Banker versus Nurses

A subject that has been in the media quite often recently is bonuses and cuts. Bonuses for banker and cuts in the NHS health sector. Especially when it comes to staff, people had to accept a lot of negative news. Most people would agree nurses are more important than banker and therefore should be paid better. They look after the old and sick and get paid peanuts for the work they do.
Banker – on the other hand –do nothing or at least not much and get paid fortunes. But is this actually true? Fact is nurses are needed and should get paid better. But are banker really that bad. I think the two cannot be compared. Nurses work for the society and are mainly paid by the government (us). Banker work for the private sector. As long as both do the job they are meant to do, it will be a fact that Banker earn more money as they simply create profit for the company they work for. Nurses on the other hand create moral values but no monetary ones. As long as a nurse is valued by society and can make a decent living with her or his wage things are ok. But in recent years this has gone wrong. Banker have made huge mistakes which affected everybody and have not been punished for it. Nurses had their wages cut and staff have lost their job even though they did not do anything wrong. Fact is there will always be people who want to become nurses, as it is a satisfying job – providing the work and working hours are doable and the money is ok. Nobody would become a banker, if they would not get paid what the get paid. Believe it or not – banker work hard. It is no rarity to work 70 or more hours per week. Also, (decent) bankers are needed in a modern society. But they should have to take responsibility for their mistakes just as nurses have to. This means banks who had to be bailed out by the taxpayer should not pay bonuses to their stuff until they paid back the money they borrowed and nurses who are desperately needed should not loose their job. It could all be so easy…

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya - democracy or oil?

It had to happen that way. The collapse of systems in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya was only a matter of time. And these people have a right to enjoy freedom and democracy. No matter who you speak to in the UK at the moment about the current events – everyone seems to agree to this or similar statements. However, if we look a bit closer at the current events and the consequences for us one comes to the following result. We have failed. We sold our weapons and our surplus products, our highly-subsidized food to these despots. We fished from their waters and brought them into dependency from "Western democracies". We exploited Africa and still do today. We curse the despots and look with one eye on the fuel pumps. The dead in the stricken countries are secondary. We are concerned but only about the prices at the pumps. And we think hopefully all theses people will not come to us. This fear drives us. We are not interested in the least in creating democracy in these countries, but how we can get their oil and raw materials cheaply. Is it so or are we better ? Can we accept higher oil prices and more foreign people in our country in the name of democracy or are we really so selfish? Is oil all that matters, even for ordinary people?

Environment – Global Warming

I have always been a believer in man-made global warming until I read a bit about the subject. There are actual two opinions. But which one is the right one. The first one is the following:
We are at the end of an "interglacial" period. which means shortly before the beginning of a new Ice Age, which will probably begin in 2000-3000 and last for  a few thousand years like the last one. Within this "intermediate phase" fluctuations of up to + / - 4 ° C are completely normal and have already taken place several times in the history of evidence - before man had the capacity to blow fossil-bearing enriched CO2 into the atmosphere .

These temperature fluctuations are historically and biologically detectable (eg the growth of certain particularly temperature-sensitive plants) and have led to historical events (more frequent crop failures, particularly cold or warm winter or summer, etc). Also, the CO2 content has changed. The idea that the "global warming" only exists, since man can burn oil is a myth. That is not to say that we should not use our resources  in a sensible way. Pollution still exists. The only thing we should learn is that we do not harm primarily the earth if we mess up our environment, but us. The "big climate" will “move” completely unaffected by what we do now with our world into the next ice age in the next few thousand years.

The second theory is, of course the more known one:

Man influences the future climate with its behaviour.  The use of oil and therefore the creation of too much C02 influence the climate in a negative way. Scientific evidence has shown, that the climate in the 20^th century has changed a lot quicker, than in the past. Since man uses oil in an excessive way  - climate catastrophes have increased on a high level and will lead to a change of climate world wide in the near future.

So, what is the correct answer?

Religion

So what else have you got, if your pension is not as big as you would like it to be and you have to work longer than you wanted? Of course, religion!!!

God, has a reason for everything. He is there for you and even if you feel rubbish-he knows why. But maybe he is a she or even an it?

Also, how can you know what religion is the right one. There are so many and they all claim to be the one and only. Choices over choices…

What happens if you go with the wrong one and god does not like it. What if you pray five times a day and go to a mosque or a church, but he/she/it just wants you to be a nice person instead and does not give a… how often you pray, what you wear or eat?

What makes people think god is interested in what people wear and say, considering his day job is to look after millions of people, animals, mountains, planets…

And if he does, Why did he give you a brain which is able to create doubt?

Pensions

As we all know, pensions are there to protect us in old age. There are various types. People who never earn a lot of money will rely mainly on the state pension. This is of course not a lot. Other people will use a private or a pension provided by their employer. Let's be honest - we all want to retire as early as possible without loosing money. And being 60 years old, to do this is probably a good age. But what has happened in the last couple of years? Pension age has risen and risen. At the moment it is 65. But in countries like Germany it is already 67. Do we honestly believe it will stay at 65? No, rubbish. One day we will officially work until we are about 70 and just drop dead. Well, at least that's a comment I heard very often in the past few months. So, what is the solution. Yes, we do become older. But does someone really believe, people will be employed until they are 70? The age we can offically retire does not matter so much, if employers refuse to employ people above a certain age. And this is exactly the problem we have. Pension age is not the problem. The respect of the experience of older people and being willling to keep them in jobs is the big issue.

Provocative subjects

Most people have read something at one point in their lives, which they did not agree with or felt quite affended by. There are so many subjects and comment which some people feel pretty relaxed about and others cannot tolerate. Some problems can be solved by talking about it and others can’t.  And some have been talked about hundreds of years ago and are still the same. I would like to make people start thinking about differents things and will therefore just write about a different “provocative” subject in every new post. Let me think, what would be the best one to start with……? Ah, I know, what about pension. Yes, this seems to be a good one. people are quite worried about it at the moment. So, let’s talk about Pensions.