flying in style to the French city of Nice, a helicopter will be waiting on standby for private transfers to dazzling Monaco.

Once in Monaco, the luxury lifestyle will continue, with the winners enjoying accommodation at a luxury hotel with access to VIP parties.

On race day, they'll enjoy the afternoon on a private yacht with an unbeatable trackside view of all the thrilling action.

Not only are you living like a race driver, the prize also includes the priceless opportunity to meet the Vodafone McLaren mercedes team in PERSON and get up close and person with the iconic Monaco circuit in a guided tour of the racetrack and Formula One pit.

TO WIN- every purchase of Johnnie Walker Black Label or Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve from March 2013 will include a unique Gold Pass code. To enter the contest, participants should head to the Johnnie Walker Singapore Facebook page at www.facebook.com/JohnnieWalkerSingapore where you can enter the codes to earn points.

Think it's a slim chance to win? There's also the Taste of Monaco which Johnnie Walker is bringing to Singapore ahead of the big race. A special edition of the Circuit Nights party series is taking place at Avalon on April 6th. With renowned DJs and Johnnie Walker, it's going to be an unforgettable Monaco-themed evening. For admission details, go LIKE their page!

Guaranteed drive of a lifetime.

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The Spending Problem

It's almost certain that tomorrow's budget projections will incorporate yet another downgrade to growth expectations. Which means that the current plans for public spending have become even less affordable.

Since George's' first budget in June 2010, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has downgraded its growth forecasts almost every time it's opened its mouth. For 2015-16 - the last year of the current Parliament - it originally forecast GDP would be £1902bn. By last December, it had cut that to £1763bn, a reduction of over 7%. Some of that is accounted for by lower projected inflation (amazingly), but most reflects a real terms GDP reduction of 6%.

So by 2015-16 our national income will be 6% less than George expected back in June 2010. Yet far from trimming his spending budget, he's still planning to spend almost as much.

Back in June 2010, spending in 2015-16 was projected to be £757bn (Total Managed Expenditure - TME). So if he'd cut his cloth in line with the poorer outlook for national income, he should now be planning of spending closer to £700bn. Instead of which, spending is actually projected at £745bn.

Here's a chart of successive spending projections (TME). The top line is Labour's final effort (projection out to 2014-15), the others are successive coalition plans:

As we can see, the June 2010 budget cut Labour's planned 2014-15 spending by 5% in cash terms. And as we can also see, the latest coalition plans have cut it a little further (by about one percent). That's all to the good, but the problem is that with the outlook for GDP so much worse than George initially thought, it needs to go further.

When the coalition took over, public spending was running at 47% of GDP. That was far higher than government revenues at 37%, and wholly unsustainable: as ministers kept telling us, it meant government was borrowing one pound in every four it spent. The plan was to get public spending down under 40% of GDP by 2015-16, and to increase revenues to 39%. Which they reckoned would leave borrowing at a comfortable level.

Unfortunately, things haven't panned out like that. With weaker growth, revenue is falling short and borrowing is significantly overshooting.

Of course, there are plenty of people who say we could solve the problem without further spending cuts. For example, we could tax the rich: except as we've blogged many times, there aren't enough of them. Moreover,  we should note that no government in at least the last 50 years has ever managed to raise much more than about 38% of GDP in tax revenues - that seems to be the limit of acceptability and/or practicality (see BOM book).

Or maybe we could borrow more. Except with inflation a looming problem, and Sterling subject to attacks of the vapours, those fickle bond and currency investors could well take it the wrong way. Especially when we understand that the only reason the coalition's spending totals have stayed within their initial projection is that debt interest has so far been lower than forecast (saving an expected £9bn next year alone). We really cannot afford to upset the gnomes of Zurich, or anywhere else.

But surely, you say, once the economy recovers back to full strength, revenue will rise and these problems will take care of themselves.

Yes, if only.

The problem is that we can't be at all sure what full strength means any more. Back in 2008 the economy suffered a heart attack, and although the jump leads got it back upright again, it's still hobbling around and avoiding strenuous exercise. It may no longer be capable of scaling the peaks it sprinted up during its Ben Johnson years of unlimited debt steroids.

The OBR tries to work out if and how quickly we can expect a full recovery, by assessing potential output both now and in the future. But it's the first the recognise the problems:

"The amount of spare capacity in the economy (the ‘output gap’) and the growth rate of potential output are key judgements in our forecast. Together, they determine the scope for actual growth as activity returns to a level consistent with maintaining stable inflation in the long term. The size of the output gap also determines how much of the fiscal deficit at any given time is cyclical and how much is structural. In other words, how much will disappear automatically, as the recovery boosts revenues and reduces spending, and how much will be left when economic activity has returned to its full potential. The narrower the output gap, the larger the proportion of the deficit that is structural, and the less margin the Government will have against its fiscal mandate, which is set in structural terms... 

But neither the level of potential, nor the pace of recovery, are possible to estimate with confidence, not least because the former is not a variable that we can observe directly in the economic data."

Here's its summary table on potential output growth:

Many people (probably including the OBR) wonder if they are being too optimistic on these key judgements. For example, it assumes that the potential growth of labour productivity in the future will be 1.9% pa, whereas the average growth over the last 15 years is only 1.4% - and since 2008 it's actually fallen.

The horrible reality is that the economy now looks a lot weaker than when the coalition came to power. And with a weakened poorer economy we cannot afford to maintain their initial spending plans. GDP is going to be much lower than he assumed then, but he hasn't cut his spending plans. George needs to recognise that tomorrow and tell us how he's going to address the problem.

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Six Things to do in Dubai

The irony is, my most memorable experience in Dubai, a DESERT, is to ski.

Now, Dubai is widely acclaimed and infamous for screwing with people's eyes and minds by having architecture like these....

It reminds me of Singapore. We do have the Esplanade which looks like a durian or a housefly's eye. Dubai is a country that is filled more with expats than locals, and Singapore's getting there.

But otherwise, what i did in Dubai:

1. Rode a Camel and kicked up a Sandstorm

The traditional dance performed by a man.

If a weekend activity for Singaporeans is the cinema, then setting up a ten, transporting butlers, cooks in a jeep into the middle of the desert for a BBQ is the norm in The Middle East. However, if you are a tourist, you can experience a bit of that desert safari via land tours. Do a bit of research as this is my second time experiencing it and i find the second operator more luxurious than my first experience. The difference is in the food quality and they have waiters in vests. Performances like belly dancing & activities like ride a camel are the same but Hanna and sand boarding (i surfed like a pro) was something new.

Dining under the stars.

Very touristy. They did this for a golden photo moment.

Camel didn't look amused.

2. Travelling in Dubai

Many have misconceptions of Dubai, simply because it is part of the middle east. It is relatively safe, there is a subway like our MRT and you don't really have to cover up (in summer, it gets REALLY hot and balmy in the evening so tank tops, shorts and slippers is the way to go). However, the first few nights of my stay was still pretty chilly (end of winter).

Taxis in the background.

Taxis are aplenty in Dubai but they aren't exactly cheap. There is ALOT of distance to cover in Dubai and you're better off (and richer) getting around with the MRT. However, there is ALSO alot of distance within the MRT. You spend about 10 minutes just walking to the platform. It was pretty amusing. It felt like a workout every time i take the MRT to get somewhere.

You don't get stared at much despite having more males than females anywhere.

Take an abra across the creek to the heritage village. It's only $1 and its the local's mode of transport.

                             

3. Diving in Oman
I crossed the borders into Musadam and did two dives. Underwater was abit different from tropical waters. I saw neon bright purple and yellow corals which i've never seen before. It was a nice day trip out of the concrete jungle.

4. Watch the Musical Fountain

which beats the Las Vegas fountain (apparently). It's the most beautiful thing i've seen.

It is highly recommended to make dinner reservations at Karam Beirut (+971 4 339 9789) to watch the fountain and eat. 

The traditional Middle Eastern meal was A FEAST!

It was about SGD 50 per pax, so we made our value worth by sitting and watching 5 fountain shows. We never got tired of it! We had to pee desperately after though.

There was also a tomato so huge we ate it like a burger. We passed the communal tomato around.

For an aerial view of the Dubai fountain, you can also dine at the Karma Kafe (+971 4 423 0909) at the Souk Al Bahar across of Dubai Mall. 

It has old Chinese babies plastered on the bar counter.
Strange choice, but otherwise very nice oriental looking lounge.

Scaling the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa.

 Upon seeing our pose, some Arabs started doing the same pose too. Hahaha!

5. Visit the Malls
Dubai is all about impressions......within shopping malls. Especially the famous Guinness record aquarium in a mall.

Doesn't look so spectacular here, but it is.

They have breath taking water features, also in a mall.

A very tall man-made waterfall.

As well as the largest snow park......in a mall (you guessed it right!)

Check out his (real) name! 

Getting a hot choco!

I don't know why, i look like i'm about to strip.

It was my first time skiing, and it was pretty darn exhilarating. The snow was slippery, the slopes were steep. I fell and almost made a snow ball of myself countless times. I crashed so much into my friend, i was really afraid i'll crush his nuts. A steady hand, encouraging words made me learn within an hour!

There're even ski lifts! Duh. It's the LARGEST ski park in a mall.

Yes, back to reality. It's A DESERT OUTSIDE.

Yes, we window shop. Everything was expensive, made of gold.

Vinegar for SGD1534 0_0
Aged 100 years, better than wine.
One drop is all that you'll need in your salad, we were told.

 Even their facial masks have CERTIFICATES because it has real gold.

Gold is as common as salt and pepper.

Something more affordable to buy as souvenirs are camel's milk chocolate. It doesn't taste as milky as cow's milk and is apparently healthier.

A small block is SGD 10

Or take a walk in the perfume souk (station Banjyas Square) and get the latest Iphone 5 perfume. It smells like DKNY's Delicious which is coincidentally or not, shaped like an apple.

SGD 10 after bargaining.

BlackBerry's fans are not neglected.

If you need to spray on some pheromones.

6. Eat like a local

Take a walk around Bastakiya and you'll come across quaint finds where you can eat local grub.

I love hummus, bitchez.

Try the very local dish, the Waraq Enab, which is vine leaves stuffed with rice, tomatoes, parsley, onions and lemon juice. You eat it whole. Another thing to order is also the Mutabbal, grilled eggplant puree.

I caved in to some Western grub, only because i was told it's THE BEST burgers.

Shaking it up with Shake Shack

I'm not too impressed.

It was pretty amusing to see the burger army behind the counter though. It was 11.30pm but there was a team of 30 people working. Our orders took 5 minutes, there was hardly a crowd.

Levitation.

Dubai at my feet.

Go on, souk in the atmosphere.

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