localyokel

That’s why I mentioned it. They’re clearly trying to bury it when we paid £3m only 18 months ago and fuck all has resulted from it.

Paying for it once allegedly cost us £3m.

So which bit of this new set up do we own? Gawne spunked a load of money on a plot before he got hoofed out.

Your just a tight arse then. We all use Island infrastructure in one way or another and we should, as residents, pay a fair rate for what we are connected to, or what we potentially could be connected to. Everything ends up in the sea, in landfill, or in the incinerator, and you can't live without water or power. At the moment the people who draw most on the infrastructure are the ones who pay less in rates because they live in remote places. It can't be right. I also find it hard to believe that in this day and age there are that many total retrograde govag retards who never ever go to Douglas or any other major town and use some sort of shop or shared amenity. We're not living in the fucking dark ages where a pony and trap into the big smoke takes 2 days out of your life. We all use whole Island services and we should pay the same, as Island residents, to use those whole Island services.

Well the other members in Tynwald have admitted the sewage charge is grossly unfair. The rating system on the island is blatantly unfair. Some sort of community charge based on the number of people living in a property and their ability to pay would be an improvement. Generations of Manx politicians have been unwilling/ unable to tackle modernising the rating system. Chris Thomas is willing to push things forward. Good for him. We don't need a Manx Poll Tax. The fact is that we should have brought a fair all Island rate in at least 10 years ago. The rates system is totally obsolete, bears no relation to the 21st Century Isle of Man, and rewards all the people living outside of Douglas and in remote places that we still have to provide services to by letting them pay less in rates. You almost need to get to an all Island user charge for using central infrastructure services rather than a community charge per head. As Island residents we all connect to the same power and gas, use the same roads, dump our waste in the same tips and crap down the same pipes. We should just pay an Island user charge or 'rate' to use this network and cut the local authorities out of the loop. If we had done this all Island based 'rate' 10 years ago there would be bags of money in the system now negating the need for this crappy tax.

Look at the volume of trade in general on markets all over the world at the moment. Very low. It's the thing that everyone is talking about. Its obvious that you're either Eddie Teares stock broker or you know nothing about markets. This is not about low trading volumes, its about having no market in the share in which to trade which is entirely different. Most of they stuff you've posted in the last few weeks seems to single you out as some sad government butt plug, so far up the arse of the system that you've lost your bearings.

Is the lack of trade down to lack of demand, or people not wanting to sell? Not many people outside of Peel Holdings and IOMG hold shares (3 investors own 95% of the stock), so there isn't a lot of supply (eg: they don't want or need to sell), neither is there much demand (eg: not many private or institutional investors want to buy as the major shareholders and market makers are to a degree controlling the entry price). Across AIM demand really needs to be created as the risks/rewards can be considerable. But looking at the number of trades in this stock the chances of offloading to private investors or institutions (as you might do with Lloyds or Barclays shares etc) is very unlikely indeed in the current market. Its not a film company - its a potential future property or development business that currently leases assets to film companies.

Do they all have to be sold to the same person, or all at once? If they sold them off slowly in small amounts, without flooding the market, monitoring changes in demand, as reflected in share price, it wouldn't cause a problem.In fact, I think it would help there case if they were to realise the profits by selling a small proportion of the shares - perhaps £1m worth - and using the money to, for example, stop the toilet tax. If people saw this investment delivering real benefits, by helping to fund a necessary service without a stealth tax, they might not be moanign about it. We'd still have over £17.5m-worth of shares, and no toilet tax. I was looking at the trades online this morning. The sole market this week was about £4,000 of shares bought yesterday. So if you have £10m of shares and only one old duffer with four grand wanting to buy its going to take you an age to off load your holdings at a fair market price. The illiquidity of this stock is a huge issue. In reality its only going to be another significant investor/partner coming along to buy this holding that's going to give us a mechanism to offload and its going to require a significant event to create that oppportunity - for instance them getting planning permission and then selling the stake on to a house builder as part of a develpment deal. Otherwise there is no market in this share whatsoever.

Shares have just fallen from 445p to about 406p in the last 2 weeks so I can't see any further questions will be answered too cheerfully either. I assume the planning failure has a lot to do with such a significant fall. A 9% fall on £10m is around £900,000.

There are far too many layers lokalyokel and too many people in positions of power and influence that affect the average person.The real people are at the front end of things and if it's putting a plaster onto a thumb or involved in a life or death operation, then these people are the true heroes and foundation of the Hospital. Anything else is secondary and this includes the Ivory Tower of Directors as lets face it, they're just a type of enhanced admin! There is far too many managers of one sorts of another and for every hands on position, there is some type of admin manager or the like who do not deal in the mucky end. IMO, you could cut off a tenth of the top clean hands brigade and initially, things would be topsy turvy, but as long as the real working end was ok, the rest would eventually sort itself out. I do not include myself as the real hands on job and just one of the run-around people making sure that paperwork is at a certain place at a certain time and therefore expendable if seemed fit. I understand this although my £508.89 Nett pay per month working part time as a CS will only be a small saving in the larger scheme of things, but if this was the decision, then hey ho and would change jobs to a more profitable position. I think most people are aware of that. I have just had the misfortune of trying to help an elderly relative get through the layers at the hospital to get treatment and its disgusting. Some people should be ashamed they get paid by the public purse. Rude, obstructive, lazy, and basically couldn't give a toss about anything but perpetuating their job where they think the world revolves around them. I feel sorry for every professional sat up there having to deal with such a bunch of ignorant unhelpful assholes. When you get through to the doctors or consultants, or the nurses or healthcare staff, they are fantastic and very professional, and a credit to the health service. But there is a whole layer up there that basically needs carving up and booting out the door as they are useless, and have a massive chip on their shoulders about whatever status they think they have. Sending out badly typed letters, sending a few emails, and trying to manage a diary doesn't make you a bloody doctor so get that chip off your shoulder and start thinking the world revolves around the patient and not you and your bloody job.

I agree with that statement Lxxx, our health service is truly ruined by the layers and layers of tinpot jobsworth arseholes you have to cut through before you are even allowed to speak to anyone vaguely medically qualified. Its a system that appears to be administered to death by some of the rudest, slopey shouldered, wankshafts that ever walked the face of the earth. Edited to add: I have been drinking tonight so apologise for the language. Truth filter is firmly on.

It would because, yet again, its a pointless revenue generator when we are £200m down on VAT. The last census says there are about 38,000 households in the IOM so at £50 a connection that's less than £2,000,000 its actually going to raise. Its costing about £450m to run IOMG a year so £2m is just over 1 days worth of expenses its going to raise. So absolutely sod all. Put taxes up. All this pointless tinkering is a waste of time.

I believe it is necessary to reply to his rambling idiocy if only to protect some tiny element of integrity for these forums. The kind of rubbish he produces is exactly what local politicians are able to point to as examples of 'ill-informed' ignorance and to ignore the genuine points made by some of the more intelligent, knowledgeable and insightful posters1 who frequently expose their blundering spendthrift, self-serving actions.There was a time when intelligent debate was enabled on these forums and I'm extremely disappointed to find an experienced poster such as yourself seeking to protect those whose actions would damage them, Ms bees. 1I do not make any personal claim to be 'intelligent, knowledgeable or insightful.' Lonan, this forum is hardly Wikileaks or Occupy Wall Street. You take yourself too seriously. This forum for the most part is just an anti-government propaganda mill. Badmouthing the government seems to be a hobby for some people yet when push comes to shove they express hostility to anyone who genuinely speaks up against corruption and inequality. Again, lighten up - it's not as if anyone but a small number bother to read the forums anyway. So says the person who seems to bad mouth the civil service more than most. That post certainly adds weight to the suggestion that you are a government shill (or shills, or shill dept) with a very clear agenda. Its actually quite clever what you do on here with your random ramblings, diversionary tactics, and general infuriating obtuseness to constantly derail any serious debate before it gets into uncomfortable territory IOMG wise in exposing or discussing anything potentially serious.

To be honest Bladerunner that's not even a joke as most of the films already attributed to our 'success' are fairly low budget affairs - Waking Ned, the Libertine, that pile of shite Danny Dyer was in that I can't even remember the name of. There's not really a decent budget amongst any of them. Its always been about the VAT structure not the quality of the proposition.

Slim - I don't subscribe to the government is shit argument in all cases. I'm questioning what you said. The fund was managed from here for over 10 year, and apparently they still employ those people who managed it here as advisers so why the new manager can't have an office here confuses me. Why should the Manx tax payer pay to employ someone who pays UK tax and UK NI is my argument when they are managing Manx assets on behalf of the Manx taxpayer. That's exactly the same logic Treasury use for mandates on all the other reserve funds: they won't give a tender if there is no Manx subsidiary and no Manx investment license. As I said I suspect that because of whatever tax structure they have set up the MDF fund as to get UK grants and UK tax breaks they can't do that here. It does look odd when we say in the press that our film industry is so great but yet can't get anyone with the right expertise to manage it from here.

Slim - the fund invests into films and portfolio's of films. What would be wrong in them setting up a token office here and having it 'run' from here? Nothing really, other than that would probably kill whatever tax and grant angle they are now leveraging off with the MDF! I'm sorry but I just don't buy your argument (although you have now changed your argument to fit as you usually do).

Slim - this is a job managing the fund so why should government advertise for a job that pays no tax, NI, or other levies to the IOM Treasury? With other Reserve funds the money might well be invested off Island (like the media fund) but as part of the tender process the manager of the investment fund must be FSC reguated, and the company must be trading from the Isle of Man. You look a the last tender list on the Treasury website, they are all Manx 'managers' although the assets naturally have to be invested outside the Island to spread the risks etc. At least that way the 'manager' pays Manx tax and NI on its employees.

One does wonder why all the current IOMG activity around China? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22182949

Quite so. I fully support AML inititaives and legislation, what I would hope to see is fairness and also leadership from the top on who people are prepared to do business with. You also have to question whether AML is actually working to dissuade the perpetrators of the originating crimes to commit those crimes. Or, for that matter, the terrorists from obtaining their funding. Fairness in terms of jurisdictional risks too. Can you imagine the size of the crap storm if THIS would have happened offshore: The Bank for Gangsters: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362561/Bank-gangsters-Police-open-7k-safety-deposit-boxes-discover-50m.html I'd suggest the UK needs to get its own house in order before it starts thinking that grubby money laundering operations only happen offshore.

I think that you'll find that they are a limited company and can basically do what they like.

Including IoM Government in my opinion. If you recall the Sefton Group was pitching for Mezeron back in 2007 and it has several high profile ex Ministers on its Board. They lost the bid but I would say that this whole pincer movement on the SP has been going on for quite some time and that its a deliberate objective of our government. It must be bloody obvious, even to our own government, that the debt position of the SP has presented a potential loss to the Island for a while and that more control is needed over any business operating the sea routes.

I would agree with that. Its effectively masquerading as a government guarantee of income to service the debt pool and from a AAA rated Government to boot - so lets just hive off the debt into one place as the interest is likely to be cheaper with an AAA rated 'promise' to underwrite the servicing income stuck over the top. Might look a bit shitty now though if you haven't got any high paying customers to service the payments.

Well I tell you something when it comes to your support of Woodward & Co. Any business that makes its profit from a very narrow range of contracts (Tesco, Shoprite, M & S etc) deserves all it gets if its also using those key accounts to cross subsidise other supposedly loss making services to keep it in business. Its lunacy in any business to be so reliant on a small number of big value clients and the only reason they have done this is pure arrogance brought about by the position it thought it was in under the UA (ie, a monopoly that thought its clients had nowhere else to go). It seems to me that Mezeron actually recognises its part of the food chain in that its not a monopoly and has to compete on price and service whereas the SPC has simply sat growing fat off a pretty mediocre service for years. The fact that all its debt is up for renegotiation this month can't be a coincidence either. I'm sure the management team must be bricking it, and they are right to think that way as really its their fault that the company is in the position it finds itself in now with over £200m of debt to service that, if the original reports were true, its not even repaying. Their current business model is a crock and their clients are holding all the cards from what I can see and they have voted with their feet. It does make you wonder who would be willing to extend the £200m line of credit in its current position as its hardly looking a good risk.

I'm agreeing with you. The fact that you see them driving round in very nice cars, living in very fine houses and being directors of regulated or quasi regulated businesses decades later hardly deters the current generation of financial services directors and officers does it?

We're in different times now MP. But the fact is that many people implicated in the SIB seem to have prospered here despite that and indeed many are still involved with successful regulated businesses over 25 years later. Some odd sort of 'diplomatic immunity' seems to have applied to protect those at the top of the tree. Decades later the difference with the likes of Baines is that we've gone from being a closed shop that could get away with whatever it likes, to being the UK's and US's lapdog desperately needing the recognition of being top quality international finance centre. When that happens we have to be seen to be taking people down hard to prove that we're not the grubby unregulated arsehole of the universe we were in 1982. The problem with high profile people who were around in the 1970s and 80s is perhaps that they still thought that it was a case of who you knew when it comes to sentencing.