The end of the Wayne Rooney dream at Man Utd!!

After turning Wayne Rooney into a global superstar, Manchester United have decided not to stump up an increase in wages. Apparently, Rooney wanted something in the range of Cristiano Ronaldo's £11m plus a year compared with his current £5.3m.
(I have not got the details of the contracts!!). Man Utd are a selling club and there was the background fear that the American owners would want to cash in on their main asset. However, it looks like Rooney wanted to leave the club anyway, which is a shame since the fans always roared when he started to run against defences.

Real Madrid tried to win things with a bunch of global superstars but these players need others in the team to win the ball and pass to them. Even without Rooney, Man Utd can score enough goals but need a stronger midfield to give the defence a bit more protection. Giggs and Scholes can't go forever and the Euro loss against Bayern Munich showed that major investment/surgery was needed.

PS. As we now know our Wayne is staying at Man Utd on a major increase in pay. He is not as quick as he used to be.

In Great Britain: The squeezed middle classes.

The reduction in children benefits and the increase in university tuition fees will hit middle England hard. I suppose they did not expect this to happen when they voted in a Coalition government (sorry my joke). It looks like we have moved to a U.S style private market system for university education but we have had no transitional period to adjust to this. The British government is eliminating children trust funds and so there are no secure long-term investment programmes to help hard-pressed families finance higher education if the state refuses to do so.
I invested in one of thoe investment schemes for children marketed by one of the major financial services groups and it has been very volatile in terms of
performance. One minute it was doing quite well then it halved. That is equity performance for you!

The universities themselves are not financially strong enough to offer reasonable bursaries and I am sure the government will still want to control these institiutions whatever happens. I saw Lord Browne defend his report last night on the BBC web but just raising university fees without any commitment towards improved teaching or research did not make a lot of sense to me. I suppose he hopes that market forces will work towards improvements.

The elite universities will become more elite in terms of student composition and the trend to increase the number of non-EU students will continue. I wonder if Vince Cable had that in mind when he took over his ministerial brief. The Lib-Dem politician has at least admitted to the fact that he benefitted from a free university education.

Was it the banana that did it for David Miliband?

I suppose it is too early to comment on Ed Miliband.

The new leader of the British Labour party, Ed Miliband, says he is not going to squeeze the country's middle class but who is going to believe him? The current coalition government seems to have a few tax-raising initiatives of its own. There is the possibility that HMRC wants to take central control of payrolls so as to deduct
income tax and national insurance and then send the remaining amount to your bank account. Is this Stalinism or Conservatism? I don't know if Tory voters knew this would be in the pipeline when they voted for David Cameron. Apparently, the HMRC wants to cut down PAYE errors with people who get multiple payments from different jobs and various pension payments. I think HMRC would need a few more staff and a bigger computer to cope.
To be fair Allister Heath puts it far better than me:
http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/allister-heath/don%E2%80%99t-reward-hmrc%E2%80%99s-massive-failure

Sincere condolences for David Cameron, UK prime minister.

The blog sends its sincere condolences for British Prime Minister David Cameron on the passing of his father in France yesterday.

Football economics defy the laws of gravity!!

The economics surrounding football clubs here in England & Wales and in Europe are perhaps a contradiction in terms. I think the word "economy" is derived from a Greek word for housekeeping. I don't believe Real Madrid was thinking of its profit & loss account when it shelled out a tonne of cash for Kaka and Ronaldo (let's call it £130m for the two players). I hope Man Utd took straight cash rather than the instalment deal it got for Beckham)
I suppose their market values went down following their lacklustre World Cup
performances. Let's hope the Spanish team wins the European Cup so that it can make some return on its investment.

However, in their way stand the mortal enemy FC Barcelona as well as clubs such as Inter Milan and Manchester United. The draw for the next stage of the European Cup is being held in Monaco tonight. The lure of a Wembley final would be pretty big for the four English clubs in the draw. It would be virtually a home fixture for Man Utd and Chelsea. Hopefully the pitch would be sorted out by then.

Apparently, when Tottenham Hotspurbooked their passage last night, the north London team hit a £20m jackpot. For the first time the capital is putting up three contenders for this competition. I have a shameful admission to make. Although a Cockney Red, I am a bit schizophrenic in supporting Spurs about 49 pct of the time. It was good to see Crouch bagging a hat trick but I suppose a tougher European defence would have countered two of those goals. Although we did not get the robot dance, which celebrated those English goals.

The free milk controversy - back to Thatcher!!

It just proves that there is nothing new under the sun with the proposal (personally squashed
by UK Prime Minister David Cameron) that free milk should be withdrawn from under five year old children at educational establishments. It just shows my age that I can remember this type of controversy dogged the old battle axe Margaret Thatcher herself. I know I should not poke fun at the victor of the Falklands War but her economic policies were pretty responsible for the reduced industrial capability of the UK.

It was sad watching a programme of "Top Gear" when Jeremy Clarkson visited the old empty factory, which manufactured the Jensen sports car in West Bromwich and said that we don't manufacture anything anymore in the UK.

I suppose we don't go in for suporting industrial champions but we did rescue Rolls Royce in the 1970s and that was a pretty good move for both the aero-engine maker and for us as a nation. Currently, it is open season for the world class manufacturers we still have in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Who would have thought a bidding war would have broken out for Chloride!