Rising slowly
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Unemployment is rising slower than many economists and, indeed, the government feared.
The number of people signing on rose in September by the smallest amount in 16 months (the Office for National Statistics reported this morning that the claimant count rose by 20,800, below expectations of a rise of up to 25,000).
What's more the wider so-called International Labour Organisation (ILO) measure of unemployment did not breach the 2.5 million mark as expected.
Now if you're one of those who's just lost their job or fears losing it this will come as absolutely no comfort.
However, government ministers are now expecting an unexpected windfall of several billion pounds which was set aside to pay for higher levels of unemployment planned for in the chancellor's Budget.
This will allow the Treasury to make future "savings" (in reality, of course, simply a reduction in what they would otherwise have had to borrow) without making cuts.
Ministers are also set to claim that this slowing in the rate of increase in unemployment is down to their policies and interventions which the Tories...well, you know the rest of the script.
The real economic debate will surely focus on whether it's British labour market flexibility, other inherent features of the UK economy or dodgy forecasts that account for these better than expected figures - or should that be "not as bad as feared" - rather than any short term small scale government interventions.
I'm 
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These figures take little account of the people on short time work or those with savings who do not register as unemployed. Whilst I would like to believe things were getting better, I see little improvement in the real world and would take the figures with a pinch of salt.
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Like *1 I too am suspicious of the figures. The Government's record on 'manipulation' of statistics is so well known that I would really want to see independent verification before accepting them.
T'would be interesting to see where jobs are being lost, and where employers are still recruiting.
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I haven't had this experience myself, my friends and collegues have been losing their jobs increasingly rapidly it seems. Surely though it would make sense, for the government to go ahead with proposed cuts, and count this "windfall" as another cut to speed up the painfull process? Economics not being my strong suit, I'm guessing theres a reason they can't or won't which someone here will point out to me.
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And this is all thats going on thats worth reporting on today from inside the bubble?
Nothing about Jackboots Smith being elevated to the peerage? Nothing about ex-Speaker Martin taking his place in the HoL? Nothing further about Legg? Or the 500 extra troops for Afghan?
All that you could dig up was:
"Ministers are also set to claim that this slowing in the rate of increase in unemployment is down to their policies and interventions which the Tories...well, you know the rest of the script."
Yeah we know the rest of the script, Nick.
You just seem to spend most of your time reading it to us.
Precisely what DO you Edit??
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it is high time the government, that claims to be all powerful in all things economic, accepted that the multiplier on government spending is and always has been under one times.
it doesn't matter where tyou go in the world, governments worldwide have never been able to achieve a mulltipier on their investment over one times.
So sooner or later this government spending has to stop as we are getting less than a dollar return for every dollar they keep spending.
You can quote unemployment numbers until you are blue in the face but they will not start to come down with any multiplier until the private sector starts to spend money and employ people; otherwise we shall end up deeper and deeper in debt that achieves less and less effect and employ fewer and fewer people.
It seems strange to me that all economists know this multiplier effect of government spending and yet many are advocates of government spending in many areas where it simply isn't appropriate; the auto sector; the steel sector; the energy sector.
Cut government spending and cut it now as it is crowding out resources from the private sector.
Call an election.
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As one of those looking for work, I can confirm that it's a tough out there.
I have been surprised by how many vacancies there are, there certainly are lots of jobs out there, the problem is all the competition to fill them. Maybe the government could deport everyone clever than me?
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How much research have you done Nick?
I know that the Job Centres are currently over whelmed, and thanks to Brown already cutting the numbers prior to the crash the volume of paperwork being completed is slowing
If the drop is sustained next month then you can call the bottom, but I for one do not trust the figures and a quick visit to the job centres should re-inforce this
On top of this the unemployment figures are only those who actually qualify for Job Seekers, not those who were not, or those who chose not to go to the job centre.
A more reliable figure would be those "economically inactive"
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An 88000 increase in unemployment in 3 months - what a windfall
I'm sure those of us affected are really pleased with this 'good' news.
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I agree with Fubar
Much more interested in debate around, J Smith, G Kinnock, troop deployments or the merits of asset sell offs... this is rather banal.
The message, "employment rising slower than expected - governement needs to borrow at a slower rate".... wow.
Nice positive spin on increasing unemployment though.....
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Agreed with Fubar as well, my posts got moderated yesterday because I complained about the level of comment from nick on his postings recently and this one is plumming the same depths.
Nick the unemployment levels not plummeting as much as feared is undoubtedly good news, but its not the most important issue of the day, other commentators here have pointed out numerous other topics that deserve much more attention.
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as someone looking for work, I'm glad the Tories aren't in. Huge cuts are just what we don't need.
I was only born in the mid-80s but it sounds like the Slash and Burn, Short Sharp Shock policies that failed then are bubbling under the surface.
A strong, steady recovery is what we need and I trust Gordy and Darling to deliver that ALOT more than I trust Cameron and Osborne
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Nick, you say "The real economic debate will surely focus on whether it's British labour market flexibility, other inherent features of the UK economy or dodgy forecasts that account for these better than expected figures."
I'm personally stumping for option 4 - statistical manipulation and massage. The Tories were good at this last time round but Labour have taken it to an entirely new level!
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well that's good news Nick, isn't it?
... although ONE person losing their Job is one too many, of course
whether the Job is a useful one (like a traffic warden) or one of questionable value (a middle manager in a large private company, say, or a tax advisor) it is of enormous importance to the person doing it - not so much the Feeding the Soul aspect (although it's very nice if your Job does that) but more from the Paying the Bills point of view
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Unemploment stats show UK born workforce have shed 695 k jobs while overseas born workers rose by 22k in last quarter:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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11
Doesnt matter whether the Tories are in or not, huge cuts is what you're going to get. Either from the tories or NL if they get back in... or from the IMF, once they knock on the door. Wont matter what political colour the chancellor is at the time.
Its just a matter of how long you're prepared to wait for them.
I hope for you that your trust doesnt prove to be misplaced.
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More statistics:
Statistics:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk1009.pdf
Oh dear:
"The number of people in public sector employment was 6.04 million in June 2009, up 13,000 from
March 2009. The number of people in private sector employment was 22.85 million, down 230,000
from March 2009."
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re 11 Bearded
No disrespect but if you were born in the mid 80s how do you know what to expect from a Conservative government? You were approximately 12 when the current incumbents took hold
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My daughter has recently lost her job and faces a 3 week wait for an appointment with the local job centre to register for job seekers allowance. They are totally overwhelmed with applicants.
The number of unemployed is likely to reach 3 million and some experts forecast a 2nd recession which will make this even worse.
Nick, you are spreading Labour propaganda, but this is nothing new!
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I predict another green shoots outburst in the next few weeks! As previous bloggers have already pointed to the under accounting of those wish to work but do not have jobs and those who are working part time but would like full time. To which I would add the many graduates and qualified people who are having to perform menial jobs to earn bread and attend circuses. It is almost inevitable that the talk by government soon will not be about unemployment but about the end of the recession when the only credible definition of its end is when unemployment falls substantially. IT IS STILL RISING!
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As Gordon Bruar (?) said on last night's Newsnight Scotland, Britain's flexible labour market is one of Thatcher's better gifts to the nation.
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More statistics:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Direct quote:
"The number of UK born people in employment (not seasonally adjusted) was 25.10 million in the
three months to June 2009, down 625,000 from the three months to June 2008. The number of
non-UK born people in employment (not seasonally adjusted) was 3.73 million, up 22,000 from the
three months to June 2008."
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I don't believe the figures so nyah.
I would have thought the Carter-Ruck story would have been of some interest to Nick what with his being a political journalist and them (C-F, sorry, C-R) trying to stop journalists writing about politics?
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"The employment rate for people of working age was 72.6% in the three months to August 2009. The unemployment rate was 7.9%."
Office of National Statistics October 2009
No comment needed.
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Could it just be the spending of the vast amount of QE money by the government ? As far as I can see, Brown is just throwing money out into the street, hoping to fool the public that things are OK. Meanwhile the huge debt continues to grow, and will have to be dealt with after the election (by the Tories). Labour will, of course, blame them for the difficult times ahead, and point back at the (fake) good times under Labour.
There's going to be more wasteful spending until the election, so I am tightening my belt a little further in preparation.
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"This will allow the Treasury to make future "savings" (in reality, of course, simply a reduction in what they would otherwise have had to borrow) without making cuts."
This does of course assume other things remain equal, particularly that the growth figures in the budget are indeed accurate. If we don't get back to 3% plus growth from 2011, then we'll have to borrow more.
Given that we were only just growing at this rate on a debt fuelled economy with low interest rates, I'm highly suspicious this will be achievable in a world of much lower debt availability, higher interest rates and higher taxes.
Still, that all seems to be "Hush Hush" as well.
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6. At 11:31am on 14 Oct 2009, beardedshrimper wrote:
Maybe the government could deport everyone clever than me?
************
Don't suggest that - it's probably the only chance Nu Labour have of winning the next election.....
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This kind of " good news" smacks of media manipulation.
I expect better from a supposedly impartial broadcaster.
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Yes statistics certainly can be miss-leading. It's possible for the same thing to be presented in different ways. Like the number of days jacqui Smith did or didn't spend at her sister's. Seems Smith came up with one number and the police who are tasked with protecting her came up with a lower number.
Not worth looking into, Nick? Either the police were guarding the wrong place and were incompetent or Smith is fibbing. Surely it's in the interest of the nation to find out which?
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Nick
"However, government ministers are now expecting an unexpected windfall of several billion pounds which was set aside to pay for higher levels of unemployment planned for in the chancellor's Budget."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
What part of cloud cuckoo land is this from.
All of these figures are are based on Darlings stupid forecasts in the last PBR. We were out of recession last JUNE err wait a mo.
We won't coming out of recession until 2 quarters after he forecast.
Unexpected windfall?
Unexpected costs of 6 months of recession you mean and around £45 Billion more debt.
Please can we have some truth.
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~16 "The number of people in public sector employment was 6.04 million in June 2009, up 13,000 fromMarch 2009.
The number of people in private sector employment was 22.85 million, down 230,000 from March 2009."
Ain't that the way of Labour. 230,000 less of us supporting 13,000 more of them.
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An orgy of self-congratulation because ONLY another 88,000 were thrown out of work, meaning ONLY 2,500,000 are now unemployed. A real cause for celebration - based on official figures which you wouldn't trust under any circumstances. And no doubt we'll now have another verbal onslaught from the "Green Shoots" brigade, seeking to justify their fat bonuses, price rises and interest rate increases. These figures are about as trustworthy as yesterday's inflation figures, which alleged annual price rises of just over 1% - the only trouble is, I wish somebody had told the news about low inflation to the people sending me their bills for gas, electricity, water, clothes, fuel and council tax. Caledonian Comment
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The fact that the unemployment (J.S.A claimants) figures are down, is indicative of nothing, except figure manipulation. There are, as previously mentioned, many far more important stories that have been gilded over.
If the Government spent as much energy on rescuing the economy as they do on spin, we would be better off. The story is not that unemployment has stopped dropping, no it is that it has not dropped as far as anticipated.
What is happening to Baroness Scotland? The stories about MPS' expenses has wiped that off the screen. We, the public, do not forget this type of thing; no more than the story about Lord Mandelson on a yacht last summer was never satisfactorily explained. It remains a 'running sore' that will stay at the back of some peoples' minds.
This is as true of the Jacqui Smith affair. Sir George Young (yes the tory mp.) tried to excuse her. I watched and listened to his explanation on Newsnight and felt sure that it would feature on this blog today - no chance.
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The unemployment figures are a statistical joke I can not say it often enough every figure from this government for 9 years has been manipulated not recorded properly and or miss matched I personally know when police would not record a reported crime and social workers asked for potential danger reports to be removed to make abuse stats look better.
Anyone over 60 has to go on pension credits anyone with money or redundancy has to wait on a reserve list anyone leaving school goes into training allowance look round the offices and the works and see the empty car parks the empty buses and trains at rush hour and then tell me the unemployment figures.
Of course there are two rescue packages at work the scrapage scheme fuelling more household debt and the dropping pound keeping some manufacturing buoyant in fact the sinking pound is the natural result of the market force self balancing but then what do I know about economics. I as an elector allowed some buffoon into office who said they could do the job or did I….mmm. Another slight of hand - time for the truth me thinks.
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Interesting. Looks as tho GB and AD took the right actions and decisions then despite siren calls from Tories. Nice One.
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"13. At 11:45am on 14 Oct 2009, sagamix wrote:
well that's good news Nick, isn't it?
... although ONE person losing their Job is one too many, of course
whether the Job is a useful one (like a traffic warden) or one of questionable value (a middle manager in a large private company, say, or a tax advisor)"
Hohoho, you are droll. My client's value my job at £180 an hour. No question. I am sure that you'd agree that it is as wrong that a client pays more tax than he should than that he pays less tax than he should. Who is to advise and protect the vulnerable businessman, trying to keep a roof over his head and his children from destitution if not the likes of myself? Why, it's as much a service to the community as anything else. Next time you pass the local butcher, the local hairdresser, the local newsagent, remember that they could not prosper without sound financial advice and their shops, the lifeblood of the community, would be replaced by a row of boarded up windows, daubed with graffiti and the area would rapidly become a magnet for drug-dealers and muggers. Even the poor traffic warden would suffer as no-one would dare park their cars at all, more fearful of vandelism than a £80 fine (halved if paid within 14 days).
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Global recovery due to global circumstances.
Not our fault gov.
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Considering how many of these posts are complaining about the topic of the blog I doubt this one will last long.
Best make this post at least slightly "on topic", nick as most of the posters here seem to be having many examples of losing their jobs, can you provide any insight on whether the government has ommited certain parts of the workforce from these statistics or moved them onto a different benifit group?
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In the statistics, there is a section on numbers in work who were born in the UK and numbers in work who were not. For their own reasons, the moderators won't allow me to quote the relevant passage - so trawl through and read it for yourselves:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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Hi Nick,
Haven't you or the government heard of seasonal employment? At this time of year many stores and other companies employ people on short-term contracts. I know, I am one of those people. Having been unemployed for some six months I gained employment in mid September lasting until Christmas time. So Nick, come the new year, you will no doubt be reporting a higher increase in unemployment when people like myself once again find ourselves without work.
So I think that before the ministers spend their unexpected windfall, they might want to think a few months ahead and the costs of unemployment payments in the new year. Alas, ministers don't think! They just squander.
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I very much hope this is good news. That said, after such steep previous rises in unemployment, some sort of improvement was to be expected by now. Undoubtedly also, government spending has played a role here and this has been a short term benefit.
The question is how sustainable that benefit is: where I am more fearful. You can't keep paying for more and more people on the public payroll whilst the tax revenue base continues to drop off a cliff.
At some point, you either i. have to cut public spending and so jobs in the future, ii. have to raise taxes massively to bring tax revenues into line with the public payroll, or iii. go bankrupt, get bailed out by the IMF and basically lose your independence and be told what to do.
Personally, whoever is elected will face very painful choices here. For my money, BOTH parties will have to cut spending vey hard and raise taxes. The only difference will be in the relative contribution of the two.
Labour will cut spending less and raise taxes more, whilst putting off the day of reckoning as long as possible - thereby also making it worse. The Tories will cut spending harder and try to minimise any tax rises, but will face up to the issue squarely and try to tackle it head-on.
Frankly, Labour should be hoping to lose the election because it's going to be awful, whoever wins. Better to blame the Tories and pretend it wasn't their mistakes.
As for Martin and Smith becoming peers, isn't that just the sort of Old Boys' School, Clubby idiocy that Brown said he would change when the expenses scandal broke? Great to see him following through his high words with such honourable actions later as usual. The man really is a fool if he can't see that we can see through this: and don't like nor trust him as a result.
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With all these MP's emptying out in May,should
a JobCentrePlus be opened in Parliament.
Help in finding employment/courses in investment!
These MP's are multi skilled.
Wages Clerk ? Good with money ?
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"greatHayemaker wrote:
Global recovery due to global circumstances.
Not our fault gov."
That is a lie, everybody knows that good things are down to Brown and his Midas touch and everything bad that happens is down to global problems!
The recovery has to be down to Brown's brilliant idea to pull us out of recession by spending billions of taxpayers money - the only problem is that the taxpayers who will be paying it back are too young to vote (or eat solid food)
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23 Bluematter:
"The employment rate for people of working age was 72.6% in the three months to August 2009. The unemployment rate was 7.9%."
Office of National Statistics October 2009
No comment needed."
*******
Where are the other 19.5% (or by the Government's JSA statistics, 6.17 million people)? Are these the Incapacity Benefit recipients, in which case I can't wait for the Conservatives to start weeding out the workshy or the incompetently classified). Are they the 'hopeless homeless' that GB and New Labour deny exist, but you see them every day in doorways and in town centres, and there's nowhere near enough beds for them at night?
There are more people slipping through the statistical smoke-and-mirrors of the Goverment's press release than are actually employed in the Public Sector (and there are WAY too many of those).
Nick, don't you think that a trly impartial, unbiased and professional Political editor would be picking up on these things, and not having to rely on the commenters on his blog to point them out to him?
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Talk about looking for a silver lining. Unemployment in the three months to July 2009 rose by 89,000. So this is a reduction of just 1,000. Happy to see it go in the right direction but it is very marginal.
Also, any saving the government makes if unemployment does turn our lower than forecast has been already spent on other areas. The latest budget forecast is for a deficit of over £200b, an increase from £175b.
Nick, you ought to be a bit more skeptical when you listen to the government's line on these issues.
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#11 beardedshrimper
I was only born in the mid-80s.
That would make you around 25 years old. Do you have any kids?
Unfortunately if you have, it is they who will pick up the tab for the debt NuLabour have created.
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lmao, since when has "not rising quite as rapidly" been equivalent to "improved"?!!
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#41 spinspamspun
Good post.
Quite a few gardeners in there as well.
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Nick,
There are lies, damn lies & unemployment statistics.
I’m surprised you fell for this one.
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The ILO measure of unemployment counts all those who are between 16 and 65 and are out of work, looking for work, and able to start in two weeks. It is used by many countries, so it enables international comparisons. The claimant count is of people claiming benefit, and identifies those claiming benefits either because they are unable to work, or are looking for work, or for some other reason. The two measures are different, so come up with different results. The claimant count is based on actual numbers, while the ILO measure is the result of the Labour Force Survey, where sample interviews are carried out each week and the results collated for a twelve week period.
The results are not massaged to give good figures, but politicians on all sides use the figures that best suit the case they want to make. Today's figures show that the rate of unemployment growth is slowing. That will probably be seen by most people as good news, and I have seen no evidence that the figure is inaccurate.
Incidentally, the Labour Force Survey also asks questions about education and training, health, number of hours worked, and pay received. The resulting statistics are all publicly available.
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Is this a spoof blog ?
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41#
You know as well as anyone Derek.... the revolving door...
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11. At 11:41am on 14 Oct 2009, beardedshrimper wrote:
as someone looking for work, I'm glad the Tories aren't in. Huge cuts are just what we don't need.
I was only born in the mid-80s but it sounds like the Slash and Burn, Short Sharp Shock policies that failed then are bubbling under the surface.
A strong, steady recovery is what we need and I trust Gordy and Darling to deliver that ALOT more than I trust Cameron and Osborne
I was born in 1985 and in the NHS's case that is not quite how I remember it, in fact I think it was better then. Due to the current defacit we have no choice but to cut spending you simply can not spend what you dont have.
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This is to the moderator. I find it extremely sinister that you will not allow reference to the section in the UK Government's own statistical analysis which looks at employment levels for UK Citizens as compared with non-UK Citizens. What on earth is the problem with referring to this paragraph?
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555 @ 35
my clients value my job at £180 an hour
and worth every penny, I'm sure!
no but sorry, Andy, didn't mean to personalise things
let's talk generic Tax Advisor, not Andy C555
and the Q is ... useful job?
right, so we start with a truth:
every pound of tax paid by a person who's wealthier than the average is an equalising event
and now another one:
TAs only work for such people
and another:
the impact of TAs (if they're any good) is to REDUCE the tax paid by their clients
and so to our bolded conclusion:
if we consider it useful to increase the level of inequality in our society, then yes ... a Tax Advisor is useful
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34#
Thats one point of view... for now. Whether you'll think the same when/if you join the ranks of the unemployed remains to be seen.
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Nick
can we please have some consistency in BBC output
You are the Political editor of the BBC.
You think that the employment figures will deliver a windfall.
Why then does Andrew Neil write this on his blog today?
Unemployment rose by 88,000 to just shy of 2.5m in the last three months. The government knows the figures are terrible but takes comfort from a slowing rate of increase. But ministers should perhaps not take too much comfort. A senior Treasury source told me yesterday that unemployment would continue to rise "well into next year", by which I take it to mean that it would only start to fallback sometime in the third quarter. In other words, unemployment is likely still to be rising (to 3m or worse) when the government goes to the country in May/June.
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54#
YOUR bold conclusion mate.
Maybe Andy C555 would need to retrain to traffic duties if the tax law in the UK wasnt so damned complicated.
And surely you cant be advocating a flat, identical wage for everyone regardless of what they do? They tried that in the USSR and look what happened there... There is no such thing as an average wage. As you're no doubt already aware, an average is just the meanpoint summarised from a range of values, high and low. It isnt really reprasentative...
the only equality you are suggesting mate is to make everyone poor.
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"Unemployment is rising slower than many economists and, indeed, the government feared.".
I want to be positive about the above but it is hardly a cause for joy, is it? It is still a RISE, after all. True?
What we also have to consider is that such a statistic could be merely due to random fluctuations rather that being an indicator that the recession has truly bottomed out. It is too early to make a meaningful conclusion from such a stat.
The next set of figures might go the other way, for instance.
Nope - get back to me when the total level of "actively unemployed" is successively falling - now THAT would be something to smile about.
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Nick, you state that the government has a several billion pound windfall...
... that only cost them £175bn (and still going) in freshly printed QE money. A bank bail out in all but name.
Not sure that you should really class that as a windfall? What's the opposite of a windfall?? Sunrise? Well, it certainly is a new dawn. Lets see what happens when the Bank tries to sell those bonds.
You ain't seen nothing yet... no no no no no baby, no you ain't seen nothing yet.
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re 17 Angry
Sorry for late reply, not that you'll probably read this.
I didn't experience the last one to my knowledge, but i know what the present Tories are saying so i'm basing it on that
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Portraying rapidly rising unemployment as an improvement in employment takes the art of spin to a new level. Unemployment is still rising, the fact that it is doing so at a less rate than before does not mean that employment is improving. But there again I should not be surprised at this latest manipulation of the facts. The same principal has already been applied to when this government (and the political commentators who support them) can claim that this recession has ended. In the past two quarters of positive growth were required before one could declare a recession had ended. Now an economy still contracting but contracting at a slower rate than previous quarters seems to be good enough.
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I can only assume those who continue to blame Gordon, the Government (this one or the previous one) or 'Global financial weather' as the cause of the crisis has never read Das Kapital.
It's a sad state of affairs when people are trying to cure colds by sealing up the nose as sneezing is a sign of having one - rather than fighting the virus which causes it.
In terms of Economic understanding this country is in the dark ages.
Never mind, when we're all unemployed maybe some of you will bother to read it and might actually realise what a complete waste of time your life has been (Economically speaking of course - I'm sure you've all done some socially useful things.).
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Please Please Nick do not tell Brown about this windfall or he will just spend it on his next uncosted mad cap plan
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You can't impose new rules retrospectively. The rules were lax, but make it correct in the future. They allowed MPs to take the piss out of the taxpayers on expenses.
The way it should work is that MPs should be paid a much higher salary than now (this would attract higher quality people to the job, which we need) and make it such that they pay their own expenses from that. Those who can take advantage of eg living in London, that we must accept.
Or we can have a dormitory arrangement for MPs' London living arrangements. They have a flat in a block, either supplied furnished or furnished at their cost.
MPs have shown by their irresponsibility with taxpayers' money that they cannot be relied upon to do the right thing without being "on the make". It has to change.
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Rising slowly eh? Nothing to do with the fact that HMRC has been deferring company tax and VAT payments of @ £10 billion at the start of the year which has risen to an estimated £30 billion now… a situation which will probably continue until the election.
Once those payments are called in, watch that unemployment bird fly!
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fubar @ 57
and surely you can't be advocating a flat, identical wage for everyone regardless of what they do?
indeed I wasn't (and I'm not)
the big clue to how I wasn't (and am not) can be found in how I didn't say anything remotely resembling such a thing
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Ah, Nick and the Bias Corp spinning this as GOOD NEWS??????? - when Legg, Smith, and MORE troops sent to AFG is the real news AND the gagging of Parliament reporting by a firm of Solicitors.
This is a disgrace from an organisation paid for by US. The unemployment figures, especially the young, are a TOTAL DISGRACE for no more boom and bust Clown and his utterly useless party and policies - why no in depth reporting of this tragedy - as for the UK we KNOW it is broke and we also KNOW Clown shoulders nearly all the blame.
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Mods now if any of my posts get cancelled for being off topic and 64 is let through I will be complaining and calling for a few jobs to be added to the unemployment figures.
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HAHAHA
I just imagined the scenario. Jenson button climbs from his Brawn GP car which is now three feet shorter and embeded in the armco at turn one of the circuit and says "well i thought everything was going to be OK because I was accelerating less as I entered the corner than when I was halfway down the straight."
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"sagamix wrote:
555 @ 35
right, so we start with a truth:
every pound of tax paid by a person who's wealthier than the average is an equalising event"
While that is technically true the question should be "Is it right?"
We could set income tax at 100% and give everybody in the country pocket money - there everybody is equal. Hooray the left has won and we are now living in Utopia.
Problem is when you go down the shops to spend your money you will find them all closed as there are no workers (where is the motivation to go out and work all the money goes to the state - it is a lefties paradise remember), another problem is that noone is getting rid of the rubbish which leads to rats, insects and eventually illness. However, when we go to the hospital the staff (those who aren't out getting food or firewood) are unable to actually treat you because all the drug companies stopped developing new drugs (lets face it - without profit where was their motivation?)
Here is a hard true for you - if you take away the motivation to be something better than the rest society will stagnate. Equality of opportunity is a good thing, however equality of reward is not.
Would you be happy to live in a world where a doctor was paid the same wage as someone who serves behind the counter at a coffee shop? I know I wouldn't.
"and another:
the impact of TAs (if they're any good) is to REDUCE the tax paid by their clients"
Oddly enough, reducing the tax paid is not always a bad thing. Take for example a small company who hires 50 people, suddenly Gordon Brown's economical miracle collapses into recession (I know it will never happen - no more boom and bust and all that but lets pretend it does collapse maybe because of America) a TA might help this company stay afloat by cutting their tax bill during the difficult times and keep these 50 nice people in their jobs, and maybe the TA also allows them to grow as a company after the recession and hire more people. Now just imagine that there are hundreds of these small companies!
"if we consider it useful to increase the level of inequality in our society, then yes ... a Tax Advisor is useful"
The very nature of society means that there will be inequality, all a Tax advisor does is work within the law to find a way to minimise the taxes - if the loopholes weren't in place and the tax system was clear (rather than designed as to confuse people into over-paying taxes) we wouldn't actually need them.
Perhaps instead of attacking tax advisors you should attack the tax system which requires people to use them to get the best deal for themselves.
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I think the criteria is wrong.
Surely we shouldn't be looking at how many unemployed there are, but rather how fewer tax payers there are from the private sector. You know, the ones that actually fund everything.
I would be interested to see how those numbers stack up
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rr @ 67
good post Ronnie!
if one likes that sort of thing
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57. At 1:17pm on 14 Oct 2009, Fubar_Saunders
Ah the classic Liberty vs Equality argument.
So do tell us how can you attempt to reach total liberty when the liberation of one person can restrict the liberty of another? Ah yes - I forgot, you're talking about your liberty - not anyone elses.
This is why libertarians are forced to be selfish.
If however you produce total equality then the liberty is found in the fact that no-one needs to desire any more than they already have - because there is no-one to idolise as being 'better than you', and they have the freedom to pursue lives which would be much more rewarding (not in the 'fake' financial sense).
I suspect AndyC555 is a great tax advisor - however what if he is also the greatest artist in history - we shall never find out because he is in an industry which only exists to try and rectify the imbalance of our Economic system - making jobs like tax advisor possible.
The entire tax system is a complete inefficiency - millions of man hours, paper and power dedicated to taking back money that was taken from the populous to begin with - in the form of profit.
This is like Dad earning money in his shop, giving some to the kids to spend, and they then purchase items in Daddy's shop. Surely the efficent thing would be for Dad to give the goods directly.
....and yet that's how our Economy works (or rather doesn't), Peter pays Paul, who pays Patrick, who pays Peter etc.
Nothing constructive being done - but the movement of the money does allow Government and Bankers to cream off some of the cash with their taxation and their interest, and when they can't cream anymore in the present - they start creaming from the future by speculating on 'expected growth'.
....and you really wonder why it all collapses every so often?
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"sagamix wrote:
fubar @ 57
and surely you can't be advocating a flat, identical wage for everyone regardless of what they do?
indeed I wasn't (and I'm not)
the big clue to how I wasn't (and am not) can be found in how I didn't say anything remotely resembling such a thing"
Then why suggest that tax is an equalising event if you yourself admits that equality is not a good thing?
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Not often you see a second order differential being used for political purposes.
However I would like to know the fourth order. Is the increase in the rate of decrease in the increase of unemployment increasing or decreasing?
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I wouldn't read too much into the Summer figures. Once the hols are over and students/graduates return from vac jobs, then we'll see. The Autumn months I suspect will revert to the former pattern, and then next year an acceleration in job losses from the public sector will take over. We'll be at 3.5 million unemployed by early 2011
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I must reccomend you all read J.K Galbraith's 'The great crash'.
Inside you will see numerous little press releases (yes they had them in 1929) all of which are dubious statements like the one produced here.
The similarity to today is uncanny, my favourite has to be "the rate of decline appears to be slowing" - which is the most bizzarre effort to make a slide sound positive.
They discovered then - just as we will now - that you cannot talk your way out of recession by putting a positive spin on everything. The effect is in fact worse as you slowly loose your credibility with the public as each hope fails to materialise.
If you don't believe me then start searching Google news for the start of 2009 and see how many politicans, bankers and business leaders were claiming they could see recovery.
The outstanding winner is still Baroness 'Green shoots' - who is unsurpassed in her imbocilic analysis - which earned her a promotion no less.
Don't forget folks, in the 80 / 90's recession we had a quarter of growth before sinking back into negative territory - so even growth (when it comes) is not a sign of recovery - even though all the idiot Economists will talk of a 'technical recession'.
Considering their GDP, unemployment and inflation figures are at best 'guesses' - I would say there is nothing technical about it!
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. At 11:31am on 14 Oct 2009, rockRobin7 wrote:
"it is high time the government, that claims to be all powerful in all things economic, accepted that the multiplier on government spending is and always has been under one times.
it doesn't matter where you go in the world, governments worldwide have never been able to achieve a mulltipier on their investment over one times.
So sooner or later this government spending has to stop as we are getting less than a dollar return for every dollar they keep spending."
" Keynesian models of economic activity also include a so-called multiplier effect; that is, output increases by a multiple of the original change in spending that caused it. Thus, a ten-billion-dollar increase in government spending could cause total output to rise by fifteen billion dollars (a multiplier of 1.5) or by five billion (a multiplier of 0.5). Contrary to what many people believe, Keynesian analysis does not require that the multiplier exceed 1.0. For Keynesian economics to work, however, the multiplier must be greater than zero."
International Library of Economics
Your idea that the multiplier is invariably less than one is wrong.It must be more than zero,that is the only precondition for its use.
The effect of the multiplier is to increase consumption and investment and to raise effective demand during slumps.State spending raises aggregate demand by a multiple greater than zero which works through the economy to affect levels of employment.The two world wars were the laboratories for the Keynesian project in demand management.
Monetary measures as advocated by Mr. Osborne are relatively ineffective. If there is no demand for goods or services, buainesses don`t invest and consumers don`t spend so the price of money is an irrelevancy.
I gather from the rest of your post that your agenda is political.Quite right,just ignore the economics.
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couple of things Mark (WE)
if you yourself admit that equality is not a good thing
I admit no such thing - total equality is both not possible and would be a bad thing even if it were - but greater equality (from where we are today) I hold to be a worthwhile objective of political policy
instead of attacking tax advisors
I'm not "attacking" Tax Advisors!
what I'm doing is demonstrating why they are considerably less useful than Traffic Wardens
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"Unemployment rising slower than expected", eh? Well, it's still rising, so it's still awful news.
I suppose on the bright side, Joe Jobseeker waiting outside the job centre won't have to wait so long during the cold winter mornings compared to the same time last year.
What a hopeless attempt to spin disaster as good news! Really!
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What strikes me as so sad from this kind of blog is that we've got ourselves into a system where it is vital to have a job in order to survive without being regardsd as some kind of pariah. I mean, for most people, work nowadays is more soul-destroying and life-frittering than ever before. You stick it out until, what?, age 66. Then you wonder where it all went. What have you achieved for yourself? Answer: I gave my life and soul to work and look what I have - a car, an LCD TV, a few clothes, etc. The lucky ones have a mausoleum that Brown will tax at 40% over a value of £320,000.
There was a time when you might find a niche; when many firms offered a career for life and tried to offer a meaningful existence... not nowadays when people are just numbers to be hired and fired to cater to the whimsies of shareholders.
Very sad. And I'm not sure that stating that less people each month are losing their "dignified" form of survival is any good medicine.
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Or, to put it another way, Joe Jobseeker has been queueing outside the job centre for 1 hour each day for the last 2 years, and was expecting his wait to increase to 2 hours by Christmas, but - joy of joys! - it turns out he's only going to have to queue for 1 hour 55 minutes after all. Life is good again!
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70. At 1:44pm on 14 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
"where is the motivation to go out and work all the money goes to the state"
National duty?
Pride?
Enjoyment?
The feeling you get of being useful?
I don't know about you but I'm not at work solely for the money. This is a symptom of the people who take horrible jobs because they are well paid - and then ask 'who would do this horrible job without the money I get paid'. Perhaps you're in the wrong job to begin with.
Your starting point is from a Capitalist one - which means you cannot see why people would work without the incentive of rewards to improve your perception of status against others (i.e. you want to feel special - ahhhh)
....either that or you're just plain lazy.
Even in such a greedy society you still get thousands (if not millions) of people who volunteer themselves for free - are these people motivated by wages? - I think not.
I would do my job for the sustinence required to keep me alive (food, shelter, water) and in return (based on my current wage) I would be working 30 minutes a week
With my spare time I could pursue much more rewarding activities - both for me and for the country (Innovation + Invention).
The inneficiencies of Capitalism ensures there is 'work' for all - but really we're producing more than we get paid for so the Capitalist can cream off the profit and use it to produce jobs for others.
Which is why in recession all those additional jobs have to go - mainly because they didn't really exist in the first place. They were produced based on the expectation of expansion - something which cannot be relied upon.
If we had rid ourselves of this system years ago - I very much doubt we would still be on this planet.
Criticise the Soviet Union all you like (and some aspects I won't stop you) - but what other nation went from 'farmers' to 'space explorers' in less than 50 years?
Not even the US has been able to achieve that feat - mainly because their system stopped working, slowed to a standstill or went into reverse in 1929, 1937, 1945, 1948, 1953, 1958, 1961, 1969, 1973, 1975, 1980, 1981, 1990, 2000 and of course 2008.
The private sector accuse the publis sector of making jobs out of thin air - it seems clear to me they're both at it.
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36. At 12:25pm on 14 Oct 2009, greatHayemaker wrote:
Global recovery due to global circumstances.
Not our fault gov.
Are you saying the crisis is the fault of the government, while the recovery is due to the international economy? I hadn`t realized there had been a global economic crisis until you told me,I thought it was all the fault of the British government.
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Saga
Can we now have your alternative treatise on the usefulness of a traffic Warden.
Personally I cant see that they are any more use than a TA because they dont add any economic value to society either
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#54
As simplistic as ever.
You start from the assumption that all taxation is aimed at equalisation and must therefore be good. You also assume that somehow it is wrong that my clients pay no more tax than the law requires. Tell me, if you are employed, do you write to the Government and tell them that the 20% income tax they deduct isn't enough and that you'd like to pay some more? If you pay pension contributions do you volunteer to give up your tax relief on them? If you don't what is the difference between you and my clients? You pay the right amount of tax, so do they. It certainly isn't their fault that we have a tax regime of such bewildering complexity that they need the help of a professional to interpret it.
Not to mention the sheer cost & complexity of mere compliance these days. have you any idea how many forms the average small business needs to fill in as a result of the current Government and that they get fined not for filling the forms in wrong, not for trying to avoid tax but for merely missing deadlines.
Besides, if my clients have a few extra pounds than they might otherwise have as a result of my efforts, they are likely to spend it in their local community, in shops and with services. they won't be wizzing it up against the wall on endless pointless meaningless politically driven "initiatives" that result in nothing.
I assume that you aren't in business for yourself? You should try it sometime, on your own, with no professional help. I have contacts that can help you file for bankruptcy.
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"Tax Advisors...are considerably less useful than Traffic Wardens"
Certainly under Labour they are less useful. Around my way there is talk of imposing parking restrictions. Why? because the local council are putting up parking charges in the car parks near the station and think people will park further away from the station & walk in. So they'll wack a load of yellow lines where there aren't any at the moment and, hey presto, those people who have the temerity to live in a residential housing estate will suddenly find they are being hit with parking fines for parking outside their own homes.
An offence created out of nothing and a money generating exercise. Labour through and through.
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I am a bit suprised that having 4,200 more people than expected in employment will create a windfall of billion pounds.
A useful measure that no-one seems to quote (no-one knows?) is what the nations wage bill is. With all the short working weeks, pay cuts, withheld bonuses and fewer people in jobs, the nations wage bill must have dropped sharply.
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Sagamix
Serious question for you - how equal is equal enough? And how do you measure it? Do you base it on absolute or relative poverty? On disposable income? Income relative to living costs in your area? It's an insanely complicated equation to work out.
Do you push everyone into work by saying those unemployed will do community based jobs and in return receive the minimum amount they need to live (allowing you to scrap unemployment benefit altogether)? (possibly not a bad idea by the way)
And what do you do with those few who simply refuse to do anything required of them to earn their "benefit". Do you withdraw their benefit as is only fair, leading to stories like "the government is leaving me to starve . . ." or do you give them money anyway, leading to more people following that example because they realise that you don't actually have to take part in the system.
I suspect in most animal kingdom communities, those that refuse to take part are quickly dealt with. In the British community we give them money to carry on existing outside the system. Madness! (appear to have rambled slightly off my point - sorry! but it's all good stuff)
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81. At 2:04pm on 14 Oct 2009, atrisse
An excellent personal insight into how the system works. The diminishing profit being chased by the Capitalist means we will always be working for less and less over time. The battles being fought at the moment (with Royal Mail for example) is a sign of this struggle. The BA workers working for free is another example....and so on...
Fortunately Government uses a tool called 'inflation' to disguise this fact - that's why they are so afraid of the dreaded 'deflation'.
Capitalism also helps cover up this fact by inflating asset values (bubbles) - but unfortunately this cannot last forever (recession).
Watch some of Naom Chomsky or Professer Wolff's lectures on you-tube and you will see an explanation of how in the US the wages were inflated beyond their sustainable value - when this failed then the credit was made readily available to fill that gap - hence the low rate in the US which led to the eventual collapse.
Sadly too many people cling on to what they have at the moment as those who have most spread the word of fear that 'you might loose out under another system'. The power of fear has been used throughout history to force the sheep into the pen - these times are no exception.
The reality is that unless you earn a 3 figure salary (and quite a substantial one) then you would be better off under total equality of wages. I do - and I am quite prepared to take a rate which brings me down to equality with a cleaner, dustman, traffic warden, tax advisor!
We covered wages yesterday - and I cannot understand how people can moan about the quality of Gordon Brown - I mean he's nowhere near the best paid man in the country - what did you expect?
....or is it that old capitalist mantra - cheap is better.....ah but for how long?
Does your LCD TV last as long as my old Phillips black and white which lasted 22 years before being broken?
...didn't think so - cheapskates.
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It can only be good newz that unemployment has not risen as fast in the last three months but we all know how figures can be distorted to suit the governments requirements.
These are only broad statistics which do not break down where the unemployed are or where they are transferred to once they lose their jobs.
It took up to five years during the recession of the eighties for unemployment to reach 3 million so it is fair to say that one swallow does not make a summer.
Many of the temporary jobs in the tourism industry will have ended and there will now possibly be another surge of temporary jobs in the retail sector leading up to Christmas. The true picture will be seen from January 2010 unless we have another pre election splurge of QE.
Yvette Cooper was happy to tell us that £5 billion of the fiscal stimulus has been earmarked to helping the unemployed. How long does she think the government can just keep printing money without a proper plan to take the country forward? She says this recession is not behaving in the same way as the nineties. Well it won't because they didn't try to manipulate it in the nineties by huge borrowing and quantatitive easing on a massive scale.
Manipulating a recession by printing money is a short term fix unless there is a proper long term plan to create the new businesses that will create long term employment and a reduction end to the unaffordable public sector.
Gordon Brown says every other country is doing the same thing. Well so far no-one seems to have found the answer to the big downturn. Perhaps if every country was trying something different someone somewhere may just have come up with the right answers.
All eggs in one basket was never the answer when they were all broken at the same time.
The unemployed are just a pawn in Labour's electioneering games. Longterm the country will pay an even heavier price for such folly. Are Labour really wanting to be in charge when that happens? I doubt it.
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#73 writingsonthe wall wrote:
"Ah the classic Liberty vs Equality argument."
Since I find most of your sentences mired in conceptual confusion I can't really respond to any of them (though they do, I certainly agree, raise many interesting questions). Nor do I quite know to what you are referring in this case.
The best discussion of equality that I know, in the field of political philosophy, is 'Equality' by Isaiah Berlin (1956). I quote:
"Equality is only one value among many. When the pursuit of equality comes into conflict with other human aims, be they what they may - happiness or pleasure, justice or virtue, the liberty of choice as an end in itself, it is only the most fanatical egalitarian that will demand that such conflicts be decided in favour of equality alone, with relative disregard of the other values concerned". (abridged by me)
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Nick,
A rise is a rise. It's not a fall. You're spinning a rise.
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"unexpected windfall of several billion pounds"
Chicken feed compared to the cascade losses of tax revenue and jobs from losses to offshoring of call centers, back office services, IT, manufacturing etc.
Several billion pounds plus more asset sales are probably not even enough to pay the annual interests to bankers and financiers.
For a country with only 60 million people, the government, the politicians and the businesses should feel ashamed to have more than 2 million people unemployed. That, of course, assumes they might genuinely care about the society, the country and the people.
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"writingsonthewall wrote:
70. At 1:44pm on 14 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
"where is the motivation to go out and work all the money goes to the state"
National duty?
Pride?
Enjoyment?
The feeling you get of being useful?"
As someone who had to work my way through University doing dead-end jobs, I have to tell you that I didn't feel useful, or proud and I certainly didn't enjoy myself. And having to work to pay my way when the previous generation got a free ride removed any lingering hint of national duty.
"I don't know about you but I'm not at work solely for the money. This is a symptom of the people who take horrible jobs because they are well paid - and then ask 'who would do this horrible job without the money I get paid'. Perhaps you're in the wrong job to begin with."
I am in a job that I enjoy (but if I got paid the same to spend time with friends and family it would be a no brainer which I would choose) but I have done my fair share of crummy jobs to get here - and this type of job is hardly well paid
"Your starting point is from a Capitalist one - which means you cannot see why people would work without the incentive of rewards to improve your perception of status against others (i.e. you want to feel special - ahhhh)
....either that or you're just plain lazy."
I freely admit that I can't see why people would work without incentive, as I said I enjoy my job but I enjoy spending time with friends and family and taking part in my hobbies much more enjoyable. I work to live and don't live to work.
"Even in such a greedy society you still get thousands (if not millions) of people who volunteer themselves for free - are these people motivated by wages? - I think not."
I have personally volunteered in the past (when I had more time) however these volunteer roles were roles that I found enjoyable or interesting and gave me the opportunity to enhance myself. A world away from the type of jobs where someone would literally have to pay me to do.
"I would do my job for the sustinence required to keep me alive (food, shelter, water) and in return (based on my current wage) I would be working 30 minutes a week"
I am lucky that I do a job I enjoy and that I can earn enough to cover the bills each month - many aren't so lucky. However, if I could cover the bills without working I would.
With my spare time I could pursue much more rewarding activities - both for me and for the country (Innovation + Invention).
"The inneficiencies of Capitalism ensures there is 'work' for all - but really we're producing more than we get paid for so the Capitalist can cream off the profit and use it to produce jobs for others."
This is something that I actually agree with - the vast majority of us do jobs that contribute nothing to the wider picture. However, this is not just a flaw of capitalism, there are hundreds/thousands of public sector jobs that do nothing but move paper around and make systems more complicated for their own purpose.
"Criticise the Soviet Union all you like (and some aspects I won't stop you) - but what other nation went from 'farmers' to 'space explorers' in less than 50 years?"
I am not sure if you can say that 50 years before the space race the Soviet Union were farmers, I admit that I don't know much of the history of the USSR but I was never under the expression that they were in anyway backward compared to the other nations of the time and how much of their space program was really the work of other nations? Such as America borrowing heavily from German war technologies.
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92. At 2:55pm on 14 Oct 2009, johnharris66
"Since I find most of your sentences mired in conceptual confusion I can't really respond to any of them"
Maybe that's because you have brought up in a Capitalist society? It's hard to explain snow to someone in Africa that's never seen it - or seen anything similar that helps them imagine it.
....and I didn't say you couldn't achieve Liberty - but it must be achieved after equality. If the goal is to achieve both then surely you cannot achieve Liberty first for the reasons I listed above.
Libertarian view is a selfish one because 'liberty' is their personal 'liberty' and not the world's Liberty. Fine if you're one of the few who achieve it - but unlucky for the rest.
Which is why so many people are so angry and frustrated in society today.
Who says man A is worth more than Man B? what scale are we using and who is qualified to make that judgement except God (if there is one)?
....and yet every day this decision is being made under the false flag of 'freedom'
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93. paulthorgan
'A rise is a rise. It's not a fall. You're spinning a rise.'
The blog is called 'Rising Slowly'
Quote: 'The number of people signing on rose in September ...'
Quote: '... the Office for National Statistics reported this morning that the claimant count rose by 20,800, below expectations of a rise of up to 25,000.'
Quote: 'Ministers are also set to claim that this slowing in the rate of increase in unemployment is down to their policies and interventions which the Tories...well, you know the rest of the script.'
Where does it say that unemployment fell? Your spinning a bias that isn't there.
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As is usually the case, (99.9%), Nick is correct.
One wonders why some just don’t get it!
If it is spin, one hopes that it does not spin in the region of over 3.4 million unemployed as we had for 4 consecutive years in the early 90s!
Well done, and good day Nick.
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Like the government's figures, the impact of their incompetence is also being manipulated ; the pouring of more and more cash into the system will at some time have to stop, and the effect on business and employment will be dramatic.No doubt Brown and his acolytes hope this will not happen until after an election, but I suspect that happen it will. Whoever wins the election, and if the almighty is mercifull it will not be Labour, will be faced with an enormous repair job on the Britith economy, which should have been started at least a year ago. Sadly, this repair job still has not begun in a cynical attempt by Labour to salvage a few of it's seats in parliament at any cost and whatever the effect on the economy.Already the pound is in terminal decline against currencies which are also hit by the recession,but unlike Britain, are being cared for by their countrys' politicians on their countrys' behalf and not on behalf of a dying political party.
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#54, sagamix wrote:
"right, so we start with a truth:
every pound of tax paid by a person who's wealthier than the average is an equalising event"
Oh come on, saga...
I assume you're talking income wealth. So everybody earning say GBP30K pays a pound of tax in order to pay some head of a QANGO, Council Chief Exec or Cabinet minister a salary multiples higher than their own.
How is that a equalising event?
It's a re-distributive event, but that doesn't mean equalising...
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Nick,
Just in case you have missed something we have a general election in approximately 7-8 months, so the Labour (sorry new Labour) spin machine will grab at anything to spin a bad story.
Just in case try looking no further than Lord, whatever his damn name is Mandleson.
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andy @ 86
you started from the assumption that all taxation is aimed at equalisation and must therefore be good
I didn't - my assertion was that when a wealthier than average person pays tax, it's an equalising event
plus I did NOT say greater equality was good - I just said that IF one believes that greater inequality is good, then TAs can be considered useful
(and yes, of course I'm simplifying! ... one has to do that on here for reasons of space if nothing else)
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The only cast iron certainty about the UK Jobless figures is that the slowing rise has absolutely nothing to do with the European Union's Economic policies.
Surely, if ever it were needed, the last 12 to 12 months of Fiscal-Economic mayhem demonstrates the utter futility of a one-size-fits-all EU with its wretchedly inaccurate, unresponsive and unaccountable Directives-Orders and blanket terminology of what is best suited to 450,000,000 Citizens across 28 National borders.
Pitiful and unedifying does not quite encapsulate Barroso and the EUrocrats performance as they employed all their invective on the Eire Citizens to enforce the reversal of the Lisbon Treaty referendum result whilst all Europe's Citizens had far more important matters in hand.
But then, why would Barroso, the EUrocrats or the recently elected 750 MEPs without a Majority Electoral vote amongst them give one iota of thought to their Citizens? Afterall, there is no more guaranteed employment and nothing more cushy or more smugly well-paid than a place in the Brussels' hierarchy of venality and corruption with its own uniquely unratified version of Democracy!
If the Czech President does give way then PM Brown's feeble claim at PMQs today that his Government can still "defend the National interests of its Citizens.." will become a stock phrase of capitulation as Lisbon supplants any vestiges of national Legislative authority and power either at Westminster or No.10.
The irony being HM's Loyal Opposition leader and aspirant PM will become the first UK Prime Minister to truly suit the new title for occupant of No.10 Downing Street: Primary Mouse!
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I know I am not very clever so perhaps someone can help me - WHEN does a rise in unemployment become an IMPROVEMENT?????????? - as for 12 years of a so called Socialist Govt and ` Education - tough on crime etc etc etc ` what an Indictment of Clown, Slime, Darling, and Robinson, Byers, ad infinitum. Oblivion for Liebour in 2010 - thnak God.
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95. At 3:12pm on 14 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
Thanks for the response
I just want to clarify that I did criticise the public sector too - both sectors produce jobs that do not need to exist. This is because 'having a use' is very important to 99% of the population - which is why nobody like unemployment and Governments like to give us what we want.
The bottom line is if man did what he needed to do to survive then we would all finish our working 'week' by Monday afternoon - such is the efficiency of technology. In order to get around this what the man produces in excess is taken by the owner and redistributed to create other jobs - but ultimately at the cost to you of your time. You end up producing a 4 days worth of additional 'free' work so that others can be employed
The only resource that cannot be manipulated, bought, sold and is equally liberated to all mankind is time. This should be the measure by which we standardise everything we do. The problem with money as a measure (especially FIAT currency) is that it's fake, easily manipulated (see QE) and is only good as the promise made upon it. The thing you, me and every other worker in the country is being robbed of is time - and not our fake paper money - through working longer hours - I mean they're just planning to raise the retirement level to 66 for women (I believe) - with a life expectancy of not much more - how many people will soon be wokring into their graves.
Our collective goal should be one of maximum efficiency - in a world of finite resources (which I don't think anyone is arguing against) we must achieve 2 things
1) Maximum efficient use of the resources we have
2) Rationing of the resources which are already running out so they are saved for the processes nothing else can be subsituted for.
However this cannot be achieved under the Capitalist system. It continues to waste resources by overproduction (take a look at the number of unsold new cars over the last year) because the market (try as it might) cannot predict the future consumption levels and every time it over-estimates and produces a boom - which in turn produces waste.
The argument is always that if there was not the incentive of competing with your fellow man - then there would be no progress. I refute that as nonesense as man invented his greatest and most influential inventions before money and Capitalism was invented (Fire, the wheel, clothing etc) - the difference back in caveman days is they didn't produce things which were uneccessary - not a claim that can be made since then - mainly because the value of the materials was much clearer - again not a claim that could be made today.
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54. At 1:07pm on 14 Oct 2009, sagamix
Saga, interesting to see your views on tax advisers. No surprises there.
Now, answer me this. What is your view of our Chancellor (you know, the man entrusted in bringing in sufficient revenues to fund the Government's spending programme) the esteemed "Flipper" Darling, employing a tax adviser to minimise his tax liability, avoiding Capital Gains Tax, and then getting US, the taxpayer, to pay HIS tax adviser's fees?
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#102
Sagamix, You didn't say whether you volunteer to pay more tax than you need to.
You have asserted my profession to be of questionable value. I have pointed out that I believe that my clients have as much right to pay the correct amount of tax as is required by law as you do. The tax laws of this country are very complex and therein lies my value. Why is it "unequal" that citizens all pay the correct amount of tax?
Since I cannot believe that you would argue that it is right that you pay the correct amount of tax but somehow wrong that my clients do likewise, I am sure you can now agree that this equality afforded my clients is ample justification for my existence.
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G @ 89
appear to have rambled slightly off my point - sorry! - but it's all good stuff
as always with you, Grawth - not the rambling, the "good stuff" I mean!
so here is the Clear Thinking Progressive position on the best 8 letter word in the Engish language ... EGALITE
(1) total equality of opportunity is both desirable and attainable - it is not only a valid objective of political policy, it is the single most important one - it means as level as possible a playing field at birth (subject to genetic factors) and then people succeed (or not) based (again as far as possible) on merit alone - that's fair and the CTP believe in fairness - core value
(2) total equality of outcome is neither possible nor desirable - some people will always be more diligent / attractive / intelligent / talented / luckier than others - to seek to deny their greater success due to those factors would be as iniquitous as it is foolish - in any case, to force complete equality of outcome would require state intervention in our everyday lives to such an extent that it would amount to a tyranny which would render life itself barely worth living
(3) having said that, to achieve a greater level of equality (of outcome) than we have now is extremely desirable, and that too is a valid and important objective of political policy - but it's not quite as important (for the CTP anyway) as (1)
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66#
Then pray tell, how do you work out what the average SHOULD be, where it is representative? Where it takes into account the difference between Brain Surgeon, traffic warden, roadsweeper, outreach officer, politician...?
It comes across that if someone is earning more than the average then they are only there to increase the inequality in society... so how do you make society more equal?
You make everyone rich, or everyone poor. One is achievable and resulted in the collapse of the system (although not as a direct consequence) that perpetrated it - and was every bit as unequal as the one you are alluding to - and the other, unless you discover the worlds largest oil fields on your doorstep, then import the poor to do your dirty work for you because its now below you because you're so filthy rich and the population then becomes 80% dollar chasing expats - is a pipe dream.
How do you square that circle?
Mate, a truly equal society is a utopian pipe dream. Human egos get in the way.
You already have equality of opportunity.
If someone can go from Coldharbour Lane in Brixton to 10 Downing St as PM, without private education, without a university degree, the son of a retired circus performer, anything is possible.
Its about being in the right place at the right time, seizing your opportunities when they come along, making sacrifices and getting out of life what you put in.
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So, that's 3,200 fewer people who weren't made unemployed than expected.
Let's say not paying these people benefits saves £100,000 a year(stupidly high number). Total saving £320 million.
Where's the windfall of billions??
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105#
Interesting post.
So, whats the fix? Is it possible to undo all these things that have led us to this point?
Is it achievable within our/your lifetime?
And if it isnt.... what then? Do we just have to accept it?
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Why is it that, when some good news occurs, there is always someone on this blog who thinks the employment chances of Millions of Britains is less important than someone getting a peerage, and accuses the author of being inside a bubble!!!!
Why do people suggest that the multiplier effect of Govt. spending verse say a tax cut is less, when we are all aware that people in a recession have a tendancy to hoard cash and thus reduce the multiplier, if they select to spend the money it is likely to be on an imported good and thus reduce the multiplier effect domestically, if they select to invest the money during a recession they are far more likely to lose that money and the expected returns and multiplier effect especially in an economy in recession is going to be drawn out over a longer period of time. Supply side economics have been shown to provide less direct stimulus to the economy in any situation but particularly in a recessionary one as opposed to direct state spending. Get your Economics 101 textbook out.
Of course people are still losing jobs and will continue to do so, but we might be on the road to recovery with a slow down, and avoid the 1980's style figures despite having a 1929-30 style financial calamity.
Think over the next few months we will continue to hear vindications of GB's policies over the last year, that show the state can do something and does not need to do nothing, and does not need to turn UK public services into a Ryan Air model where the wealthy get preferential treatment and access to services at the expense of those who really need it most.
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#106
I confess it is not so much the CGT aspect that irks me about politicians 'flipping' their main residence, there is after all a precedent in tax law applicible to all.
No, it's the flipping in order to 'do up' the property that is odious. 'Flip', spend £22k doing it up, 'flip' back, spend £22k doing up the other property, buy a third property & 'flip' again and again.
Such abuse is too near the borderline of actaully breaking the rules. Certainly if there was an equivilent in tax law I would be advising clients against that sort of thing. Of course, I realise that tax advisors have more morals than politicians but even so....
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pot @ 85
can we now have your alternative treatise on the usefulness of a traffic warden?
of course
opening assertion:
if they could, people would park their cars any which way - people are like that
and if they did?
we would get blockages all over the shop - gridlock at times - the overall ease and speed of going about one's business would be severely impaired - and so, therefore, would overall economic activity
so we'd all be poorer, that's clear
by how much?
hard to say but definitely by more than the total wage bill for Traffic Wardens
and our bolded conclusion:
each and every Traffic Warden, by doing what they do, is making the rest of richer, and one should thank them for that whenever one is lucky enough to come across one
CAVEAT
TWs don't HAVE to be people - Cameras are just as good ... although you look a bit "off" if you go around thanking and telling them they're doing a great job
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"Unemployment is rising slower than many economists and, indeed, the government feared."
Which is pretty much the same as a doctor telling his patient "You are still dying, but not quite as quickly".
It just gives him more time to arrange his own funeral.
Nick, you have finished with the bottom of the barrel, moved it to one side, and are now scraping the damp floorboards beneath.
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102#
Youre avoiding the answer again.
So, are you saying that greater inequality is not good? Or is it acceptable?
And what exactly is an "equalising event"???
equalize: compensate; make the score equal
equal: make equal, uniform, corresponding, or matching; "let's equalize the duties among all employees in this office"; "The company matched the discount policy of its competitors"
Which means you are saying something is unequal or unbalanced. Like what?
....or are they just more soundbites? What do you mean?
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100
Never assume anything. :-) LOL
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99. If you look at the policies of all the major economies in the world they are doing exactly what our government is doing, pumping money into the economy today so people have a future tommorrow, and a job today. Your repair job as you call it, what would it entail?
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yellow @ 106
what is your view of our Chancellor employing a tax adviser to minimise his tax liability?
I personally feel that it's not big and it's not clever
but Andy (pls see 107) disagrees with us
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writingsonthewall
I presume you are writing your comments from a kibbutz or from Mondragon in Spain?
Interestingly, in your post #83 you say "I would do my job for the sustinence required to keep me alive (food, shelter, water) and in return (based on my current wage) I would be working 30 minutes a week"
I note the conditional tense "I would". So I presume that you don't actually work for basic sustenence then? What's stopping you?
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"writingsonthewall wrote:
95. At 3:12pm on 14 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
Thanks for the response
I just want to clarify that I did criticise the public sector too - both sectors produce jobs that do not need to exist. This is because 'having a use' is very important to 99% of the population - which is why nobody like unemployment and Governments like to give us what we want."
I agree totally, and I know that you targeted the public sector too.
The irony is that we now have entire companies which exist because they make products to simply tasks that really weren't required in the first place.
The result is that you end we have a process that is so complex that you need a process to try and simplify it.
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84#
"It started in America and we're the best placed economy to ride out the global downturn"
:-)
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73
Eh? Where did I mention that? I just asked Saga what the hell he was blithering on about regarding traffic wardens and tax advisors! :-0)
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113
Because this is meant to be a blog on the subject of what is happening inside government, inside westminster.
Not statistics.
I wondered when you lot would appear. Just as well its time to go home.
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a pair of points for Mr Fubar ...
a truly equal society is a utopian pipe dream
agreed! - pls see CTP position at 108
how do you make society more equal?
regarding egalite of opportunity:
- via the EDUCATION system (we've had that "debate" many times)
regarding egalite of outcome:
- via the TAX system (we haven't had the Row, maybe we should one day)
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"here is the Clear Thinking Progressive position on the best 8 letter word in the Engish language ... EGALITE" Sagamix.
Oh dear. 8 letters. English language. You'll have to have a word with Collins. They don't include the word in their dictionary. And being in a profession involving a lot of numbers, I do have to point out that '7' is a closer total.
As for your point 1, how do you enforce it? Someone works hard and earns more so can buy his child an extra text book or a slightly better laptop. Presumably you'd ban that? What of the more intelligent parent, doing some teaching of his own child? ban that too? If not, how is equality of opportunity attainable? Truth is it isn't, never can be, never will be, never should be. Since people are unequal, the opportunities thay want to pass on to their children will be too.
Besides, if as you accept that equality of outcome is not possible, in aspiring to a closer equality of outcome than would arise if things were left to themselves, you are taking away from people the rewards of their efforts and giving it to those who may be putting in less effort. What's fair about that? "hey, Mr A, you put in 15 hours overtime this week. Thanks. We'll take the money off you and give it to Mr B who couldn't be bothered to come in 2 days this week".
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Nick, there is only a windfall if the other budget predictions are correct?
How are we for Inflation Budget V Actual
Haw are we for Tax recepits Budget V Actual
How are we for Spending Budget V Actual
Just because one figure ie unimployment is of the right side of forecast giving a surpless does not give a windfall if the others are on the wrong side!
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How can Labour be trusted on this when Brown openly lies.
Just how much money is one personally allowed to have before being derided by labour as a rich toff. What is the cut-off point?
Why do labour hate people that make money, yet willingly take their taxes.
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Exactly where do the EU citizens who have been made unemployed and have decided to go home show up on the statistics? Also we have just had a lot of people staying at the home in the UK for their holidays this year and with some of the best weather we have had for years does it not follow that people have found temporary work.
Lets see what happens after xmas when the cut backs happen. Personally I think we are at the top of the middle of a W shapped recession and are just about to slide into recession mk2 early in 2010. I hope I am wrong and we are on the mend; but the indicators are for another bad spell folks. Long way before it gets better.
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Saga and fan club and others in the. TW-TA debate
The debate seems to have settled on the merits of some sectors of the employed and not on the unemployed figures
Are they genuine figures - certainly not and if we keep having this spin reporting these figures the conclusion is that we will have slowed the rate of growth in unemployment so much that unemployment will only be slightly over five million by the end of 2010 what a great successes for statistics and journalism that will be. Never mind the unemployed who managed to hide behind such small figures.
Why this government deserve a medal for all its achievements what could we offer
I know a plaque depicting a large bird holding a bottle in its beak.
We could give it a French ring too and call it -
La bourbon condor public
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"23 Bluematter:
"The employment rate for people of working age was 72.6% in the three months to August 2009. The unemployment rate was 7.9%."
Office of National Statistics October 2009
No comment needed."
So 1/3 of the working aged population are living off the Taxes paid by the other two thirds.
And that ignoring the quater of the 2/3's who actually work for the state (teachers, doctors etc).
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126# We all know the answer to this son of the manse`s wonderful Chancellorship and stint as P.M. - TRULY AWFUL - THE WORST EVER PM IN UK HISTORY. Still, look on the bright side because despite smears, McBride, etc etc etc, Cameron will romp home in 2010, and Liebour will be cast to the dogs, where they should be, just like the UK in fact.
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I like all this quoting of statistics. Firstly, all I see are headline figures, so Nick, what do these figures mean? What is the breakdown and analysis behind these numbers?
I work in Accounts and if someone just went up to someone with a report that just said "This month we've spent £5 million less than expected" the chances are I would be asked what that actually meant, which is why I pose these questions back at you?
If you're just going to quote things at least provide the information behind the numbers.
Statistics can be fiddled, all it takes a different interpretation on something and, like magic, you have a different set of numbers. That's the fun of numbers, they can appear to represent something or have meaning that doesn't really exist. Numbers can easily mislead or portray any picture depending on how they're presented, and it's even better when the person reading the numbers doesn't fully understand things either because then you as the presenter can sway their minds in to interpreting things in your way rather than the correct way.
We've all seen how statisticians have been operating under New Labour, and I think we've all had enough. The Office of National Statistics is nothing but one of those QUANGOs set up to supposedly be independent of government authority. Who pays their fees? Who sets the rules? How many of these independents are close friends of government?
New Labour have been hiding things for years, when something hasn't appeared right then they just add their own finishing touches to create the final result and the ONS is all part of this process.
I don't trust the ONS, I trust what I see and what I experience in my life and the lives of those around me. Unfortunately, when MPs look around, all they see are each other so I doubt they have any understanding of anything. The ONS was merely created as a front to appear as though MPs could connect to the people more through independent studies that are about as independent as my arm is from my body.
There may be a light at the end of the tunnel but can we be certain that's really the end and not something we're just hoping is the end?
I have seen enough of government schemes and how they use their policies to create their statistics. There are many people out there not currently on Jobseeker's Allowance and many employers out there who are still making plans on cutting costs. This could be the start of something or it could just be a minor bump along the road that could be far longer than we imagined.
Is the glass half empty or half full? Neither, there's as much water in the glass as there is, once it's gone it's gone but you can always fill it up again from the tap.
When things are actually on the up across all sectors in the country and I see positive things around me then I will acknowledge that things are changing but I certainly will not acknowledge that Gordon and his Merry Men were responsible for saving us.
When you're injured, the body recovers, yes there are medicines and things that can be used to aid in some way the recovery process but at the end of the day, the body still recovers because that's what it does. Like the recession, whether we have policies or not, we will come out of the recession but I will remember who was at the top of it all allowing everyone to dig such a big hole for us to fall in - The Chancellor himself in the run up to the big fall, Gordon himself.
I look forward to next May.
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"120. At 4:08pm on 14 Oct 2009, sagamix wrote:
yellow @ 106
what is your view of our Chancellor employing a tax adviser to minimise his tax liability?
I personally feel that it's not big and it's not clever
but Andy (pls see 107) disagrees with us"
Sagamix, I know you don't answer questions that you find difficult but I have to ask again, do you volunteer to pay more tax than you need to? Do you get on the phone in anger each time you get a payslip, demanding that the Government take more from you than the law dictates? If you don't, please explain what is the difference between you and someone with complex tax affairs paying someone to advise him/her on how to arrive at the correct amount of tax that the law dictates.
Do you think that wealthy people have a duty to organise their affairs in such a sloppy way that they pay more tax than the law says they should?
Do you have a pension? Why aren't you just saving the same amount in a bank account or directly in shares. Couldn't be that you are organising your affairs to pay less tax could it? Oh, no, if so that would make you appear a little hypocritical.
Do you have an ISA? Same comments.
I think the people on this BB deserve to know whether your 'equality' applies to all or whether you apply differnet rules to yourself.
Do tell.
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134.
ronreagan
'Still, look on the bright side because despite smears, McBride, etc etc etc, Cameron will romp home in 2010...'
Good grief. You're probably right, ron, but I can't see any reason to jump up and down singing hallelujah about it!
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The unemployment figures are significant,they are a lagging indicator of trends in the rest of the economy.They show that a weak recovery is under way affecting some economic sectors,but unemployment will continue to rise for several quarters ahead.
From a policy point of view it would be unwise to reduce government spending now because the recovery is fragile and could easily reverse.This crisis is unprecedented,a black swan.No-one,-governments,oppositions,economists,left wingers,right wingers,centrists,monetarists,keynesians,-no-one knows if the scale of government and inter government intervention has matched the scale of the slump.
It is politic therefore to proceed cautiously by trial and error and pragmatism,in effect a conservative response based on the best analysis available and not be a prisoner of political rhetoric based on ignorance of economics.
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Egalitarian politics is the politics of the lowest common denominator, no better no worse.
As it is financially impossible to raise everyone to the living standards of the wealthiest billionaires or the Royal family the egalitarians on these posts have helpfully decided on these posts to suggest that we are all lowered to an equal level.
To what end?
We will not be all equal.
Firstly saga and his motley crew will make sure that they are in charge along with all the other newlabour apologists and retain all of their party privileges. Secondly, this is clear because no advocate of the utopian dream, including the great John Stuart Mill himself, does so without the proviso that the 'rest of us' (vermin) need looking after by the likes of saga and the newlabour apologists.
Egalitarianism is just a cheap cover for we'll take all the prizes and the rest of you can share what's left over equally.
it's a charade and a sham and they know it.
Vive la difference!
Call an election.
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andy @ 136
do you volunteer to pay more tax than you need to?
of course I don't! ... but not sure how that's relevant
I also don't drive a Prius
does that mean I can't believe in climate change?
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#140 - I see you avoided the pension question and the ISA question and that is the relevance as well you know. When Darling (or anyone else) engages in tax planning it isn't big or clever, when you do it's somehow acceptable.
I guess we can conclude from that that you believe tax planning is odious unless you are doing it yourself.
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#140
The Prius is one of the most polluting cars on the planet. They ship the nickel for the battery from Argentina to Japan producing far more carbon than buying and using a normal car for the life of the car. It is a falsehood that they are better.
Climate change is a hot potato though considering warming peaked in 1998 and since we have been losing heat. The BBC even reported this this week. Climate change is a good baton to use by politicians to control the people and tax them though so they will continue. My concern is the investment in technologies is not the most cutting edge and I don't want nuclear. Next generation of power generation is available and ready - it just needs to be produced and installed.
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#139 - "Firstly saga and his motley crew will make sure that they are in charge along with all the other newlabour apologists and retain all of their party privileges"
Sadly I would have to agree. Certainly Saga believes in tax planning only for the "Party Elite".
With apologies to George Orwell.
"Sagamix raised his glass in toast, "tax planning is terrible", he laughed , "unless I'M doing it!!". And the animals at the window looked from Sagamix to the tax planners and back again but already it was impossible to tell the difference"
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"140. At 4:49pm on 14 Oct 2009, sagamix wrote:
andy @ 136
do you volunteer to pay more tax than you need to?
of course I don't! ... but not sure how that's relevant
I also don't drive a Prius
does that mean I can't believe in climate change?"
Of course not but if you were campaigning to stop climate change whilst burning old tyres in your back garden it would be a bit odd. Same with someone criticising tax planning and contributing to a tax efficient pension scheme.
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97. Poprishchin
The rise is being spun as it is - surprise, surprise - below expectations. These expectations are pure guesswork so this is artificial good news.
Like a car crash that does not kill all the occupants. It's still a fatal car crash.
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@ 141 ... tax planning is odious
I suspect you're taking this a little personally, Andrew, and for that I apologise since I think it's kind of my fault (I remember now that you DID tell me you were a Tax Advisor and I should, therefore, have picked another private sector occupation for my "useful or no?" analysis ... there are many suitable candidates after all!)
but for the record, I believe I only demonstrated that TAs were less useful than Traffic Wardens, did I not?
do not recall saying anything about tax planning being "odious"
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It seems I am the only one disappointed with the unemployment figures today. Actually I think they are dreadful. If we take out all the propaganda going about and actually look at this properly we will see why. Considering companies have decided not to cull jobs at the moment and are going on 4 day week, pay cuts and natural wastage which employees are accepting to keep their jobs. Taking into account that the public sector is still expanding and still taking on workers. There is seasonal work to take into account. Vat is being delayed in some cases for companies putting a hole in our taxes. Added to this all the schemes the Government is using to prop up business which will no doubt fail when Government support is withdrawn. Then there is all the people being transferred onto different Government schemes. These figures are truely awful and unemployment will continue to rise. Of course the real fall will come when the Government has by debt to stop all its tinkering to make the figures look better.
If the Government waste another several billion on trying to prop up unemployment adding to our debt this will be true madness.
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#146
Taking it personally, good grief no.
You think equality is something to be strived for, that tax advisors create a less equal society and yet don't deny you participate in a tax saving scheme set up by tax advisors? I do hope you're not one of these people who uses prostitutes and then calls them 'filthy'.
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"sagamix wrote:
but for the record, I believe I only demonstrated that TAs were less useful than Traffic Wardens, did I not?"
Traffic wardens are only useful because councils charge to park, if councils provided free multi-story car parks in town centres the vast majority of drivers would use them.
Any car parked in such a way that it causes a disturbance could be removed a private firm with a council contract with all the costs plus a large fine being passed onto the owner.
The council would save money by not needing to pay for traffic wardens, a private firm would get business (with a percentage going to the council) and drivers would have no reason to complain (free parking has been provided).
Seems to me that Traffic wardens aren't quite as useful as you think
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@ 144
if you were campaigning to stop climate change whilst burning old tyres in your back garden it would be a bit odd. Same with someone criticising tax planning and contributing to a tax efficient pension scheme
torturing the analogy a bit there, Andy
anyway, glad we've moved my position from saying tax planning is odious to one where I'm just criticising
I know where you're heading (sorry but it IS obvious) - you're going for that old and disreputable reactionary chestnut which says a person holding left wing views cannot ever be credible because:
- if they're rich, it's hypocrisy
- and if they're NOT rich, it's envy
yawn
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@ 148
I do hope you're not one of these people who uses prostitutes and then calls them 'filthy'
Andy!
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@ 149
seems to me that Traffic Wardens aren't quite as useful as you think
didn't say they were massively useful, Mark ... point of the demo was just to show that they are more useful than, for example, Tax Advisors
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"anyway, glad we've moved my position from saying tax planning is odious to one where I'm just criticising" -Sagamix.
So you are criticising?
And no I'm not moving on to any chestnut, except the one of you continually avoiding answering a question you know will undermine your own argument.
Do you contribute to a pension? You must be aware that this is tax planning? So you are criticising something you yourself do?
If it is something you are critical of why do you do it?
I await the answers to these very simple questions. Your avoidence of them does your credibility no good.
Someone holding left wing views who is critical of something when others do it but not when he does it himself. Now that IS yawn inducing.
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@ 143
with apologies to George Orwell
indeed
Ring Ring! ... Ring Ring!
"Hello, is that Heaven? Can I speak to George Orwell please?"
"This is he."
"Oh George, hi. A Clear Thinking Progressive here. Just want to tell you that, down here, there's a ton of hard line Tories using your stuff to support their right wing, reactionary views."
"You're joking!"
"Sadly not."
"Okay, well you tell 'em from me to stop it. If they don't, I'll visit a great vengence upon them. Got that?"
"Say no more, George! ... and thanks."
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Sagamix "point of the demo was just to show that [Traffic Wardens] are more useful than, for example, Tax Advisors"
Unless of course you are setting up a pension scheme or arranging an ISA, as I am sure you can confirm Sagamix.
p.s. I know it's painful so I'll just let you cut and paste instead of having to type it yourself....
"I do have a pension scheme and as soon as I can think of a way to justify the tax savings I make whilst still being able to criticise anyone else who engages in tax planning, I'll get back to you"
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A @ 128
people are unequal
not saying otherwise ... but greater equality of opportunity is a worthwhile thing to work towards, yes?
and if not why not?
your position seems to be if something (good) is not 100 pc achievable, you should just forget about it
odd way to look at things
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andy @ 155
it's getting to sound like your whole political philosophy is based around the minutae of my tax and financial affairs
can't we raise the bar a bit?
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#154.
Oh dear, that wasn't very good.
Does it really make me a reactionary to point out that criticising something whilst engaging in it is a tad, well, hypocritical?
I guess that's Newspeak (see, another Orwell reference)
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rr @ 139
the egalitarians on these posts have helpfully decided to suggest that we are all lowered to an equal level
it's you saying that, Robin, not me
so long as you realise that
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#157 - Indeed. And to save boring everyone else on here I'll give up so this is my last post on the topic.
I will leave people to draw their own conclusions on your stance on tax planning as you won't give it yourself. People have the choise of:
1 - Sagamix believes tax planning is bad.
2 - Sagamix believes tax planning is good.
3 - Sagamix believes tax planning is good when he does it but bad when anyone else does it.
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is it about time the government owned up and admitted they have failed the working people of this country.
labour was a party of the people backed by the unions with the simple aim of keeping people in work but this government neu-labour seems more interested in selling off assets and leaving the working class to fend for itself, why were so many fooled by the smarm of tony blair and his team we shall never know but have the voters of this country learned the lesson or will it continue to worsen, we can only wait and see.
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andy @ 158 ... does it really make me a reactionary to point out that criticising something whilst engaging in it is a tad, well, hypocritical?
back to my 150 we go!
chestnut ... reactionary ... old
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Quick thought to AndyC555
I've no problems with you making sure that your clients do not pay more tax than needed provided they do not make false declarations, but certain things follow from that:
1) there should be no problems then with MPs claiming all the expenses they can provided it is within the rules.
2) people should be able to claim what benefits they can provided they don't break the law.
As far as MPs are concerned I seriously question the morality of mortgage flipping by MPs and would probably question a tax adviser's work in tax avoidance or a claimant calculating that it is better to live off benefits than get a low paid job. But that is the way of the world - governments try their best to deal with at least two of these.
But the benefit/work trap is a problem. The bar can be moved, but never removed totally. I am more concerned that this encourages people to stay out of work, which on the surface may seem appealing, but in the long term leads to an unsatisfactory life. I do some work with the long term unemployed and I have had building work done on my house and I know that the workers are much happier people.
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What have you lot got to rejoice about.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8306611.stm
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People who need statistics to back up their argument, don't actually have an argument
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Andy @ 160
or a (4)
I wouldn't criticise someone personally for entering into tax avoidance strategies such as to minimise their tax bill ... we'd most of us at least consider it ... but I'd say that in the grand scheme of things, the net effect of such activity is not particularly useful for society - thus, the individuals who facilitate such activity (tax advisors, let's call them) are (all things considered) of less value to us than certain other groups such as, just for an example, Traffic Wardens
analogy would be sending your kids to private school - same CTP position - no personal criticism of people who choose to do it (admirable motives in fact, in many cases) but the net overall effect on our society is negative
(yep ... happy with that as a summary to replace yours)
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every pound of tax paid by a person who's wealthier than the average is an equalising event"
Oh come on, saga...
It's only Wednesday and you're all over the place defending traffic wardens again.
Nobody wants unemployment to rise. But lots of councils are having to make cuts because they don't have the funds to keep on spending and very few fancy riots in the streets of they jack up council tax out of line with general inflation.
And I'd still like you explain about the "every pound from a wealtheir than average person is equalitarian" nonsense.
As I wrote before,
So everybody earning say GBP30K pays a pound of tax in order to pay some head of a QANGO, Council Chief Exec or Cabinet minister a salary multiples (maybe 3 - 10 times) higher than their own.
How is that a equalising event?
It's a re-distributive event, but that doesn't mean equalising...
Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that a government that says it's into "efficiency" is still hiring people, while the private sector is shedding jobs?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Does help me at this moment. Unemployed 8 months and counting.....
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Someone is being selective on stats here, I just watched live on BBC Wales that unemployment has risen by 24,000 in Wales this latest 3 month period,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8306611.stm
the biggest rise since 1993, last qtr period they dropped, now back up but further.
More massaging of figures I suspect.
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I was shocked (often am) by the caveats about the deployment of another 500 troops to Afghanistan.
Not the idea of the additional support - but the notion that they wouldn't be sent unless they had the right equipment.
Far as I can tell, there are 98,500 members of the Brit Army. So less than 10% are directly involved in the Afghan conflict.
Makes you wonder what equipment the other 80,000 may have. Dustbin lids and sticks, and training in how to shout "Bang" in a threatening manner?
Not much of a link to unemployment, but I assume that at least some bits of military kit still come from UK sources. So a bit of spend with those companies would seem to deliver more beneficial outcome than pampering the bankers.
(And whatever happened to tight restrictions on bank pay and bonuses?)
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Fairly @ C
so everybody earning say GBP30K pays a pound of tax in order to pay some head of a QANGO, Council Chief Exec or Cabinet minister a salary multiples higher than their own
that's making the flawed (but very common, I admit) assumption that the private sector "pays for" the public sector via taxation
I don't see it that way
I see tax as a contribution for the common good - one "for the pot" as it were (if you and I were, say, part of a group drinking in Ye Olde Progressive Arms)
and then I see each person's economic contribution to society as being the difference between the value of the work they do and the amount they extract (in net pay) for doing it - if value exceeds pay, they're a Contributor (e.g. a toilet cleaner) and if pay exceeds value, they're a Taker (e.g. a bond trader)
doesn't matter whether the cleaner or the bond trader is private or public sector ... that's a red herring
what do you make of that?
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139. At 4:45pm on 14 Oct 2009, rockRobin7 wrote:
Egalitarian politics is the politics of the lowest common denominator, no better no worse
An open society takes account of differences in ability and ambition through social structures which allow unequal reward. At the same time nurturing ability and encouraging achievement through social mobility.
To impose equality of reward would be oppressive and require a police state apparatrus to curtail freedom.
Does your criticism of egalitarian politics include equality before the law and equal political rights? If it does this is also the politics of the lowest common denominator and puts you in the same camp as the BNP.
Your misunderstanding of the Keynesian multiplier (78) leads me to think you don`t think through your ideas before writing them.I hope your politics have a more secure foundation.
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mind @ 167
it's only Wednesday and you're all over the place defending traffic wardens again
I haven't got a TW fetish, honestly I haven't!
just I find it a useful way of illustrating my main point - which is an important one (I think) and is summarised in quick tabloid type fashion @ 172 above
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147. Susan-Croft wrote:
It seems I am the only one disappointed with the unemployment figures today. Actually I think they are dreadful.
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I think this is a case of Labour kite flying Susan.
Example: They tell us there will be 3 million unemployed by Christmas & when the actual figure is 100 less they can throw their hands in the air & declare that they are doing a marvellous job.
It's all spin, spin, spin.
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Nick: This will allow the Treasury to make future "savings" (in reality, of course, simply a reduction in what they would otherwise have had to borrow) without making cuts.
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Savings – Stop it Nick, you are cracking me up.
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#154. At 5:41pm on 14 Oct 2009, sagamix wrote:
"@ 143
with apologies to George Orwell - etc.
Saga,
I can't believe you're praying into aid a Blair! (Of course he performed under a different name. Bit like a later Blair with "New" Labour.)
A descendent of a Jamaican plantation owner!
And an old Etonian!
My head's reeling.
I mean you can understand somebody taking a nom-de-plume. (For instance, I guess your passport doesn't name you as Sebastian Sagamix.)
And I wouldn't blame someone for their parents. (Though I'm not sure about you.)
But he was an Old Etonian? I mean, he didn't even run away or try and burn the place down.
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134. At 4:29pm on 14 Oct 2009, ronreagan wrote:
126#" We all know the answer to this son of the manse`s wonderful Chancellorship and stint as P.M. - TRULY AWFUL - THE WORST EVER PM IN UK HISTORY. Still, look on the bright side because despite smears, McBride, etc etc etc, Cameron will romp home in 2010, and Liebour will be cast to the dogs, where they should be, just like the UK in fact."
Why should the UK be "cast to the dogs" because team Cameron takes office? I am sure that if elected they will learn some economics, or civil servants will teach them.I think you are being too severe.Loosen up,watch some Osborne, or enjoy the party chairman`s homely homilies. It makes entertaining viewing.
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Mr B @ 173
BANG!
let's replace my 108 with that
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What planet are you on !!
"We are going to save against the budget"
We are spending £175 billion a year we don't have and the tax take is unlikely to increase in the months to come.
The last thing we need is Gordon Brown "investing" more money in the bloated and inefficient Job Centre Plus. You might as well flush our money down the toilet....
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Saga,
Tax Advisers and Traffic Wardens?
Tax Advisors (private commerce) are paid from the profits that their employers make. They are net contributors to the tax system, they take nothing out of the system, they contribute to it.
Traffic Wardens are paid for from taxes, and contribute to the tax system from their wages. As they are allowed to take home more than what they pay in tax, they consume taxes rather than contribute to them.
Private commerce supports the country through tax receipts, whilst publicly funded employees contribute to society by providing a public service (Doctors etc). This has always been the case and will never change.
The poster who complained about people hoarding money in a recession would do well to consider that many may be doing so to provide a financial cushion for their dependents if they should be made redundant. I know I am, and the purveyors of luxury goods can go and whistle as far as I’m concerned, my family are top priority in my life, not spending every penny I have to extract Mr Brown and Co from their own mess their stupid spend, spend, spend policies have created over the last 12 years. The real financial problems we face when the real state of the Nations finances are revealed after the next election do not bear thinking about. After the next election, quite a few folk may be spending £180 for an hours for tax advice,
And how anyone can spin another 20,800 unfortunates being made unemployed as being “good news” beggars belief.
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alpha phantom 135:
"When things are actually on the up across all sectors in the country and I see positive things around me then I will acknowledge that things are changing but I certainly will not acknowledge that Gordon and his Merry Men were responsible for saving us."
Perhaps you think the putative recovery is an act of God? It is not far-fetched and I would think no worse of you for believing it.Before Keynes people had a similarly fatalistic attitudes to depressions.This time governments have acted across the world,there are weak signs of recovery.Clearly you reject any idea of cause and effect because you need to reinforce your political prejudices.
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fed up @ 180
Tax Advisors (private commerce) are paid from the profits that their employers make. They are net contributors to the tax system, they take nothing out of the system, they contribute to it
NO! ... pls see my 172
Traffic Wardens are paid for from taxes, and contribute to the tax system from their wages. As they are allowed to take home more than what they pay in tax, they consume taxes rather than contribute to them
DITTO
Private commerce supports the country through tax receipts, whilst publicly funded employees contribute to society by providing a public service (Doctors etc). This has always been the case and will never change
one more time for the boys!
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#172 sagamix wrote:
"I see each person's economic contribution to society as being the difference between the value of the work they do and the amount they extract (in net pay) for doing it"
You need to define 'value' in the above sentence.
I enjoy reading your posts, by the way. Far better than the fundamentalists on here (no names mentioned).
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Fiddling the unemployment figures is nothing new. The Tories did it 20 odd times in the 80s. Then there was no longer unemployment: only 'job seekers' on an 'allowance'. It sounded like the government was doing you a favour by paying you this 'allowance'; no matter that you had made contributions to it during your time of employment and (in fact) you were entitled to it. Yet government will tell you that if you have savings,redundancy money, a partner who works or put 'unreasonable' barriers on what job you will accept you are not 'entitled'.
There is also the world of difference between a professional job and shelf stacking. The number of vacancies is meaningless if they are lousy jobs or not where you live or want to live in a free country. Family and the housing market/rental market means that moving for work is not always an option anyway.
The final factor that will deter claimants is being humiliated and treated like something somneone has stepped in by unsympathetic or untrained staff who are pursuing performance targets to get you off their books in their (now) ironically short staffed office.
If/when the Tories get in the bullying will get worse when job search is privatised and such companies are paid by results - any results.
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182 Saga,
you’ve been posting here since 1145, I didn’t get home from work until 1800. By your own standards, what “value” do you add to society then? Are you on night shift perhaps?
One third of my wages will be claimed by the exchequer for my time at work – like a lot of people, that is my value that I have added to this country today. I work for a private company that makes stuff, not luxury junk, and even then, we have been told redundancies are on the way.
I don’t mind paying towards the wages and pensions of public employees, I was one myself. I do mind my tax money being squandered by fools, and then having their deluded supporters attempt to justify this on out of date early twentieth century us and them politics. Get real!
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I don't give much credence to the 'BBC are biased' conspiracy-theorists. You'll see bias everywhere if your own views are heavily biased too.
But I heard the strangest thing on the 7pm news bulletin on BBC R4 this evening...
I forget the exact number, sorry, but I think the reporter said, "89,000 people lost their jobs in the last month. This was less than expected". So far so uncontentious - the exact igure isn't that important. But then she said "That's a third less than lost their jobs in the past 3 months".
Huh!
In the current spin-laden climate, that's a weird way to put it. I'm a tad suspicious, to say the least.
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#187
sorry, I misquoted the last part.
She said, "That's less than a third of the number who lost their jobs in the past 3 months". Same conclusion...
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#172, sagamix wrote:
"Fairly @
so everybody earning say GBP30K pays a pound of tax in order to pay some head of a QANGO, Council Chief Exec or Cabinet minister a salary multiples higher than their own.
- that's making the flawed (but very common, I admit) assumption that the private sector "pays for" the public sector via taxation
- I don't see it that way
- I see tax as a contribution for the common good - one "for the pot" as it were (if you and I were, say, part of a group drinking in Ye Olde Progressive Arms)"
Saga,
How many QANGOs would continue to exist if they weren't created directly via taxation?
I've always been happy to make a tax contribution towards services that support a common good. Problem arises when such a lot of tax money seems to be sprayed around on a "we-haven't-played-the-hose-here-recently" basis.
One man's "contribution" is another man's "why am I paying for something I don't want, never asked for and - even if I had - could be done a lot more cost-effectively".
I was never asked whether I wanted to contribute to a bunch of costly "Special Advisors". I thought special advice came from the civil servants running departments - or from business people who volunteered to provide insight to ministers who don't really understand the bits of government they are assigned to.
Loads of things that are delivered as public services that I'm very happy to contribute to. But, increasingly, loads of stuff for which I frankly see very little purpose.
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I have to ask myself, why is it a good thing if Unemployment doe's not meet the Government projected target of 3 Million unemployed by Christmas, if only to further see this figure topped during the First-Quarter of 2010?
The idea also, that in having a better than expected spending surplus requirement due to the Unemployment levels currently being totalled at under the 3M level is also Spin for the sake of Spin, for whatever else will happen it will surely be the Case that Unemployment levels will continue to Rise well beyond 3M as for the only differences in any delayed increase will be that any rises will take much more longer than expected, which in turn would suggest that any future recovery, and reduction in Unemployment figures in the future will also take much more longer to reduce and recover from, once we can see a light at the end of the Tunnel, ( and not just a Train coming in the opposite direction ), whereas there IS, and not just will, or maybe, New Industries developed whereby we can match likes for likes to substain the Skills needed to take on and beat the rest of the World in any renewed Exports drive of Goods again needed to substain Growth in any future wealth creation for us all in a renewed version of a U.K. Plc, etc:.
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66 @ 183
you need to define 'value' in the above sentence
happy to, John (and thank you for your other comment)
by Value, I mean the impact of what one is doing (whether it's a "Job" in the traditional sense or not) on aggregate Material Wealth in existence
not an easy thing to measure, obviously, but it's the concept I'm keen to get across
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fellow @ 186
you’ve been posting here since 1145
AD you mean? ... certainly feels like it sometimes!
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open @ 189
how many QUANGOs would continue to exist if they weren't created directly via taxation?
none - there'd be NO public sector without taxation - if your point is that some government spend is badly directed, then I agree - would be an odd person who didn't
Q for you (in further support of my 172 "Contribution equals EV minus NP" proposition)
I buy an asset for £2,000
I sell it a Hampstead minute later for £3,000
I don't alter the asset in any way for the blink of an eye that I own it
I pay tax of £400 on my profit of £1,000
so:
(a) I've contributed (made everyone else richer) by £400, or
(b) I've taken (made everyone else poorer) by £600
the Reactionary Fallacy ... private sector pays for public sector ... says A
but I say B
what say you, Fairly?
(pls note how I've elegantly taken Inflation out of the argument so that we don't get too cluttered)
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Bryhers (various postings)
You make some good points.
Do you accept, though, that UK fiscal and monetary policy was too lax between 2000-2007? What would Keynes have thought (or if you prefer, would an orthodox Keynesian think) about macro-economic policy during those years? If you agree it was too lax, then why was it so?
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193 Saga,
not my question, but perhaps you should consider the following:
if the sale was voluntary, i.e. you the vendor, sold it to the purchaser for an agreed sum of £3000, then the purchaser has made himself / herself poorer by £3000 at their own risk, then in this case it is my opinion that position (a) applies. ;o)
However, if you forced the sale at gunpoint to the purchaser, it is my opinion that condition (b) applies. :o(
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#193 sagamix
I'm still thinking of your example, but two points:
There could be a public sector without taxation. Public enterprises could make a profit.
Try reversing your example such that you buy an asset for £2000 and sell it for £1000. On your preferred measure of economic contribution we have now all gained £1000 (perhaps you can offset your loss against the capital gain from some more successful transactions, so let's say we gain just £600). So on Planetsaga falling asset prices benefit society.
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#193, sagamix wrote:
"open @ 189
Q for you (in further support of my 172 "Contribution equals EV minus NP" proposition)
I buy an asset for £2,000
I sell it a Hampstead minute later for £3,000
I don't alter the asset in any way for the blink of an eye that I own it
I pay tax of £400 on my profit of £1,000
so:
(a) I've contributed (made everyone else richer) by £400, or
(b) I've taken (made everyone else poorer) by £600
Saga,
I'd say you are delusional.
(a) Paying tax doesn't "make everyone else richer". It shifts "money" from one point to another. Maybe, on the way, some of it goes to people who are better off than you. Hopefully more goes to support those who are worse off. I could achieve exactly the same distribution impact by keeping my own money and spending it on what I choose or need to buy.
(b) How on earth can the money somebody (company or individual) paid for an asset in excess of the tax impact make "everyone else poorer"? That's rubbish, even by my tolerant standards. If I choose to use my money to buy something at a price that is higher than I would have liked, how does that "make everyone else poorer"?
If you'd said, well, I'm a banker and I'm going to pretend that I've got assets (which I don't, but I can beg or borrow it from someone) and I'm going to encourage you to borrow from me, so that you can buy something - a house for example - at a totally overvalued price and let's pretend that you can actually afford it. Then, when I as a banker realise that I was talking cr*p and asked everybody to give me money to prop me up, then I could start to warm to your idea.
Asset stuff (most, really) has a measurable "value". You build a house. So you need land. Nobody made it, but it has a demand "value". You need workers, who also have a "demand" value. And some materials - now those were made, so somebody has to work out how much they cost try to flog it for a bit more. You build the house. Original cost is what you could afford. Afterwards you flog it. If you're lucky, somebody will pay more than you spent. Demand dictates. But how does that harm "everyone"?
I have to say that, if I could pay taxes on the basis that it only went to people worse off than me, I'd be delighted.
Remind me Saga, how many MPs, ministers, senior civil servants, council executives and QANGO bosses earn more than twice the national salary.
I understand why nurses or teachers get a bit cross when they see their taxes support really very decent salaries for people who come in and make their lives difficult.
(pls note how I've elegantly taken Inflation out of the argument so that we don't get too cluttered)
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john 66 @ 196
There could be a public sector without taxation. Public enterprises could make a profit
yes that's true - in fact if EVERYTHING was public sector ... except it wouldn't then be a sector ... we could have a zero rate of tax, couldn't we?
not arguing for that btw!
on Planetsaga falling asset prices benefit society
no because that's the converse of saying rising asset prices benefit society, and my theory doesn't imply that
but on your more narrow point, yes indeed ... buy for 3000 sell for 2000 reclaim tax of 400 ... you've made the rest of us richer by 600
that works
BUT let's forget the asset angle - better illustration is with a job
you sit in a room doing absolutely nothing all day every day (yes that's right ... you're a middle manager in a large multi national!) and nobody notices if you're even there or not
your salary is £75,000
you pay tax of £25,000
you're a 25k Contributor? ... or a 50k Taker?
for me, the latter
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Fairly @ 197
paying tax doesn't "make everyone else richer"
agreed - and I never said so
I'm saying you make everyone else richer if the economic value (EV) of the work you do exceeds the net pay (NP) you extract for doing it
and if your NP exceeds your EV then you're making us all poorer
that's the nub of it
tax is taken out as a variable since it's NET pay we look at - in fact what you're saying up top there ... that paying tax DOESN'T mean you're contributing ... I not only agree with, it's where I came in
which was to explode the Reactionary Myth that the private sector "pays for" the public sector via taxation - i.e. (as you put it) that "paying taxes" equates to a positive contribution - it doesn't
so what I've done there, Open, is I've taken your headline statement and I've shown how it proves what I'm saying!
pretty cool or what?
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Job Centre Plus and the figures - my daughter signed on 5 weeks ago but her claim is still being processed and more worryingly for her she has not received any JSA - we employ another army of staff administering crisis loans whilst JSA claims are processed, its barmy. My daughter has long term unemployed friends on job centre plus courses (enforced) who have been, in some cases, on the same course two or three times. Each time they attend this six week course they come off the figures but are still paid the same as JSA. These courses allow the figures to be diluted but certainly don't save us money - so don't see any windfall myself. In fact each time they attend one of these courses we are paying private sector organisations for the priviledge. There are only so many ways to write your CV and only so many job searches you can do each day but for 6 weeks that is what they do to stay off the figures. At the end of six weeks they go back to doing the same thing by their own efforts, at less cost to the country but back on the unemployment figures - it madness!!
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Nick Robinson:
Unemployment is rising slower than many economists and, indeed, the government feared.
Yes, it is true and should have been understandable before, the point now; Since, most common folks already new that the unemployment rate was getting bigger...
~Dennis Junior~
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#199, sagamix wrote:
"john 66 @ 196
BUT let's forget the asset angle - better illustration is with a job
you sit in a room doing absolutely nothing all day every day (yes that's right ... you're a middle manager in a large multi national!) and nobody notices if you're even there or not
your salary is £75,000
you pay tax of £25,000
you're a 25k Contributor? ... or a 50k Taker?
for me, the latter"
Saga,
You've lost it. Check your inferences...
You sit in a room doing absolutely nothing all day every day (yes that's right ... you're a middle manager in a large area of national government) and nobody notices if you're even there or not
your salary is £75,000 - originally paid for from taxes on other people
you pay tax of £25,000
you're a 25k Contributor? ... or a 50k Taker? Seems fairly obvious.
It's pretty evident, saga.
If you do nothing in a private company at a decent salary, you depend on people who actually do things to find a way to make money to support you.
If you do nothing (your words) in a tax-funded organisation and nobody cares about the "worth" of your activity or lack of it, you are just a taker. You rely totally on people to generate taxes in order to provide you with a desk in the first place.
You need to spruce up your arguments a bit.
Otherwise you are really going to turn off people like me who rather care about public services.
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Fed Up @ 195
I see what you're driving at ... but in practice it's millions of people doing millions of things, so the impact is on society as a whole rather than on specific individuals
my example in 199 is better ... 25k Contributor or £50k Taker ??
what's the FULF view on that one?
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When employment is short should there be a compulsory ban on over time, in the hope that it would lead business to employ more staff to meet demands and should there be a more relaxed approach to job share, if people are happy to split their 40 hours to 20 hours, it colud be just as good as creating another position.
It's an opportunity to end the shareholder grip and greed on business and an open goal chance to move to the principle stance of publically involved employment.
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#200, sagamix wrote:
"Fairly @ 197
paying tax doesn't "make everyone else richer"
agreed - and I never said so"
Saga,
Maybe never said - but you wrote it!
"I buy an asset for £2,000
I sell it a Hampstead minute later for £3,000
I don't alter the asset in any way for the blink of an eye that I own it
I pay tax of £400 on my profit of £1,000
so:
(a) I've contributed (made everyone else richer) by £400, or"
Which bit of your own post do you disagree with?
The bit where you wrote that buy paying tax you make everone else richer?
I rather thought that was what I responded to.
If you're doing a New Labour "well the words only meant what I imagined then to imply at the time, with no intention that anyone would actually believe I meant what they seem to mean", the veneer of Clear Thinking Prog starts to slide off, doesn't it?
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fairly OM ... if you do nothing in a private company at a decent salary, you depend on people who actually do things to find a way to make money to support you
no - if you're doing nothing and you're paid 50k net you're making the rest of us poorer by 50k regardless of whether you work in the public or the private sector - that's irrelevant - red herring
it's just that it's easier to visualise if it's public sector, you just say that 50k is coming out of your taxes - which is correct, it is
but if it's private sector, the company (by NOT sacking you) is less profitable by (approx) the amount it's paying you - so the company is LESS valuable than it would (and should) be - and we all own these big companies via our pensions and investements etc
do you see?
the non productive person ends up "costing us" just the same, don't they? ... absolutely key point is that the public vs private thing is irrelevant
so we conclude:
the private sector does NOT pay for the public sector
it's a fallacy
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Unemployment shouldn’t even exist in society today. We share the earth and share its resources and we should all be in work, all be consumers at the same time. In 1997, if you had have told me that the unemployment rate would be the same under the end of Labour in 2010 as under the Tories in 1997, I would have been flabbergasted. We all know Labour came in to sort the mess out, and to give them credit unemployment didn’t stay high, only went up in 2007. But how ironic that Brown is leaving office with the same care shown to the unemployed as the Tories showed: none. Labour will never win office for a long time.
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FOM @ 197
I'd say you are delusional
how can a Clear Thinking Progressive be delusional?
och see more on!
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#205 derekbarking
No, there should be a reduction in the working week with no loss of pay, thereby stimulating the economy from the bottom up rather than just giving huge amounts of money to some bankers in the hope of some stimulus trickling down.
Why don't you go the whole hog Derek and abolish JSA and UB to cut the numbers of officially unemployed, stopping DLA would save a few taxpayer pounds as well. Your contents insurance might rise a bit and you won't be able to leave your car parked on any street but we all have to make sacrifices right.
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fairly @ 206
I rather thought that was what I responded to
no no no !!
please go back to my 193 ... it was a Binary and I said the right answer was B not A
I said the Reactionary Fallacy answer was A !!
oh god, are we going to have to do the whole thing again?
(you're killing me!)
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Seriously Derek, most people who get paid for overtime are hourly paid employees in the lower pay scales, salaried staff usually don't get any overtime payment, they just get to work longer for no extra.
If you are on minimum wage you probably need to work as many hours as you can just to keep the kids fed and clothed, without the overtime the difference between benefits and working is very small after taking into account travel costs etc. you are unlikely to want or be able to share any of your meagre subsistance with anybody else.
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#205, derekbarker wrote:
"When employment is short should there be a compulsory ban on over time, in the hope that it would lead business to employ more staff to meet demands and should there be a more relaxed approach to job share, if people are happy to split their 40 hours to 20 hours, it colud be just as good as creating another position.
It's an opportunity to end the shareholder grip and greed on business and an open goal chance to move to the principle stance of publically involved employment."
Derek,
I suggest you take a look at what a socialist government did in France. Jospin decided that it would be a great idea to impose a 35 hour week. His great idea was that it would mean employers would have to hire more people, to cover the missing time-gap.
What actually happened that some big comanies could afford to take on a relatively minor number of people. But the streamlined as much as they could to avoid big cost increases. Hundreds of thousands of small companies couldn't afford to hire more people. So, for example, restaurants closed down for an extra day because they couldn't stay open. So they lost business. And the impact on unemployment was neglible.
Maybe you haven't noticed. Private companies are laying off staff - because demand has fallen. It's not a question of cutting overtime for them - they are desperate to do business, but can't afford the people who've been creating wealth.
I'm not too keen on shareholders after what they've allowed bankers to do. But there are 20+million people employed in the private sector. A lot of them hope for a private-sector pension. Massive amounts of UK companies are owned by pension funds, who struggle to work money to pay people when they retire.
Companies and individuals are entitled to try and cut job-share deals if they want to. That option's been around for years.
And maybe you didn't spot that the owners of Northern Rock and RBS are, well, actually US. Have you seen the shareholders (represented by Brown and Darling's pals) doing a lot to throttle bankers' excesses? Noticed a flood of lending to companies and individuals that Brown said would happen?
Would you like a huge increase of job-sharing across the public sector, so we save a bit on taxes?
I sometimes thing you live on planet sagamix.
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#212 BobRocket
Yes! Bob you make some very good points, however the unemployment stats are not open for salaried staff only and Yes! it's about time all salaried staff were contracted to an hourly agreement. Although no-one should rely on over-time to make ends meet I do understand why many people do over-time.
I'd rather we raised the minimum wage to a decent level and if we have to constrain earnings then do it top down. I like to see this government put more pressure on the multinational food stores to lower their prices.If we can create more effective employment by certain measures then let those measures reflect the common sense approach.
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#213 Fairlyopenmind
You dont lose tax by job sharing, come on that's poorly based.
A large number of British employees are contracted on a 37.5 hours per week contract, at least 2.5 hours a week are allocated for meal breaks and rest periods, so actual hours worked are in the region of 35 hours per week per se!
You see fairly-fluxed, your stuck in the Thatcher time warp, productivity doesn't increase by streamlining and cutting staff and over- time remains optional, you have the right to work over-time and you also have the right to refuse over-time.
The piper alpha disasters led to a working time directive, all types of professional employees are not immune to tiredness!.
Fairly, I like to think most people including yourself, would be disappointed if we used people like China did to build the birds nest stadium.
Right here, right now! we've got a problem with employment, we either work together to find solutions are we work apart and probably fail.
Do you want to be in the fail camp,shouting that your taxes are to high and your hours of employment are to long?.
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Oh wait I can't pay my council tax yet - I'm waiting for an expenses refund - what a joke NO I can't do that so why should they ! They still don't get their expenses are supposed to be incurred DIRECTLY and WHOLLY in respect of their job !
PLEASE STOP THEM DUMPING THEIR HEADS IN THE PUBLIC CASH TROUGH AGAIN.
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Oh yes sorry - I'll just get my cheque book out
How much was it 12k 15k or 100k oh if I must......
If I wrote such a cheque it would bounce as I think most peoples would but the MPs; they complain and scream but ultimately if they can write those cheques then :
1. Don't need the money
2. They have had too much off us before &
3. They are not in it for public service they are in it for themselves !
PS. each bounced cheque - the banks would charge my £37 three times of our money !!!!!
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I meant ME not my but seriously if you can write a cheque for over ten grand - don't even think you are are connected to the people.
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The cleaning out of the Augean stables are going on,and the General Election next may should finish the job as people will just not vote for those thought to have their hands in the till.If I was to attempt to claim even a tenner fraudulently from my company,then I would be sacked for dishonesty,the police would be involved with maybe a court case,and then I might find that the benefits systems punishes me as well for being responsible for my situation. Still one law for the rich and one for the poor in the UK...
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Morning nick and fellow bloggers
Well i notice the job situation is no better nick ?
I thought the currant government would have been able to create a few more quangos positions as they have normally catered well in the past to satisfy the report sheets per annum I/E making the numbers look good. You know talk the talk but do little.
Never the less there are more exciting subjects that this one nick how about the baroness of Scotland for example? Or the Baroness uddhi the escape artists?
Still no real satisfactory conclusions there i suppose?
Counting the days now to a general election slowly diminishing day by day
Things can only get better so they said Morning all.
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Why is it that the cheerful car washers at my local Sainsbury's are all Romanian, Bulgarian or Polish? Are the British unemployed not prepared to do car washing or do Eastern European bring some specialist knowledge to the job?
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#221 simple that type of work is below there station therefore its much easier one the sausage roll than doing menial tasks than washing cars.
To the poles its like money from heaven or the honey pot as I've heard it called.
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PS nick hush hush whisper who dares .Its not Christopher robin is it nick? or Robinson ?
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207#
Mate, you have some twisted logic.
What DOES pay for the Public sector then? One of Gordon's Money Trees???
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"221. At 07:45am on 15 Oct 2009, skynine wrote:
Why is it that the cheerful car washers at my local Sainsbury's are all Romanian, Bulgarian or Polish? Are the British unemployed not prepared to do car washing or do Eastern European bring some specialist knowledge to the job?"
Come to think of it the car washers in our local Waitrows and Tesco (cant comment on nearest Sainsburys as its a 30min drive away) are all Eastern European too. But from what i've seen they dont bring any special talent to the job!
It must be that all our school leavers are all soo well educated that they get turned down at the interview for being over qulified?
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Nick, I agree with the original Fubar statement on the fact that there are better and more controvertial things to report on. Like the fact that the bbc do not mention that it is agreed by the USA for 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan and that Obama is in the final act of agreeing to a further 13,000 troops made up of 2000 IED specialists and the remainder community support troops.
The bbc keep pushing the positive side of a decline in the rate of unemployment, while not talking about the "solutions" this government has rolled out to slow the figures down, like undermanning the job centres, and a plethora of systems to hide the unemployed.
Most of the people I come across in the private sector are working as low as a 2 day week, while the public sector keeps advertising in the bbc's favourite newspaper The Guardian.
If you wish to remain credible to your audience then I suggest you present a holistic approach to your subject, and not parrot government propaganda.
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just experienced that gushing of intense relief when you wake up from a gruesome nightmare and you realise that that's what it was, it wasn't real - lovely sensation, isn't it?
what was my dream? ... being chased around an big, empty house by a ghoul with an axe ... no escape! ... an excruciating death the only possible outcome ... something like that?
no, worse
it was set in the very near future and rather than just making speeches at Tory Party Conferences, George Osborne was standing up in the actual House of Commons and delivering an actual Budget
official UK unemployment was 4.5 million
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A sobering thought:
EU warns UK's debt is 'unsustainable'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/eu-warns-uks-debt-is-unsustainable-1802774.html
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#224 No it was the wood that was washed up on the shores off the Russian ship that the government collected the bounty for on return.
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@218
"if you can write a cheque for over ten grand - don't even think you are are connected to the people"
What people are you talking about? Most people in this country could write that sort of cheque if they set their mind to it.
Everybody worthwhile has savings. It's easy, just don't spend it. Smoking, drinking, holidays, cars, meals out; cut down on them till you've got enough for a rainy day.
It's certainly a rainy day for the thieves in Westminster; they'll be close to drowning by the time they pay back the millions they owe the country.
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Regarding the non-uk washers of cars....
I know our lot quite well.... amazing work ethic. A young lad that manages the team down at the garage, finishes his 9-7 shift, then goes straight to a restaurant to wait tables.
I understand his motivation though... he makes 5x a week here, than what he would be doing at home in Bulgaria. He sees this as a few years effort to make some real money to finish off a house of a size we would all aspire to - I have seen the plans.
He is also saving up £50k to get the lease on a UK pub. He works 6/7 days a week, doenst spend any money except on those goals he has given himself. I must say he is a lesson to many on hardwork and how to turn that graft into bigger things.
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Andy/FOM @ various:
Oh god, you didnt get that "Economic Value" guff spun at you again did you?
If any of that was either Clear, involved any Thinking, or was in any way Progressive, then I'm a monkeys uncle. After a jeroboam of Absinthe.
Saga, I notice you didnt answer my "what is the definition of an "equalising event"...
You cant keep on making up these buzzphrases, using them in arguments, but keeping the meanings to yourself. Nobody knows what the hell you are on about.
More than happy to discuss tax with you any time mate, you know that.
In fact, I'll start you off. My objective is to keep as much of my income out of the chancellors pocket as is legally possible. I know that paying it is legally unavoidable, so I realise and accept that it is inescapable and necessary.
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228#
That follows the IMF warning the other week then. Hmm. Wonder how many other organisations are going to have to say it before it sinks in...?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
John Harris 66
" Do you accept, though, that UK fiscal and monetary policy was too lax between 2000-2007? What would Keynes have thought (or if you prefer, would an orthodox Keynesian think) about macro-economic policy during those years? If you agree it was too lax, then why was it so."
Of course I do,but it was a case of living forward and understanding backwards and everyone joined the party.
Any reputable economist, whether Keynesian or not, should have insisted on understanding the so-called assets or derivatives, which banks traded between themselves,using them to underwrite a credit inflation which was reflected in levels of personal debt and house price rises.
Economic behaviour tests the limits of rationality swinging between greed and fear.Bubbles are a result of contagion,affecting everyone in a kind of mad euphoria before they collapse.
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227. sagamix
Nice story. Can't be as bad as the real nightmares suffered by the partners and family of the soldiers who didn't make it back from the illegal war in Iraq. Or the families of those Iraqis who may have still been alive today.
Just to put things into perspective.
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So hearing the wife o Austin Mitchell MP voicing her fear of spending their wages. She doesnot get it does she still. By all means spend your wages on buiscuits or whatever not a problem.
But when it comes to spending on expenses be reasonable dont spend £12,415 on cleaning/gardening. Plasma TVs and other luxuries are also not a good idea.
It also doesnot appear to be a good idea to pay your own company £103k either.
Irrespective of what the rules say or said at the time.
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@233
Yep, in April OECD estimated UK's structural budget deficit at about 7% of GDP or 105 billions pounds (and as you probably know, "structural" meanse that this is the annual post-recesssion deficit that will be recorded when growth has recovered to trend and unemployment benefits are lower and tax revenues higher).
And here we now have the EU estimating the annual gap at 12% or 180 billion pounds or 7,500 pounds per worker in the private sector if policy on spending and revenue raising (tax!) stays unchanged.
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231 stifledrifle
"A young lad that manages the team down at the garage, finishes his 9-7 shift, then goes straight to a restaurant to wait tables."
======================
I hope he washes his hands first .......
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227 sagaminx
So you dream about George Osbourne do you ????!??!?!
And I thought that Harriet Harman had the exclusive run of your slumbering imaginations. Don't worry though saga, it's never too late to discover who you really are .......
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"sagamix wrote:
@ 149
seems to me that Traffic Wardens aren't quite as useful as you think
didn't say they were massively useful, Mark ... point of the demo was just to show that they are more useful than, for example, Tax Advisors"
Seems to me that neither of them are really very useful - tax advisors only exist because government drones have to justify their existance by making the tax system so complicated that people have to hire someone to help them understand it.
The ironic thing is that it is in the states interest to make the tax system over-complicated as it a) allows them to hire people to work as tax inspectors (helps keep unemployment down) and b) it leads to people over-paying tax (i.e. more tax than they should actually be paying)
If the benefit and tax system was simplified how many thousands would lose their jobs?
While Traffic Wardens only exist because councils want to milk as much money as possible from drivers. I live in an area of town where all of the local car parks are free and we have no need for traffic wardens however in the middle of town where car parks are not free traffic wardens are needed as people try to avoid paying to park.
If all parking was free we wouldn't need any traffic wardens and if the tax system was properly laid out rather than a complex mess we wouldn't need tax advisors.
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Just to point out that so called unemployment figure is a lagging indicator. It tells you what happens on average in the last three months. Vacancies are the leading indicator and have not changed from 434,000. However my professional sources suggest that employment agencies in some sectors are reporting an upturn of employers notifying vacancies to them. This is rather soft data.
Why is 'unemployment' so called? ...because it is a weighted average over the last three months of answers to a sample survey of everyone between 16-60W?65M, asking them are they seeking work and and can they start immediately. The best estimate of CURRENT male unemployment is (1.3 x number of males in the claimant count). (It's too long to explain why here).
I would suggest that journalists get a course on all this. The BBC Website/News/Magazine has a contract with very good expert in these sorts of statistics.
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morning Fubar! (@224)
you have some twisted logic
that's what they all say until the Eureka moment! - but it's interesting, isn't it? - a whole new way of looking at things which allows us to get away from the tired mantra that the private sector pays for the public sector - once free of that limiting assumption we can see that it's one big melting pot ... a fondue, if you like ... whereby Contributors (Cs) support Takers (Ts) and there are loads of each in both sectors
important to make sure the terms are properly defined ...
Main Definitions:
a C is a person who's EV exceeds their NP
a T is one who's NP exceeds their EV
EV is the Economic Value of the work they do
NP is the Net Pay they extract for doing it
Clarifying Definition:
EV is the amount added to material wealth
NP is pay after tax
I can visualise a little ceremony in Stockholm coming up, can't you?
ps: I know that not absolutely everyone finds this stuff as fascinating as I do and so, with a certain sadness, I leave it now ... will not raise again until we're all wrestling with the perennial "real tree or artificial one?" dilemma
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218. At 03:07am on 15 Oct 2009, JeremyHorwood wrote:
I meant ME not my but seriously if you can write a cheque for over ten grand - don't even think you are are connected to the people.
********
Oh yeah - we Conservatives are so rich and unconnected. Me, I can write a cheque for fifty grand, and can afford to just light a big fat cigar with it....
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#215, derekbarker wrote:
"#213 Fairlyopenmind
You dont lose tax by job sharing, come on that's poorly based."
You're right Derek. It was sloppy. I should have suggested that, since there isn't enough tax being collected to cover government spending, then perhaps people within public service should look to reduce their working time and income - at least in the short term.
I'm all in favour of taking costs down by starting at the top salaries and working down.
"Fairly, I like to think most people including yourself, would be disappointed if we used people like China did to build the birds nest stadium."
Yes Derek. I wouldn't like Chinese work practices here. And the wealth-gap between richest (normally Party approved) and poorest, is even bigger than in the UK.
"Right here, right now! we've got a problem with employment, we either work together to find solutions are we work apart and probably fail.
Do you want to be in the fail camp,shouting that your taxes are to high and your hours of employment are to long?"
Derek, I'm all in favour of all trying to pull together. I still don't understand that the private sector is shedding jobs at a rate of knots, but public sector numbers are growing.
We've seen billions pumped into banks. We've been promised that banks will be more responsible in the way they lend (but the money is flowing like glue) and the way the bankers pay themselves (while there seems little evidence of any action.
Where's the major boost to get the construction industry going? We still need more houses/homes. If the government is prepared to insure against the 200-300 BIL of toxic assets (which could cost us a fortune), why can't they come up with a scheme to "guarantee" house builders so they can get back to the sites? After all, at least homes are tangible and will have an enduring value. The toxic bank assets may be worth diddly-squat.
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"sagamix wrote:
I know where you're heading (sorry but it IS obvious) - you're going for that old and disreputable reactionary chestnut which says a person holding left wing views cannot ever be credible because:
- if they're rich, it's hypocrisy
- and if they're NOT rich, it's envy"
It isn't always hypocrisy if you are rich - for example you could donate all you have to charity and decide instead to help the poor.
Or you could be like Bono and campaign for poverty tirelessly and yet move your record company to a different country to avoid taxes!
Oddly enough most rich "socalists" tend to be the type who campaign and then go home and roll around in piles of money in their posh pads.
The same is true of the poor, you can either sit and wait for your hand out or go out and make a difference in the community. Although, I expect more poor "socialists" are the type who hope that socialism will redistribute the wealth rather than the type who helps make their community the best it can be.
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Typical New Labour spin.
Create expectations that things will be horrendously and excruciatingly bad. Then when things are merely horrendously bad, they claim that they did a wonderful job and saved the world.
Does ANYONE believe this guff?
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235#
"Any reputable economist, whether Keynesian or not, should have insisted on understanding the so-called assets or derivatives, which banks traded between themselves,using them to underwrite a credit inflation which was reflected in levels of personal debt and house price rises."
Excellent point. Although I'd happily stand corrected, such understanding was something I think was missing during that time period.
Do you think such products should be licensed by each nations financial regulatory body before being "released to market" (for want of a better description)? And consequently, no thorough end-to-end description=no licence=product cannot be traded through the system in a non-licensed country?
If the regulator doesnt understand the product, how can they know what impact it could possibly have on their economy if/when it all turns sour?
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derekbarker 215
"You dont lose tax by job sharing, come on that's poorly based."
Oh yes you do! Unlike your normal practice, I will explain why.
If you have one person employed on, say, a 40 hours per week job, he or she receives one personal allowance.
But if instead you have two people employed sharing that job, then they each receive one personal allowance.
Therefore the job share results in less tax being paid, the amount being the basic rate times the personal allowance, i.e. about £800 per year for each shared job.
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Nick
The slower rate of umemployment is probably more of a seasonal effect and it is necessary to separate short medium and long term unemployment effects as well as those unemployment effects due to uncertainty, events such as the credit crunch and underlying structural effects.
In other words, September is normally a better month for hiring after the summer break - and the real concern is whether underlying long term growth in UK unemployment exists and this is probably making the figures look better than they actually are.
The concern is that there has been structural change bringing higher UK employment over the last two years and the underlying growth in unemployment is not affecting just seasonal and temporary employment rates - the structural change (and which has been partly reported by the BBC elsewhere) is that more white collar and more mature workers are becoming unemployed as like everything else - the government puts a spin on all government statistics to try and hide the discrimination against the indiginous British and especially English people of all ages.
Sometimes it might be better for the BBC to look at the figures harder be more balance in its reporting and not just be a government mouthpiece for government spin and lies.
UK unemployment is very varied and extremely complex but disturbing trends have emerged - there is not good news at all in these figures as there is very little job creation or real employment help for the millions of people written off by this rotten Labour government.
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meninwhitecoats 1
I meant to answer you yesterday.
You are right not to believe these figures on unemployment they do not take into account that many companies have put workers on a 4 day week and have cut wages. Companies are not culling jobs but using natural wastage. The public sector is still expanding and employing more workers, all the schemes used to transfer people onto other benefits and work schemes, all the Government backed money used to prop up companies including VAT holidays which is blowing a hole in our tax take, these will no doubt fail when the Government debt stops them being able to continue this support.
Of course the real unemployment figure though not known is well over 6 million, way above what it was during the Conservative years. The reason it appears lower is that the Government does not factor in single mothers, carers, those on various incapacity benefits, those on Government schemes and so on.
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Interesting that the newlabour apologists have decided to wade into an ideological debate on these posts given that their disastrous economic record is now beyond any kind of defence.
This is clearly pointing us to how they intend to fight the election; vote for us nice egalitarian, NHS loving, youth employment bringing types, rather than those unpleasant, baby munching, tax cutting nasty tories.
Strange kind of attack if ever I saw one - how is anyone expected to ignore the economic track record of the last twelve years; showering special interest groups with cash; ruining the banking system; destroying pensions and we're supposed to turn a blind eye and believe ideology will save us in the end.
I'm afraid Captain Cameron has already tapped the richest seam of the popular zeitgeist and gone for the 'I'm going to be straight with you' tactic. Of course, no-one should believe him but it's certainly a record the newlabour apologist don't even own never mind play.
After twelve years of Campbell, Blair, Mr no more boom and bust and the expenses scandal, there's no way newlabour will be playing the 'I want to be straight with you' tune again for another decade.
And so the power ebbs away daily from a weakened government, with a crippled prime minister who has lost the respect of his party, his cabinet and the country.
And they will ask in the future 'just how did it all go so terribly wrong?'
Call an election.
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@sagamix (various posts too numerous to list....)
Morning, just catching up, and want to stir the pot a little....
OK - let's start with the one about the middle manager in the large multinational sat on his butt doing nothing. Now I work in a large multinational, and I completely agree that in a company of any size, there will be people whose net pay exceeds the value of their work (sub-question: whose scale of 'value' are you using here, the sagamix "if you don't make anything, you aren't worth anything" scale, or the scale of their bosses, who are obviously happy enough to let them sit there, because they see something of value that you are missing). However, just because they may earn considerably more than me, and are perceived as contributing less, doesn't make me, or anyone else, richer or poorer. I don't sit around wishing he'd get off his arse and do more, because then I could afford a new tv set.
Your earlier point - about buying and selling the house and making a profit. If you make £1000 profit, well done. That's economics. The value of assets goes up or down according to demand, and will always level out at a price that the market is willing to support. That means it goes up or down. again, just because the guy next door sells his house for a big profit, doesn't affect my finances at all. All that matters to me is what I get for my house, if and when I sell up.
I'll set aside the fact that property prices and property values are a terrible way to try and prove your flawed logic, because the value of a house cannot be measured in how much it costs to buy (or how much the mortgage payments are). The value is in how much security and shelter it provides me and my family. I'm only interested in monetary worth when I'm looking to move, and even then the actual price of the property is only one factor. The true indicator is the net difference between what profit / loss I make on the sale, and the outstanding amount of the mortgage.
Last point: you make a profit of £1000, and pay £400 tax on that profit. But I've ALREADY BEEN TAXED on that money several times over, in income, land registry, stamp duty etc. to actually clear £1000 profit, I need to sell for way more than the £3000 you mention. And I need to pay for services like electricity, gas, phone disconnect / reconnect, and a removal company, and solicitors fees etc.
You see? Yours is such a simplistic world, you make the same mistake that Gordon Brown has done for 12 years - assuming that you can take one statistic or trend and imagine that it can stand on its own without reference to the bigger picture. Yes it sounds good that the trend in the constant rise in unemployment statistics is slightly slower than was anticipated, but there are still 2.5 million people out of work - yet another 14 year high. There are more people on other benefits than at any time in the past 14 years as well - and the numbers are still rising. And we have NO money to put this right, because of the profligate way Labour have been asset-stripping the nation to shore up the gaps in it's inept fiscal planning!
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sagamix wrote:
Fairly @ C
so everybody earning say GBP30K pays a pound of tax in order to pay some head of a QANGO, Council Chief Exec or Cabinet minister a salary multiples higher than their own
that's making the flawed (but very common, I admit) assumption that the private sector "pays for" the public sector via taxation"
So where does the money for the public sector come from if not the private sector? Magic beans?
"and then I see each person's economic contribution to society as being the difference between the value of the work they do and the amount they extract (in net pay) for doing it - if value exceeds pay, they're a Contributor (e.g. a toilet cleaner) and if pay exceeds value, they're a Taker (e.g. a bond trader)"
I know this will confuse you (being a socialist and all) but lets consider that some wages are paid by private companies and some from the public purse. Therefore anyone working in the private sector doesn't really count as their wages come from private sources (and private sources can blow their money anyway they like) and their value depends on the people paying for them.
However, public workers ARE paid from the public purse the money to pay their wages comes from the tax payer and as such they are taking directly from the system - some may have actual financial value (i.e. the managaer who comes in and saves millions by making the system more efficient) and some might have value like you describe.
"doesn't matter whether the cleaner or the bond trader is private or public sector ... that's a red herring"
Actually as mentioned above it makes a huge difference.
It is one thing for a small business owner to pay his wife/husband as his PA (they earn the money and they can hire who they likes) but when an MP does it starts to look more like troughing.
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#235 bryhers
We have an agreement then. UK Monetary and fiscal policy was mismanaged between 2000 and 2007.
Monetary Policy Failure: Bank of England MPC
Fiscal Policy Failure: Gordon Brown and the Labour Party
I agree with your point that the opposition parties did not vigorously oppose Brown's policy. However, Brown led the way in fiscal irresponsibility, and given Labour' electoral success it was difficult to oppose him.
The 2005 Conservative Party manifesto said: "Today government is spending too much, wasting too much and taxing too much". It promised to increase government spending by less (4%) than Labour (5%). At the time This was ridiculed by Labour attack dogs such as Balls as threatening to slash public services (no mention of Keynes then).
Looking back, the Conservative manifesto was too timid, but at least it was slowing the approach to the abyss.
I agree that life has to lived forward and understood backwards. However, we also live by understanding, and to my knowledge no senior Labour politician has admitted to the calamitous failure of Labour's economic policy.
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Nick you're frothing over a few thousand this way or a few thousand that way.
The main fact is that 6 Million people are dependent on Brown's nanny superstate. This is the true failure of this Gov't, stripping generations of their responsibility to the wider community.
Brown has created a nation of "takers" in the city and "takers" in the community.
Time for a change to help us taxpaying "givers" to rebalance the books!
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"sagamix wrote:
I buy an asset for £2,000
I sell it a Hampstead minute later for £3,000
I don't alter the asset in any way for the blink of an eye that I own it
I pay tax of £400 on my profit of £1,000
so:
(a) I've contributed (made everyone else richer) by £400, or
(b) I've taken (made everyone else poorer) by £600
the Reactionary Fallacy ... private sector pays for public sector ... says A
but I say B
what say you, Fairly?"
Well it obviously isn't (b) as only one person is actually poorer - the person who could have bought it for £2000 and instead had to pay £3000. However, as they were willing to pay the price they obviously consider it to have a value of £3000.
The only way you could argue that everyone is poorer is if you sold the item to the state. If you did sell it to the state the state is £600 pounds worse off as you say.
However, if the person buying was not the state than the state has made £400 for doing nothing at all (nice work if you can get it).
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I think we have had enough government by spin and innuendo.
Being of an age that goes back to Gaitskill and others I recall Ministers said "xyz" and detest the new trend for so and so will say. Mr Brown will announce 500 troops.
Another throwback to those day was the statistics showed what they said they did. They were not manipulated, raw numbers and nobody knew what they were until the time of publication.
Blame can be placed wherever you want, both parties are guilty, it used to be lies dam lies and statistics. Now you cant even believe the statistics.
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"sagamix wrote:
you sit in a room doing absolutely nothing all day every day (yes that's right ... you're a middle manager in a large multi national!) and nobody notices if you're even there or not
your salary is £75,000
you pay tax of £25,000
you're a 25k Contributor? ... or a 50k Taker?
for me, the latter"
It all depends on if the worker is public or private sector.
If they are private they are taking £75,000 from the company (they are being paid but doing nothing to justify it). However, this is a private company and they can waste money however they like.
The state however is benefitting by £25,000 i.e. if you remove the position the state loses £25,000.
However, if the company is public sector than you are correct - they are a £50,000 taker.
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"I wouldn't criticise someone personally for entering into tax avoidance strategies such as to minimise their tax bill ... we'd most of us at least consider it ... but I'd say that in the grand scheme of things, the net effect of such activity is not particularly useful for society - thus, the individuals who facilitate such activity (tax advisors, let's call them) are (all things considered) of less value to us than certain other groups such as, just for an example, Traffic Wardens"
Sagamix
Not at all surprised that you finally had to conceeded that you can't criticise people for tax planning. You do it yourself, after all.
By the way, have you any idea at all of what the "net effect of such activity" is? Of course you don't. For the vast majority of self-employed and owner managed businesses the 'net effect' is simply ensuring compliance with a increasingly bewildering tax regime, thereby avoiding penalties. Clearly never having run or owned your own business, you are (as you usually do) talking only 'theoretically', generally starting with assumptions that fit your ideology and then hammering away at or ignoring any facts that don't suit you.
I don't suppose for a second you'd be prepared to focus your attention to how useful the job is that you do and share your findings. Course not.
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243#
"EV is the amount added to material wealth"
Yes, but WHOSE material wealth? Their own individual wealth, that of their employer or the nation as a whole?
And you still didnt answer it mate, if the private sector does not pay for the public sector then what the hell does???
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#79 Sagamix
I know this is belated, but I've been temporarily busy. I can't let past unchallenged your assertion that Traffic Wardens are more useful than tax advisors.
Since Traffic Wardens are effectively tax collectors, they are of no benefit to my personal society, and probably the personal societies of most posters on this blog.
They do, however, have a use in winter, as draught excluders.
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"sagamix wrote:
official UK unemployment was 4.5 million"
To be fair, if that was total unemployment (i.e. unemployment after all the figures have been massaged) that would mean unemployment was less than we are on now!
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"West_London_Willy wrote:
Oh yeah - we Conservatives are so rich and unconnected. Me, I can write a cheque for fifty grand, and can afford to just light a big fat cigar with it...."
Yeah, me too - if I ever wrote a cheque for fifty grand I would burn it as soon as I could (and certainly before anybody cashed it!)
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The European Commission's Sustainability Report has just been published:
"The UK appears to be at high risk with regard to the long-term sustainability of public finances. The UK's budgetary position poses severe risks to the sustainability of public finances."
According to the EU, for 2010 the UK and Ireland have jointly the worst structural imbalance (12.2% of GDP) in the EU.
Remembering the fact that Gordon Brown's Conference speech made no reference to reductions in government spending, or to higher taxes, do you think:
a) Gordon Brown is a serious politician for serious times
b) Gordon Brown is a snake-oil salesman desperately trying to hide his economic incompetence from the British people?
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johnharris 255
I agree entirely with your assessment. One thing I would say about the 2005 election is that it would have been very difficult for the Conservatives to be more forceful about the bad economic picture because public opinion was against them. At that time Brown was still seen by the media and in turn the public believed, he was the greatest Chancellor ever. 'No more boom and bust' was believed and therefore the public was of the belief that the good days would always be with us. There was also a great emphasis at the time of 2005 election by the Conservatives that they had a concern that banks did not have enough capital to lending. A very important point at that time if it had been picked up.
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#255, #266.
Life would be so much easier if the House of Commons had such accurate hindsight.
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"johnharris66 wrote:
Remembering the fact that Gordon Brown's Conference speech made no reference to reductions in government spending, or to higher taxes, do you think:
a) Gordon Brown is a serious politician for serious times
b) Gordon Brown is a snake-oil salesman desperately trying to hide his economic incompetence from the British people?"
How about:
c) The UK is best places to come out of this recession?
My that seems so long ago now!
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"Q for you (in further support of my 172 "Contribution equals EV minus NP" proposition)
I buy an asset for £2,000
I sell it a Hampstead minute later for £3,000
I don't alter the asset in any way for the blink of an eye that I own it
I pay tax of £400 on my profit of £1,000
so:
(a) I've contributed (made everyone else richer) by £400, or
(b) I've taken (made everyone else poorer) by £600
the Reactionary Fallacy ... private sector pays for public sector ... says A
but I say B"
So at the start of your scenario, "A" had an asset, I had £2,000, "B" had £3,000 and the taxman had nothing. The total is an asset and £5,000.
At the end of your scenario, "A" has £2,000, I have £2,600, "B" has an asset and the taxman has £400. Total, an asset and £5,000. The same thing. What has happened is that £400 has moved from the public to the private.
(Of course, being simplistic you have ignored the effect on "A". What did he pay for the asset? Did he make a profit on sale and so does HE have to pay tax as well? has perhaps even more money moved from the public to the private sector)
You say that to say that the private sector pays for the public sector is a fallacy. So without that transaction, could you explain where the taxman gets his money from that he then uses to fund the public sector?
Perhaps, as someone else has said, you think it comes from a money tree in Gordon's back garden.
You say "everyone else is poorer". Certainly I am £600 richer but that is what happens (in miniture) every time you buy a Mars bar. You are paying more for it than the shopkeeper did. The shopkeeper, having sold you lots of Mars bars, may well use the profits to buy a car. The car salesman will have made a profit and use his profits to buy other things and so the business cycle continues. The only money that exits this cycle is the money going to the taxman. Without this 'exit', I have to ask again, where would you get the money from to fund the public sector?
Anyone with even the begining of a hint of a sliver of understanding would concede that the public sector is funded by the private sector.
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"Susan-Croft wrote:
There was also a great emphasis at the time of 2005 election by the Conservatives that they had a concern that banks did not have enough capital to lending. A very important point at that time if it had been picked up."
If that is true why aren't the Tories knocking Labour around the head with it. I know it isn't very grown up to say "I told you so" but when Labour are trying to portray the Tories as a "do nothing" party who had no idea of the banking problem it would be a very useful weapon to throw back in their defence.
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Sagamix 207
Of course the private sector pays for the public sector.
Private Companies make money through profits which they pay their workers with. In turn the Company and its employees pay tax. It is from these taxes that we pay for the public sector. Why do you suppose that at the moment there is such a deficit in our Government finances just now because the public sector has expanded beyond the taxes collected from the private sector.
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"And you still didnt answer it mate, if the private sector does not pay for the public sector then what the hell does???"
Fubar. Waste of time asking. You know he doesn't answer questions he doesn't like.
Having said that, sagamix does have a grasp of economics & business unlike anyone else I have met. He uses abreviations a lot so must know what he's talking about. I can only guess he has a job in that field, perhaps in the public sector, possibly advising Gordon Brown. That would, after all, explain a lot.
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Mark_WE 270
Good point and not one I can answer. It is the same as the bail out of the banks, Osbornes way would have been much better than Darlings, in my opinion, however we hear nothing about that either. Maybe the Conservatives are just avoiding looking smug or the policy changed under Cameron from 2005 and was not seen as a vote winner, I do not know.
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Me at 249
"Therefore the job share results in less tax being paid, the amount being the basic rate times the personal allowance, i.e. about £800 per year for each shared job."
Whoops
6475x20% = £1295
(I was a bit behind the times on tax allowances - must consult one of those useful tax advisor people!)
So, in fact, job share results in a loss of £1295 per year per job shared in tax to the Treasury.
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272#
Inclined to agree. Maybe a member of a think tank.
Or he may be John Birt in disguise....
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#274 "Therefore the job share results in less tax being paid, the amount being the basic rate times the personal allowance, i.e. about £800 per year for each shared job."
Whoops
6475x20% = £1295
(I was a bit behind the times on tax allowances - must consult one of those useful tax advisor people!)"
I wouldn't worry about not being up to date on tax, it's a fast-changing subject and the average person can't be expected to keep up. thank goodness for tax advisors.
By the way, you overlooked NI Contributions. You'd be saving a further £628.65 in NI (and your employer would save £731.52 NI on top of THAT).
By the way (further) you can get the credit of a NI Contribution year which counts for receiving benefits and affects future pension entitlement so long as you earn over the Lower Earnigs Limit of £4,940 even though you don't start paying NIC until your income is over the Earnings Threshold of £5,715. I agree this is confusing, you'd have to ask Brown WHY he's done it this way. So even low paid people find advice from a Tax Advisor is useful, it's not just for the wealthier than average.
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Barking @215..
Derek,old chap..I don't know whether you believe this stuff,but let's have some reality.
Most people that you speak of have a contract to work 37.5 hours per week..agreed. But most of these people work normally from 9-5.30..agreed?
That's 8.5 hours. Deduct,say,1 hour for lunch.that's 7.5 hours of work..agreed?
5 days at 7.5 hours= 37.5 hours!
Please get your facts and maths right before you spout garbage..thank you.
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272 Andy:
Saga makes up a lot of acronyms, I'll grant you that. But EV is Earned Value, not Employment Value. Just because someone litters their posts with percentages and acronyms, doesn't make him more knowledgeable.
85% of us see that. QED.
:)
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269. At 10:51am on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
"You say that to say that the private sector pays for the public sector is a fallacy. So without that transaction, could you explain where the taxman gets his money from that he then uses to fund the public sector?"
I think it's your grasp of Economics which is incorrect.
Consider how the deal between A and B can be done when there is no road to connect them, no police to ensure that A or B isn't robbed on the way to the deal, no hospital to fix A after his car accident so he can be well enough to arrive at the deal.
Of course the private sector could provide all this - however I think you'll find that because the provision of these services would be from the private sector (who would want to make a profit) - then the profit made between A and B would be so reduced it wouldn't be worth making it in the first place.
Sure the transaction contributes to the taxman - but only to pay for the provision of elements to make that deal possible. You will find that private security is not cheap and nor is building your own roads.
As the private sector is only interested in it's own personal gain (the profit between A and B) they would not consider investing in anything which does not appear to be directly related to making that deal possible. Therefore no provision is created.
So the public sector must take money from the private sector in order to ensure that money is spent on things which the private sector would otherwise be too short sighted to buy.
If you allowed the private sector to work without taxation and restriction (for it's own good) then in about 100 years the workforce would be all but flogged to death and effectively useless - such is the short sighted nature of profit making.
.....just as the private sector is doing with the natural resources of the world. The law of scarcity - so tightly clung by Economists as a reason for market forces being superior - clearly doesn't work because the pricing is completely reactionary. Sure the price of oil will go up to restrict it's use - but not until we're at critically low levels.
Just to clarify I am not talking about the current public sector system (this hokey-kokey mish mash of policy) - which is in fact an agent for the private sector (because in case you didn't notice it's just handed over great swathes into private sector arms)
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#274
Perry! lets just accept your figs for a moment?
Pit that against someone who says claims JSA for one year, plus mortgage or rent relief, plus council tax and so on. Hmmmm!
#277 grief
It's not the 1950's grief, most companies, inclusive of hospitals are perpetual in motion. I suggest you brush up on your time and study.
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262. At 10:33am on 15 Oct 2009, U14147588 wrote:
"Since Traffic Wardens are effectively tax collectors, they are of no benefit to my personal society, and probably the personal societies of most posters on this blog."
yeah, but I bet you, just like the 'others' are the first to complain when you cannot park outside your house because some idiot has left their car there to go shopping - or maybe your delivery didn't arrive on time because someone blocked the high street with their inconsiderate parking - you lost your best client as a result - putting your business in jeaporday.
The bottom line is both jobs are only created to deal with the immaturity and selfishness of certain sections of society.
I don't have a use for the Dartford crossing - but it doesn't mean I don't recognise there is a need for it. I'm sure the thousands who cross it daily would have something to say if I decided that I should no longer contribute my tax towards it.
I may not realise the consequences of it's removal until much further down the line - as you wouldn't with the removal of traffic wardens.
You all seem to be caught in a moral spiral - you all feel you can do without the public sector - but don't realise how much use you are all making of it (or may make of it in the future).
Look how the utilities have gone - yeah a great idea privatising them to save us some taxes - but don't you think that tax reduction has been vastly outweighed by the extra cost of heating, lighting etc placed upon the consumer?
I'll give you £100 cash today - and you give me just 10p every week for the rest of your life.
Good deal for you - or not?
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I wonder if half of the people here have ever worked in the private sector.
I have, all my working life and my experience is 50% useful people who do the work and 50% lazy "good for nothings" who's skills are in interviewing and telling people 'how talented they are'.
I have worked in 3 FTSE 100 companies and the scenario was the same - the higher you went up the ladder the worse it got.
Nepetism does help somewhat - and of course which private school or university you went to. Appointments are not usually based on skill in the private sector but 'marketing'.
Longevity is also a problem - because most private sector employees don't stay for more than 2-3 years and knowledge is lost - which is a further innefficiency
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This blog ever since Monday night has become very surreal. Surely the private sector pays for the public sector because THEY USE IT. To keep their workers healthy, to educate their workforce, to keep transport links flowing, to protect their business and tax collection to enable them and the employees to help pay for it. To enable it to carry on working. Public Sector workers also pay a contribution from their own public sector efforts. Was it Cameron or Osborne who said you people should leave the public sector alone?
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280..DB.
Derek...why do you insist on not responding to the facts put to you regarding your own post?
I merely corrected your figures..so if I am guilty of being in the 1950's..then so are you for posting them in the first place.
You were clearly alluding to 'office' staff,not hospitals etc.
Moving goalposts does not help your argument.
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Oh dear more good news for NuLabour
MPs warn Labour could be out of power for a generation
Combined with a more general discontent with politics, that meant "the prospect of a Tory election victory is therefore a strong one, possibly bringing in a dozen years of Conservative power", they concluded.
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279#
"So the public sector must take money from the private sector in order to ensure that money is spent on things which the private sector would otherwise be too short sighted to buy."
So the public sector IS funded by the private sector then. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of those evil capitalists and how they'd have the poor paying for breathing air if they could, at least we appear to have cleared one of Saga's ideological hurdles.
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#279 "You say that to say that the private sector pays for the public sector is a fallacy. So without that transaction, could you explain where the taxman gets his money from that he then uses to fund the public sector?"
I think it's your grasp of Economics which is incorrect."
My central argument was that the public centre gets its money from the private sector. Nothing in what you say alters this, it's a fact, you even say so yourself....
"Sure the transaction contributes to the taxman"
"So the public sector must take money from the private sector"
So we are agreed.
You then go on to a different topic entirely, about whether the services currently being provided by the public sector would or could be provided by the private sector and seem to base your entire argument on an unsupported premise, namely:
"however I think you'll find that because the provision of these services would be from the private sector (who would want to make a profit) - then the profit made between A and B would be so reduced it wouldn't be worth making it in the first place."
The argument to be made in this area is whether the £400 given to the taxman would be better given to the private sector to provide the same services. The truth is that if people are working for their own account, they work harder, are more efficient. It is entirely conceivable that the private sector could provide the same services for the same money, inclusive of their profit.
as for whether the private sector is short-sighted or not....private enterprise routinely make investments with 5, 10 even 20 year timelines for a return on the investment. Right now, this Government is focused on 8 months ahead. No further. They would willingly do something now that would spell disaster in 2 years' time if it made things better just before the election. can you deny that?
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writingsonthewall wrote:
262. At 10:33am on 15 Oct 2009, U14147588 wrote:
"Since Traffic Wardens are effectively tax collectors, they are of no benefit to my personal society, and probably the personal societies of most posters on this blog."
yeah, but I bet you, just like the 'others' are the first to complain when you cannot park outside your house because some idiot has left their car there to go shopping - or maybe your delivery didn't arrive on time because someone blocked the high street with their inconsiderate parking - you lost your best client as a result - putting your business in jeaporday."
Putting aside the fact that unless your street is a residental parking zone there is nothing to stop the idiot from parking outside your house! The reason we need traffic wardens is that there is inadequate free parking so people risk parking illegally. Traffic wardens could be replaced by people who tow cars who block traffic - and this work is something that could easily be sub-contacted to private companies with the private companies paying for the right.
"I don't have a use for the Dartford crossing - but it doesn't mean I don't recognise there is a need for it. I'm sure the thousands who cross it daily would have something to say if I decided that I should no longer contribute my tax towards it."
My understanding is that it has paid for itself via tolls and the on-going tolls are paying for on-going costs. Maybe this is the way to do future road building with those who use it paying to meet the constuction costs.
"You all seem to be caught in a moral spiral - you all feel you can do without the public sector - but don't realise how much use you are all making of it (or may make of it in the future)."
There are areas of the public sector which are useful (however if these weren't provided by the public I am sure private companies would fill the gaps) but there are also areas of the public sector which contribute nothing.
"Look how the utilities have gone - yeah a great idea privatising them to save us some taxes - but don't you think that tax reduction has been vastly outweighed by the extra cost of heating, lighting etc placed upon the consumer?"
Part of the problem with the increase in the costs of heating, lighting etc is that the price of the raw materials has increased - we would still be paying higher prices even if the government still owned the gas and electricity companies. However, if they were publicly owned we may also be paying higher rates because of lower efficiency caused by a public sector union threating to strike to avoid modernisation.
It is impossible to say what would have happened and it might not be better.
"I'll give you £100 cash today - and you give me just 10p every week for the rest of your life.
Good deal for you - or not?"
Would really depend - I personally hope to last for longer than 20 years (which is the how long it would take to pay off £100 at 10p a week)
However, with proper investment it could be possible to get a higher than 5% return on the £100 which would leave me technically better off (although unable to spend the £100) :)
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281, writingsonthewall wrote:
"I don't have a use for the Dartford crossing - but it doesn't mean I don't recognise there is a need for it. I'm sure the thousands who cross it daily would have something to say if I decided that I should no longer contribute my tax towards it."
Writings,
Maybe you didn't notice, but Gordon B thinks he can sell the Dartford Crossing to the private sector, as part of the fire-sale to recoup cash.
Not sure I like that idea. I don't use it either. But I understood that the government stated that, when costs had been recouped, the toll would be stopped.
But, if it is sold to a private owner, the only return they will get is by continuing tolls in perpetuity.
And any government income will just disappear.
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"writingsonthewall wrote:
I wonder if half of the people here have ever worked in the private sector.
I have, all my working life and my experience is 50% useful people who do the work and 50% lazy "good for nothings" who's skills are in interviewing and telling people 'how talented they are'."
I would say that 50% useful people is a bit high from my companies. All the companies I have worked for have tended to put greater focus on sales and marketting products than actually developing them.
"Longevity is also a problem - because most private sector employees don't stay for more than 2-3 years and knowledge is lost - which is a further innefficiency"
I think this is the mentality that in order to advance in pay you need to move companies because pay freezes are often imposed to cut costs.
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279:
if you are talking about others having a poor grasp of economics, please answer these questions:
1. There's no road between A and B. So how come suddenly A needs hospital treatment for a car accident he had driving between his house and B?
2. As a matter of fact, the Private Sector DOES build the roads and the hospitals etc. Ever heard of Clancy Dockwra? They build loads of roads, yet are a provate company. However, who PAYS for the work these companies do? (hint: it's our tax money...)
3. You state that 'the transaction contributes tho the taxman'. Can you name any other way that the revenue used by government is raised? Income Tax is a transaction (salary paid for hours worked). The Service industry, just like retail at all levels, is a transaction (money paid for services or goods supplied). In fact, Goverment is a transaction (taxes paid for Public Services provided) between the private individual and the public state.
All this being said, I must go back to one fundamental flaw in your argument - when you say that "...the private sector... would not consider investing in anything which does not appear to be directly related to making that deal possible. Therefore no provision is created."
The Private sector IS investing in providing the infrastructure. That's the whole point of Tax. We pay taxes to provide the infrastructure and the public services that support it. And when the amount of money thrown at those public services and infrastructure outstrips the amount of tax money gathered by the Government, that's when we have a deficit. That's when QE and massive borrowing comes into play. And that's when the country gets as lose to bankrupcy as it is today.
And if you are one of the many millions of unemployed people unfortunate enough to be a part of the latest 'good' statistic pumped out by New Labour, that's when the whole thing becomes far too bitter to swallow any more.
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#284 grief
For crying out loud grief, I'm not alluding to anything, I'm merely responding to the current unemployment stats!.
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Derek, I've yet to see a single post you make where you are NOT alluding to something.........
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#280, derekbarker wrote:
Derek,
This is nothing to do with your response to another post. Just a reflection on the peculiar way this government works.
I've long wondered why selling a house didn't attract a potential capital gains tax. Not that I'd want to pay it, but it does seem odd.
It just seems even odder to me that Blair and Brown decided that they could make lots of money by increasing the tax take when a house sale occurs.
BUT instead of applying the tax to the seller (who has an asset and hopes to sell when it has increased in value), it was applied on the buyer.
Most people need mortgages to buy a more expensive home. So, if you force them to pay a tax when buying, you push up the amount of credit they need - the amount they borrow.
How does that reflect the sort of equalitarian attitude I thought New Labour would support?
Bet Sagamix has a good answer for that one!
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283#
Would you like to convince Saga then, DHW? :-)
Good luck!!
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282#
Thats the same regardless of whether you're in public or private sector.
The malaise is equally well spread over both!
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#294
How do you address the serious problem now! facing the private housing market, where the majority now find themselves on negative equity terms.
There never was an equalitarian flag too wave in the private housing market, it was and remains divisional by nature and creation.
Most people need a decent home, I like the idea that a home is for living in and raising a family in.I'm not quite sure why you think a home is more of a money making adventure rather than a life style?.
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286. At 12:18pm on 15 Oct 2009, Fubar_Saunders
Did you see the point as you flew passed it by a mile?
Without the public sector provision there would not be the 'profit' made by the private sector in order for them to 'fund' the public sector.
So which is first - chicken or egg?
The reason the public sector had to be invented was because without it (as I said before) we would have no workforce (or it would be slavery). What course do you think we were heading down in 'true capitalism' in Victorian times?
Kids up chimneys?
Mal-nurished workforce?
How long before the workforce either a) died, b) became so infirm it was useless or c) revolted?
I can assure you if the private sector had to provide it's own infastructure and security etc. then you would be looking at the level of 'deals' made in the middle ages.
Send 15 men to Nottingham and only 2 make it through - the rest is lost to Highwayman.
You try doing business in that environment.
If you go to some African countries you can see this in effect today. That is why their growth is often much less than those in countries which have a mature public sector. Profit is squeezed because they have to provide their own security, they have to drive jeeps etc. due to the bad road - you cannot transport with lovely 'smooth road' articulated lorries for example - most transport is smaller and therefore does not benefit from Economies of scale.
I have no doubt that the private sector could exist without the public one - but it would be restricted to a tiny society and certainly not the size of the UK today.
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291. At 12:33pm on 15 Oct 2009, West_London_Willy
You're being pedantic with your questions - a sure sign you cannot argue with the facts I have presented.
I think you're confusing 'who does the work' with 'who ensures the work gets done'. I realise that Nu-labour copied the old Tory game of passing everything to the private sector (to save money supposedly) - but the Government still pays those private companies to build roads, bridges etc.
Also, don't forget that the major building projects in the world are all driven by the public sector (even if they pay parts of the private sector to do some of the work) - that's because there is no Chinese business that would bother building a dam across the Yellow river - because there is no immediate (or even medium term) profit in it.
However the cheapness and renewabl(ility) of power produced by the hydro-electric dam will be worth more than gold in the future. The private sector cannot see that far ahead - it is short sighted - focused on profit today and not in 100 years time.
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290. At 12:28pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE wrote:
"I think this is the mentality that in order to advance in pay you need to move companies because pay freezes are often imposed to cut costs."
This is spot on - and another example of private sector inefficiency.
Private companies constantly operate false economies - the bigger they are, the more they operate.
SME's don't have this problem as bad as there are not enough people to let them creep in. Most people in a SME can cover other people when they're away - or when they leave.
Don't any of you wonder why 50,000 jobs went in the city? What were all these people doing?
Rather than employing them for the last 10 years in financial jobs which didn't really exists and were only there because of the 'expectation of future profit' - wouldn't it have been better if they had re-laid the London to Glasgow train line so we could have 300mph trains?
As you pointed out Mark - most companies spend a fortune on sales and marketing - but wait a minute...surely you cannot create a demand to match your supply? - that's got to be nonesense surely?
....ah but if you advance people money (as was done through debt) then you can convince people to spend their future earnings on something they don't really need. If I gave you £1000 today which (unbeknown to you) was allocated from you current account in the future - I'm sure you (like me) would proabably spend it on things we don't really need.
...and that folks is why the current system keeps failing - the country as a whole spent money they didn't have - egged on by banks who assured us that 'growth would last forever' - and as it inevitabley didn't - then we're all coming up short.
Except for those poor blighters who saved money - and now Government action is making them pay for their 'sensibleness' by cutting interest rates to the bone.
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#297, derekbarker wrote:
"#294
How do you address the serious problem now! facing the private housing market, where the majority now find themselves on negative equity terms.
There never was an equalitarian flag too wave in the private housing market, it was and remains divisional by nature and creation.
Most people need a decent home, I like the idea that a home is for living in and raising a family in.I'm not quite sure why you think a home is more of a money making adventure rather than a life style?"
Derek,
I have no idea why you feel that having a home is not important to me. I have always wanted to own a place to live in and bring up a family. Why I worked hard to make it happen.
I don't know how to get through to you results when a house is sold at a price above the sustainable level of demand.
Brown allowed finance houses/banks in the UK to offer rediculous levels of credit - sometimes above even the exagerated selling price.
I thought that was absolutely, totally and completely wrong.
If Brown had said "Stop all his money sloshing around" then prices would have risen a bit because of demand exceeding supply. But with totally unreal sums being offered as credit, the house prices just got out of control.
I blame the bankers for enticing people into a bad, over-extended credit place. But I blame Brown (as a so-called socialist) for just shrugging his shoulders and collecting as much tax as he could, while individuals got into appalling levels of cerdit.
So who do you think cared more about people?
Me - who thought it was wrong to flood credit around the population?
Or Brown - who either encouraged or allowed it, so he could collect taxes to waste on badly managed government schemes?
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John Harris
"ife has to be lived forward and understood backwards." However, we also live by understanding, and to my knowledge no senior Labour politician has admitted to the calamitous failure of Labour's economic policy."
You have weakened the points which were well made in your initial post to me, by reading into my response an entire political platform which I do not necessarily endorse.
My own comments were more limited and largely covered by the sentence which you quote above.Life lived forward and understood backwards is also a rebuke to people who claim to have a retrospective wisdom over events of which we all had imperfect knowledge.
So I cannot agree there was a mismanagement of the economy from 2000-2007,it was a period of substantial growth,full employment,and an expansion of social services.
It is also my view that the governments response since the onset of the economic crisis in 2007 has been largely correct,especially in mobilizing concerted international action on Keynesian lines.
Were there mistakes?,of course,should regulation have been tighter?,if we didn`t know it then we know it now.Politics will always be the ability to make decisions based on imperfect knowledge.Or as Mr.McMillan put it. "Events dear boy,events."
One last point which was made by Trotsky to my father in law when he visited him in exile. He said unless you understand your opponents` argument at its strongest point you will never destroy him.So don`t distort or caricature,understand the central tenets and take them apart
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derekbarker 280
You wrote
"#274 Perry! lets just accept your figs for a moment?
Pit that against someone who says claims JSA for one year, plus mortgage or rent relief, plus council tax and so on."
On the one hand, that's not income tax. Your point was about income tax, and it was wrong. See also AndyC555's post at 276.
But back to what you wrote. If your hypothetical person accepting a 20 hours per week job-share is going to lose his Job-Seekers Allowance, and at the same time rent relief, council tax relief and presumably further allowances, and let's say this hypothtical part-job pays, say, 20% over the minimum wage..... isn't he going to be poorer with the part-job than he was when he was claiming all the benefits and allowances, and had no job at all?
How are you going to motivate this person out of his house to do work that he will be paid less for than if he had no job at all and survived on benefits only?
[Hint: if you say that in your ideal world, he would get to keep some of his benefits, so that, in fact, he was richer with the job than without, then that aligns you with Iain Duncan Smith, and therefore makes you a Conservative!]
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287. At 12:20pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
You're being rather convenient about the time here - you decide that because at the moment it appears money goes from Priv -> Public that this is evidence of the Private sector paying for public.
Are you not aware of the future and the past - do you simply work in the present?
To make it nice and simple for you....
The private sector is 'paying back' the public sector for the investment is did in the past - and continues to do now.
As I said, if you took that away - you may well be able to have a purely private sector world - but only until the workforce died or revolted.
If I build you a shop and in return I take 5% of every transaction you make in that shop - and you come along and (at that point in time) say - "Oh look I'm paying you" - we would know that's nonesense.
....and yet that is what you propose with your argument.
We are certianly not agreed.
Allow me to torpedo your second argument.
You need to make deals in Scotloand, for that you need a road and security to get there.
As a business, you are not going to take the risk of building a road to Scotland unles you can see a return from it. The cost of doing so would be crippling for you.
The only way to ensure this happens is to forcibly collect contributions (tax) from everyone - regardless if they make use of the road 50, 100 or 1000 times a year.
Otherwise you won't be able to do business in Scotland - well certainly not cheap enough to compete with a local business up there - which does not have the same overheads.
I take your final point - but then I'm not defending this Government (or any in living memory). the reason the Government can't look beyond the next 8 years is because of the political system. It's always been a very valid argument that transport for example - it's investment scope is more than 10 years - well beyond the expected life of Government.
P.s. 5, 10, or even 20 years is not 'long term' - the biggest challenge we face is the eventual drying up of resources on the planet - for that you need to be thinking about 100+ years time - well beyond the scope of the private sector.
It's also well beyond most of our lifetimes - which is how some people justify not considering it - something which I'm sure future generations will not thank us for.
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"writingsonthewall wrote:
Rather than employing them for the last 10 years in financial jobs which didn't really exists and were only there because of the 'expectation of future profit' - wouldn't it have been better if they had re-laid the London to Glasgow train line so we could have 300mph trains?"
You could also argue that we have had over a million unemployed for 30 odd years why haven't they been drafted in to do the work? The problem is that just having the people to do the work doesn't mean that you have the money required to complete it. The behaviour of the public sector is identical to the private sector - the bigger it gets the greater the inefficiency.
"....ah but if you advance people money (as was done through debt) then you can convince people to spend their future earnings on something they don't really need. If I gave you £1000 today which (unbeknown to you) was allocated from you current account in the future - I'm sure you (like me) would proabably spend it on things we don't really need."
The problem is that the government are doing exactly the same but the sums involved are millions and not thousands. With capitalism we expect the overall trend in the markets to be one of growth, so the government is borrowing money on the back of predicted growth.
"...and that folks is why the current system keeps failing - the country as a whole spent money they didn't have - egged on by banks who assured us that 'growth would last forever' - and as it inevitabley didn't - then we're all coming up short."
As I mentioned before, it isn't just the banks. The government have also bought into the "borrowing from tomorrow to party today" mentality.
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#299 "no Chinese business that would bother building a dam across the Yellow river - because there is no immediate (or even medium term) profit in it.
However the cheapness and renewabl(ility) of power produced by the hydro-electric dam will be worth more than gold in the future. The private sector cannot see that far ahead - it is short sighted - focused on profit today and not in 100 years time."
I agree that there are certain totalitarian regimes who presume to plan 100 (or even 1,000) years ahead but I don't think they are a good model in this argument, do you? I've already made the point that right now this Government's focus is 8 months, not even 100 months, let alone years. And are you really trying to say that there are no long term projects planned by the private sector? Can you let me know a little more about the building of the Channel Tunnel. I thought it was privately funded. You should come to London and have a wander round Canary Wharf. If you don't think the buildings are "major building projects" then I'm impressed, guess you could put one up in an afternoon? All privately funded of course. Not to mention what's currently being built in Las Vegas, a 68 acre, 7.4 billion dollar construction project, entirely privately funded. What are those idiot private companies up to, I wonder, when "W on the W" says they should only be thinking about today's profits?
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299:
Not being pedantic, just wanting answers. Please don't 'do a Gordon' and just answer the questions!
Although you kinda did (in a roundabout way). Yes, Government pays for the roads, hospitals, schools etc. that the Private Construction Companies build. With Tax revenue. Please don't miss that vbery important final point.
And yes, hydro-electric power will be cheap in the future (well, cheap to produce) although your switch of focus from what you were being asked about is admirable - are you sure you're not a cabinet minister?)
It'll certainly be worth more in the future than gold - just ask Gordon Brown how much he got when he sold the nation's gold reserves.....
But please don't start talking about long term planning against short term gain - as you well know, this shambles of a government isn't at all interested in the effects of anything at all beyond May next year.
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288. At 12:24pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
The semantics between traffic wardens and towing away is irrelevant. It's true that ticketing is not effective - but only because the punishment is unsuitable. However it doesn't make traffic wardens useless (because who do you think calls the tow truck?)
Again your example of getting private tow trucks - well let me stop you there as I wait for the volley of complaints from the public about 'cowboy towers'. If you think the council are bad - you want to see what some companies do in order to make a profit. They make a council tow away seem extremely cheap.
I have to take objection to this:
"There are areas of the public sector which are useful (however if these weren't provided by the public I am sure private companies would fill the gaps) but there are also areas of the public sector which contribute nothing"
First of all - what private company would provide healthcare? and would you like a healthcare system like some countries where if you don't have money - you're left to die?
If you privatise healthcare this is what you will eventually get. The same goes for any social benefit. If you look up in your old Economics book you will see the clear indication that the reason for public service is to provide the social functions that private wouldn't.
Also - you may think there are areas of public sector which provide nothing - but I suspect that's more to do with 'they provide nothing I benefit from'. I am quite open to the possibility that some areas were set up for a need which is no longer there - or was mis-interpreted - but surely this is simply changing times. Needs are fluid and constantly changing.
If you want something to picture - remember that in the 80's many ferries didn't think they needed to close the bow doors when crossing the channel as ferries were much safer than in the old days. There were never any problems and it was perfectly safe - until the Herald of Free Enterprise happened - and then everyone realised why that function was there.
The same often happens with public sector areas.
"Part of the problem with the increase in the costs of heating, lighting etc is that the price of the raw materials has increased - we would still be paying higher prices even if the government still owned the gas and electricity companies. However, if they were publicly owned we may also be paying higher rates because of lower efficiency caused by a public sector union threating to strike to avoid modernisation."
....and the profit made by the utilities - which is used to fund private sector wages (which it's understood are higher - especially the board) - I suppose that's a reflection of efficiency?
You, me and everyone else is paying for the inefficiencies and excesses of privatisation through our bills.
(although I agree it's difficult to be certain - but I know for a fact that if the Royal mail was not publicly owned you would be paying £3 for a letter to John O'Groats) and not the current 27p (or whatever it is at the moment)
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289. At 12:26pm on 15 Oct 2009, fairlyopenmind
Naturally - the private sector won't buy it unless they can see a profit in it.
The current actions of this Government are not to be taken as 'sensible Government action' - I'm sure in France the crossing would have been handed over as a 'freebie' to the people - with perhaps a charge for maintenance.
The desperation shown by Gordon is simply a reflection of how deep in the doodoo he really is.
Unfortunately "we're in this together" - apparently.
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#300 So let me get this straight...
The private sector was employing tens of thousands of un-needed people for 10 years
"because of the 'expectation of future profit"
Whilst at the same time (#299)
"The private sector cannot see that far ahead - it is short sighted - focused on profit today"
So the Private sector is short-sightedly expecting profits in the future?
Motivated purely by profit it employs thousands of people it doesn't need?
As for your paragraphs:
"most companies spend a fortune on sales and marketing - but wait a minute...surely you cannot create a demand to match your supply? - that's got to be nonesense surely?
....ah but if you advance people money (as was done through debt) then you can convince people to spend their future earnings on something they don't really need. If I gave you £1000 today which (unbeknown to you) was allocated from you current account in the future - I'm sure you (like me) would proabably spend it on things we don't really need."
the only bit that makes any sense is "that's got to be nonsense".
You can't create a demand by advertising that you can create by credit? Credit is an allocation of someone's current account in the future?
I have no idea what any of that means.
Oh and I don't think it was banks who thought that growth would last for ever. I think that you'll find that was Gordon Brown.
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Addendum
Why did Lehvy from Tesco complain about school leavers standards if the private sector are not making heavy use of the public sector?
He claims they are 'picking up the pieces' - but clearly he feels that for the low (22%) coropration tax that is paid by Tesco he should receive a star studded set of 'out the box' educated Tesco graduates.
Why isn't he starting his own 'Tesco academy'?
The answer is because whilst he would like to benefit from the Public sector education system - even a giant like Tesco could not afford to run their own education system.
This is another example of why the public sector are there. Mr Lehvy may moan about it but he cannot see the additional profit an academy would bring - because it's so far in the future.
I'm sure the result would simply be 'stupid staff' - which is good because he can pay them less - but it's the consumer who would suffer when they had to actually ask for something in store.
Many in the private sector play this game - look at government spending on education and show me a company who is prepared to make that sort of commitment on soemthing which ultimately has no monetary profit.
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#301
I guess you are only cherry picking fairlyopenmind.
The choice of whether you take a mortgage or not is a personal one, although the greedy banks did all they could to ensure people got a mortgage, sometimes 5 times higher than their salary.
There's no doubt that more stringent regulations are needed not just with money lenders (bank, co) but also with MP's expenses.
David Wilshire used public monies to fund his private business, £100,000
claimed in tax payers funds. Is that the kind of conservative nonsense we can expect from any future tory government.
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305. At 2:30pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
Very good.
2 small things - you don't need huge amounts of invesment with a workforce of 1 million. Methods may be primative (shovels instead of JCB's) - but the size of the workforce is more than adequate.
This is how the Soviet Union rebuilt their infastructure after WWI.
The Government's borrow today pay tomorrow - has been somewhat forced upon them. I agree they weren't exactly 'flush with cash' before - but the bailout has totally screwed them.
It's the same with individuals - I have friends who still live paycheck to paycheck - it's all very good but you are totally exposed to unexpected surprises.
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"#299 "no Chinese business that would bother building a dam across the Yellow river - because there is no immediate (or even medium term) profit in it."
So by that criteria, the idea that a multi-national privately owned company might spend billions of pounds exploring for oil and gas when there's a lead-in time often in excess of 10 years from begining to explore to when the money starts rolling in is quite fanciful?
Meanwhile, our Government is 'shrewdly' planning for the future by...er...flogging stuff off in the middle of a recession when prices are depressed.
So which do YOU say is the organisation that seems more to have an eye on the future?
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#303
Perry! on the Sherry again. A conservative indeed! your fabrications just swell and swell.
An apt point = truth is the best policy, Perry! and you wont find it in a bottle of funnies?.
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306. At 2:31pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
You're still getting mixed up - try thinking before you write.
Canary Wharf - yes, big buildings, but built to house businesses and to make profit. No benefit to anyone except the private sector who work in them. I'm sure the original dwellers in Docklands would not be saying 'good on you private sector - you blocked out my light with your Towers of Babel'.
The private sector certainly did not come along and say "ah - this place needs regeneration - let's build some nice offices"
The politics of china is not the question here - merely the role of the public sector (of which China has a large one). China doesn't plan so far ahead because it's Totalitarian - or would you suggest France is in the same boat?
The Chunnel was built by private sector companies - but it would not have happened if the Government(s) of France and Britain did not take some of the risk - and invest in it (I believe we had a 40% stake in it until it was sold).
The point it still the same - or is there a reason why the private sector would spend millions on a channel tunnel when it's much simpler and cheaper to build extra runways and have more air travel (because it's only the people underneath who suffer and they are not included in the profit equation)
Las Vegas is a completely different ballgame. Firstly many large hotels are built by rich men - so they can compete in the trouser market. A bit like owning your own premiership football club.
Secondly Vegas is a tourist destination - so there is money to be made in building them - but there's no benefit to the public at large. Sure there may be jobs created, but unless the visitor numbers for Vegas go up overall those jobs will simply have been transferred from other hotels in the form of job losses.
Vegas is also the money laundering capital of the world - that might have a lot to do with it.
I didn't say they were only thinking about 'today's profits' - I said they cannot see far enough into the long term to make decisions today.
I mean if you want a perfect example - we could all have been driving electric cars years ago - but the private sector did not see 'any money in it' - and in fact actively prevented the expansion. This is because the profit they were making with petrol driven cars was perfectly fine - so why take the risk?
the reason was simply because their calculations did not account for oil running out or the impact on the humans or planet (bad health from fumes and C02)
I know this because I have a friend high up in the industry and it's clear the electric car being built today are from plans which are more than 20 years old.
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#308, writingsonthewall wrote:
"288. At 12:24pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
I have to take objection to this:
"There are areas of the public sector which are useful (however if these weren't provided by the public I am sure private companies would fill the gaps) but there are also areas of the public sector which contribute nothing"
First of all - what private company would provide healthcare? and would you like a healthcare system like some countries where if you don't have money - you're left to die?
If you privatise healthcare this is what you will eventually get. The same goes for any social benefit. If you look up in your old Economics book you will see the clear indication that the reason for public service is to provide the social functions that private wouldn't."
Writings,
Maybe you didn't notice. Over the last decade, there are more private companies delivering NHS services than ever existed before. Blair and his cohort thought it was a good idea. Many companies doing stuff hat the NHS could have done, but they have contracts that guarantee income, whereas NHS Trusts get paid for what they actually do.
Had a look around other EU nations? In France there is a health care system. Plenty of nationalised and private comanies deliver for the population. There is "competition" but it is based on a competence to deliver.
I don't much like the private sector in healthcare. But I really don't like it when New Labour supporteres accuse any other party of an attempt to "privatise" health delivery, when that was a significant part of the Blair/Milburn strategy.
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307. At 2:33pm on 15 Oct 2009, West_London_Willy
Are you messing around - or do you simply not get it?
It does not matter who actually builds it - it matters who arranged, organised and ultimately 'made it happen'. The simple reason for using private companies to build public works is because all the public engineering (diggers, trucks, men) were sold off years ago.
It doesn't detract from the fact that the building would not occur in the pure private sector.
....or as an investor - would you be prepared to put down £400 million for a return of £3 Billion in 250 years time? - I'm guessing not - and frankly you'd be foolish to do so.
As for the rest - I am not speaking for the short term thinking of this Government - did I not say earlier that this is partly to do with our election system?
If you want to just have digs at the Government then please continue - I have no desire to defend short term Government thinking - however you're not actually correct because even this 'short term Government' has kicked off some major projects (say the Olympics) which no private enterprise would touch. (and before you get confused again, private companies are building the stadia - but only due to Government desire and investment or guarantee)
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298#
The reason it flew past is that it didnt answer the question.
I didnt ask which came first. Your answer to that is obvious and I accept it and dont dispute it.
I asked what FUNDED IT if it wasnt the private sector.
And that we have already established.
Happy now?
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312 Derek:
This has been denied, and the review is continuing. Can I suggest that your viewpoint would be much better served if it were based on full reports and not just the ehadlines?
Oh... sorry, I forgot... you New Labour apologists are only interested in headlines, aren't you....
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#311
22% Really? I thought the top rate of Corporation Tax was 28%. Not to mention the billions in income tax and employer's and employee's NIC that the Government make from the salaries paid to Tesco employees. Then there's the business rates they pay as well. And the stamp duty when they buy new property. And the VAT. And Capital gains Tax on disposals of property. And the higher rate tax which recipients of Tesco dividends might be paying. And all tesco want in return is school leavers who can speak and add up. Not too much to ask, I'd have said.
The private sector aren't involved in education? Where to begin? Privately run nursery and primary schools? Eton? One of my clients is a privately run law college. I guess pupils pay the fees despite the lack of investment by the company that owns the college?
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313 Writing.....:
"you don't need huge amounts of invesment with a workforce of 1 million. Methods may be primative (shovels instead of JCB's) - but the size of the workforce is more than adequate. This is how the Soviet Union rebuilt their infastructure after WWI."
So you want us to go back to the 1920s? Ricketts and TB? Hordes of Navvies on street corners waiting to see if they will be picked for work that day? Oh, and dare I mention The geenral Strike and The Great depression - sound familiar? Nice well thought out point there....
"The Government's borrow today pay tomorrow - has been somewhat forced upon them. I agree they weren't exactly 'flush with cash' before - but the bailout has totally screwed them."
Their bailout has totally screwed US. We are the ones having to pay for it... and our children... and possibly their children as well. And until Labour are thrown out of office, it'll only get worse.
"It's the same with individuals - I have friends who still live paycheck to paycheck - it's all very good but you are totally exposed to unexpected surprises."
Yes - and due to this administration's utter incompetence at protecting the finances, jobs, and savings of the very people they were elected to server, there are more and more people like this every single day.
You make a very good point in favour of a change in Government.
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#304, writingsonthewall wrote:
287. At 12:20pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
You're being rather convenient about the time here - you decide that because at the moment it appears money goes from Priv -> Public that this is evidence of the Private sector paying for public.
Are you not aware of the future and the past - do you simply work in the present?
To make it nice and simple for you....
The private sector is 'paying back' the public sector for the investment is did in the past - and continues to do now."
Writings,
The biggest single problem we have is that bankers - daft, out of control people running dysfunctional organisations - have been bailed out by governments using our money.
Why? Money is an illusion created centuries ago to represent a means of managing exchanges between people.
So if you bought shares in an IT company during the boom years and the share value rocketed, it didn't really mean anything. Just an idea that maybe somebody more stupid than you would buy your stuff at a higher price.
It didn't feed anybody, did it? Or restore a broken leg into working order? It was just an illusion of wealth - then poverty - for people whose "investments" dropped into the negative zone.
I seem to recall that the majority of worthwhile things were created by people creating a new product or service using money they scraped together from private sources to help the masses (including me).
I never understood how Brown could have an auction for the 3G frequencies that nobody created, they just exist, so nobody "owns" them. But, in so doing, he (alone among countries) stuffed up some promising technolgical options to do what, exactly, with the money?
Any idea how many other nations followed that wonderful example?
Don't recall a government agency creating airlines, gas or electricity supply, railways, medical care or teaching. The fact that they were nationalised doesn't mean there was a big injection of public (tax-payers') money.
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#313 "The Government's borrow today pay tomorrow - has been somewhat forced upon them."
No it wasn't. They CHOSE to expand Government expenditure far faster than the economy was growing. They weren't forced to do it. They ignored warnings from the IMF that started in 2002. They had a 'Golden Rule' on borrowing and as soon as it was inconvenient, they broke it.
If by 'forced' you mean 'forced by Gordon Brown's flawed ideology and lack of economic understanding' then yes, otherwise no.
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316:
Only going to pick on a couple of these, because honestly, it's like shooting fish in a barrel....
1. You cite The Channel Tunnel as a good thing, built by private companies, but supported by the Government, so that's good. Except for two things: firstly, the supporting Government that made it happen was a Conservative one, and secondly, this doesn't square with your desire before that we should adopt the Post-WW1 Russian ethos of giving a million men a shovel and letting them get on with it. If we did that, the Tunnel would still be a fantasy, rather than a reality.
2. The reason that research into alternate automobile power was blocked before now was the oil companies exclusively, not 'private industry'. Car manufacturers will make cars whatever powers them, and if electric motors were viable 30 years ago, that's what we would have. But one single sector of the economy (the oil industry, mainly US and Arabic countries) blocked it. Pick your targets with a little more care, lest you hit others with your scatter-gun approach.
Or maybe I should say "bring a little forward planning into your posts"?
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writinsonthewall 311
I'm not sure where you are going with your post there.
Fact: low rate of corporation tax or not (you might like to try to justify your choice of "low"), Tesco contributed over a billion in taxes to the Exchequer in its last full year (here, I am including things like employer's NI as well as corporation tax). They also acted as unpaid tax collectors for a further 1.5 billion of tax and duty paid by their customers. Corporatists would remind you that they paid all this money without having a single vote!
I think Terry Leahy (note spelling) is perfectly entitled to have his say on whether taxes are being spent effectively. He is not entitled to any special breaks in exchange for his money, but he is entitled to see the money being spent in such a way that business in general is allowed to prosper. Education is just such an issue, and if the performance of businesses is negatively affected by clear inadequecy of the education provided to his and other companies' potential recruits (and, indeed, it is), then Leahy is more than entitled to say so.
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310. At 2:54pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
You're simply trying to find holes by confusing yourself.
Yes, the private sector gambles on future profit - but not 100 years in the future profit (well not yet anyway - it will take more financial wizardry before we get there).
What's the longest loan you can get? 40 year mortgage?
Government built the M1 in the 60's - at the time there appeared to be no need for it as traffic was so light. However it knew that eventually it would be beneficial because traffic would increase exponentially.
However there is no private sector company that would have invested the sums required and then waited around for the profits (if it was a toll road) - and in fact you might end up with the situation in France where they all jam up the A roads because they're too tight to pay tolls. Exactly why the Birmingham relief road is mostly empty and the M6 is worse than ever!
...and you can create demand with credit. Traditionally I need something, I work, I earn the money, I buy it.
Because real wages are declining - I can no longer do that and have to borrow to achieve it - bringing forward demand from the future - the downside being I now have to work (where as before it was my choice).
Marketing simply serves to promote that system - or do you really need everything in your house?
I'll teel you what, you go back to blaming Gordon Brown for everything and leave the more complicated stuff to the rest of us.
I'm sure you'll be happier that way...
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314. At 3:07pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
Why are you picking two different examples and comparing them?
10 years is not far into the future - certainly not in Government spending terms.
The current Government action is because they're broke - not because they are doing any 'planning for the future'.
If you want to blame someone for the problems of this country - try starting at home, because it's the lack of understanding of how our Economy works which is why the Government is able to pull off the greatest robbery in history.
Working until we're 67 are we? - that's you paying back the money extracted by the private sector (mainly finance) over the last 10 years - can't put it simpler than that.
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315 derekbarker
It was entirely predictable that you would, rather than engage on issues that you clearly have difficulty with, again insult me by suggesting that I am drunk and a liar.
I could report your post, but instead I shall not. I will leave it there as a shining example to everyone of how Labour in general seeks to conduct debate and why you in particular should not be allowed to post here.
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#316.
Sorry, so when you say "the major building projects in the world are all driven by the public sector" that isn't what you mean at all. Forgive me for getting mixed up by not realising that you don't always mean what you say.
Canary Wharf of no benefit to anyone except the private companies who work there? HMRC don't seem to think so when they get the taxes from those companies. The point is, of course, that the private sector CREATES things, the public sector depends entirely upon this.
"I didn't say they were only thinking about 'today's profits' - I said they cannot see far enough into the long term to make decisions today."
Piffle, utter piffle. Businesses are always planning long term projects, I've already pointed out oil and gas exploration as an obvious example.
Although of course, any project that counters your argument will, somehow, be 'different' from your premise.
As for electric cars, if Governments are so wonderful, why weren't THEY building electric cars? On the basis of how magnanimous the Chinese Government is with dams, I'd have thought they would have been shipping electric cars to us ages ago.
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317. At 3:20pm on 15 Oct 2009, fairlyopenmind
I guess you didn't see the recent Panorama documetary on outsourced health care and the deaths it's caused of heathly NHS patients.
I certainly don't think Bliar's healthcare plans were a good idea - I also think where they did invest public money it was a shambles (like turning the hose full blast on dry dusty soil - erosion was the result, not actually getting the roots wet)
Cheapness has it's price - which is how you can go for a minor operation at sub-contractesd private centre and when you have unexpected internal bleeding - they have to send someone across town in a cab to get blood - because it's 'cheaper' not to have stores in house.
The savings made by private healthcare are often hidden in costs for the user.
It's fine for private companies to take on the work, but if the costs are human life - are the savings worth it?
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319. At 3:31pm on 15 Oct 2009, Fubar_Saunders wrote:
"I asked what FUNDED IT if it wasnt the private sector."
....and I said who provided the infastructure to allow the deals which produced the FUNDING to fund the project?
So you're simply interested in the here and now - i.e. who touched the money last.
....and that proves what exactly?
How about you look at it like
"The private sector REPAYS WHAT IT OWES to the public sector for providing infastructure which allows it to make greater profit today"
No funding - a debt owed.
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#304 - "Are you not aware of the future and the past - do you simply work in the present?
To make it nice and simple for you....
The private sector is 'paying back' the public sector for the investment is did in the past - and continues to do now."
If you're going to try to be patronising, shouldn't you be sure you're right first?
The past. Private education existed before state funded education. Private health existed before the NHS. These are probably the two biggest budgets in Government. Where did the Government get the money from to set them up in the first place? In fact, where did the Government ever get ANY money from in the first place if not the private sector? So how on earth can the Private sector be 'paying back' anything to the Government when it was private sector money paid in taxes to the Government in the first place?
I'm releaved it's people like me who run businesses and it's people like you that theorise.
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"writingsonthewall wrote:
288. At 12:24pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
The semantics between traffic wardens and towing away is irrelevant. It's true that ticketing is not effective - but only because the punishment is unsuitable. However it doesn't make traffic wardens useless (because who do you think calls the tow truck?)"
If a vehicle is causing an obstruction anybody with a mobile phone can call a phone number, maybe to encourage public support they could get a finders fee like Crimestoppers.
"Again your example of getting private tow trucks - well let me stop you there as I wait for the volley of complaints from the public about 'cowboy towers'. If you think the council are bad - you want to see what some companies do in order to make a profit. They make a council tow away seem extremely cheap."
You seem to forget that under my proposal multi-story car parks and on-street parking bays are free to use. If someone is getting towed away it is because they have parked outside of these areas. The people doing the towing would have to take photos to show the car is parked illegally or dangerously. Personally I believe that if someone has access to totally free parking and yet still parks selfishly they deserve to pay through the nose to a private company (with a nice chunk sliced off to the council)
"First of all - what private company would provide healthcare? and would you like a healthcare system like some countries where if you don't have money - you're left to die?"
I could argue that you are left to die in the UK if the drugs you need aren't on the free list and you can't afford them. The NHS might be much loved in this country but it is a money pit that wastes money at every turn.
"Also - you may think there are areas of public sector which provide nothing - but I suspect that's more to do with 'they provide nothing I benefit from'. I am quite open to the possibility that some areas were set up for a need which is no longer there - or was mis-interpreted - but surely this is simply changing times. Needs are fluid and constantly changing."
I would point straight out the parts of the public sector that deal with international aid, are they required for the day to day running of the country? No, they bring no benefit to us as a nation.
Then we have the tax and tax credit departments - which only exist because we have developed a tax system so complicated that we need people to handle it. If we re-worked the tax system to be easier to understand we wouldn't need them.
Traffic wardens as I explained previously we only need to ensure that parking fees are paid to the council.
"....and the profit made by the utilities - which is used to fund private sector wages (which it's understood are higher - especially the board) - I suppose that's a reflection of efficiency?
You, me and everyone else is paying for the inefficiencies and excesses of privatisation through our bills."
Usually the inefficiences and excesses belong to the public sector - private sector companies tend to cut back on excesses to chase the almighty dollar/pound.
And my understanding of the "private sector" wages are higher belief is that it only applies true across the board (i.e. when you include the high wages of premier league footballers, CEOs, bankers etc) and that there is actually not a huge amount of difference at the shop floor level.
I know of people who have moved to equivalent positions in the public sector from the private sector for much the same wage but a better overall package, but that might just be my industry.
"(although I agree it's difficult to be certain - but I know for a fact that if the Royal mail was not publicly owned you would be paying £3 for a letter to John O'Groats) and not the current 27p (or whatever it is at the moment)"
It is hard to say one way or the other, I would imagine that if the Royal Mail was sold now that the price would go up - but that is because we don't have any competition. If we had multiple different companies providing the same service it would have kept the price down. At present Royal Mail has a massive advantage over competitors as it has all the infrastrucutre in place.
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321. At 3:35pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
Sorry - I forgot you were a tax advisor.
I was thinking about the tax that companies actually pay on their earnings thanks to slippery tax evasion techniques.
"The private sector aren't involved in education? Where to begin? Privately run nursery and primary schools? Eton? One of my clients is a privately run law college. I guess pupils pay the fees despite the lack of investment by the company that owns the college?"
...and the stars of tesco come from the private education establishments you mention do they? Really? - I thought all private education produces are Tory politicans (and some Labour ones)
The example of a 'law college' is like comparing school to employment training.
...or do you think they're producing the inventors, scientists and other useful academics at the law school?
I didn't think so - they are merely producing employees cheaper than 'buying them on the open market'.
...I suppose next you'll be suggesting that football acadamies are at the forefront of educating our children!
Still - you managed to avoid answering the point which is why aren't tesco starting their own education system if this one is so bad?
As I said, because they would not see the benefit for many, many years (and possibly not at all) - only Government can take those sorts of risk.
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#328
"10 years is not far into the future - certainly not in Government spending terms."
? Can you give details of all Government plans extending 10 or more years into the future?
And as always, as soon as examples are given which contradict what you say, somehow they are 'different'.
There's very little chance I'll be working at 67 (except maybe consultancy work if I want to). My lack of reliance on the monolithic state has given me options to get out a good 12 years earlier if I want to.
Perhaps I could spend the time at home trying to understand your theories of economics starting with "how Governments magic money out of thin air in order to fund the private sector".
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322. At 3:39pm on 15 Oct 2009, West_London_Willy
You're becoming irrational.
How do you get from 100% employment on Public works to Union strikes due to cuts in wages and increased working hours???
Ricketts and TB? - are you struggling? Is that how you have been taught - that any aspect from the past which is suggested today means we all go back there full steam? This is proper daily mail stuff you're writing.
Ricketts? - are we going to get rid of Vitamin C??
"You make a very good point in favour of a change in Government."
To what exactly? Can you (in less than 100 words) explain how any major party differs from the current one in a manner that will actually change the future direction of this country?
I cannot believe people are so foolish as to think any Government in your lifetime has ever been in control of the Economy.
I seem to recall the Tories mess up the Economy last time (unless you have had that wiped from your memory) - so who next then? I'm dying to know...
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323. At 3:41pm on 15 Oct 2009, fairlyopenmind
I agree about the 3G licenses - but what they actually sold was permission to sell the consumer more gadgets we don't actually need - wasn't it?
I agree that it appears value was created out of nothing - but aren't the mobile companies buying on the basis they can eanr a fortune in the near (for AndyC55) future by being in the cartel? In hindsight this may be foolish - but then if you want to get down to the nubbins, how did the mobile companies get the money to buy the licenses in the first place? - overcharging us perhaps? Is this an example of private enterprise 're-investing wisely'?
I think in the case of Nationalised industries the Government didn't invest - but look how we ended up with Northern Rock - we took on debt and the responsibility for that debt - something the private sector were not prepared to do (hence no buyers)
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"The current Government action is because they're broke"
I don't understand how this can be. Governments plan decades into the future. Surely they'd have made contingency plans? Surely with their long-sightedness, the Government would have had a back up plan?
Luckily, the vast majority of businesses, big and small, are surviving and won't be scrabbling around trying to flog off assets in desperation. I wonder how they've managed it as apparently the private sector is run on a 'here today, gone tomorrow what's the point of planning' manner.
I guess the only answer to such mysteries might be that one's prejudices about the far sighted nature of Government and short-sighted nature of the Private Sector are wrong.
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324. At 3:43pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555 wrote:
The Government planned it's spending. It did not plan for an extra 175 Billion (or whatever) that was needed to bailout the banks.
You might accuse them of not being cautious - fair enough - but if they were cautious then you would not have earned what you did over the last 10 years - and nor would the reat of the population.
If you budget carefully at home, then decide you're going to invest in a shed to put the stuff that clogging up the garage - to benefit the family and allow your daughter to park her car indoors - you are doing a socially good thing for your family.
However, once you buy the shed you're errant son runs up a credit card bill of £3000 which you have to cover (as he's your responsibility for arguments sake) - is that your fault - are you a bad planner?
That is what happened with Government.
The Tories did virtually the same in the 80's, so their either all incompetent or your impression that 'someone is in charge' of the Economy is a false one.
Clearly it's the latter.
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writingsonthewall wrote:
Addendum
He claims they are 'picking up the pieces' - but clearly he feels that for the low (22%) coropration tax that is paid by Tesco he should receive a star studded set of 'out the box' educated Tesco graduates."
I don't think he is expecting the schools to churn out school leavers who can just walk into a Tesco store without training as you seem to suggest. I think his point was that people are now leaving school without the ability to do the basics.
Employeers expect that they will need to teach staff the business they shouldn't need to teach the basics (after all that is why we spend billions on education in this country)
"Why isn't he starting his own 'Tesco academy'?
The answer is because whilst he would like to benefit from the Public sector education system - even a giant like Tesco could not afford to run their own education system."
Would you really want Tesco to open up academies and teach children from an early age everything about the tesco supply chain and how to work in a store? I think Tesco would be quite happy to warp the minds of the next generation of workers but I am not sure I would like the idea.
"This is another example of why the public sector are there. Mr Lehvy may moan about it but he cannot see the additional profit an academy would bring - because it's so far in the future.
I'm sure the result would simply be 'stupid staff' - which is good because he can pay them less - but it's the consumer who would suffer when they had to actually ask for something in store."
Long term it would probably be some of the best money that Tesco ever spent, as the education process is not just training staff but influencing the minds of future voters - I would assume they would also have a massive tax rebate for doing it.
And historically it is how the apprenticeship system worked (young child taken as an apprentice to be trained)
"Many in the private sector play this game - look at government spending on education and show me a company who is prepared to make that sort of commitment on soemthing which ultimately has no monetary profit."
If you look at the education system as a whole then I agree that no company could match that. However, on a smaller local scale it would be much more affordable, i.e. local parents clubbing together their skills and resources with local companies helping out.
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"writingsonthewall wrote:
305. At 2:30pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
Very good.
2 small things - you don't need huge amounts of invesment with a workforce of 1 million. Methods may be primative (shovels instead of JCB's) - but the size of the workforce is more than adequate.
This is how the Soviet Union rebuilt their infastructure after WWI."
Can you see any western government getting away with that now? The unions would have a field day! The ironic thing is that this is the method that was used to build the original railway network but that work ethic is long gone in this country.
"The Government's borrow today pay tomorrow - has been somewhat forced upon them. I agree they weren't exactly 'flush with cash' before - but the bailout has totally screwed them."
My understanding is that the government were spending more than we got back as taxes even before the credit crunch.
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325. At 3:48pm on 15 Oct 2009, West_London_Willy
You're on another planet
1) I'm not playing party politics - I said 'GOVERNMENT' not LABOUR. If we made the 1 million unemployed build it - then of course it would be built by now. It took about the same time to build the Hoover dam with less technology using similar techniques (huge manpower)
2) Ever heard of collusion in order to bring the common goal? Sure the oil industry are players - but do you honestly think the car industry has our best interests at heart?
Shooting fish in a barrell - and yet 2 weak points?
I can't be bothered anymore - you are simply stabbing in the dark with barely relevant responses.
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326. At 3:49pm on 15 Oct 2009, jrperry
The UK education budget I believe is about 79 Billion - why has the paltry contribution by Leahy got anymore weight than the tax you or I pay from our wages?
Remember (before you get excited) the tax they pay has to cover everything the state provides for Tesco, including the health care for their workers (because I don't believe Tesco supply healthcare).
My point was Tesco will not take on educating our children, because there's no indication of short term profit. However they are happy to moan about the results of it.
I would also be wary of saying who has a right to comment on tax spending when I suspect - like most CEO's - Mr Leahy will probably not be paying all teh personal tax he should be - because tax advisors ensure they don't have to.
I think it's a bit rich to be criticising the way money is spent when your contribution is so proportionately small.
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298. At 1:43pm on 15 Oct 2009, writingsonthewall wrote:
286. At 12:18pm on 15 Oct 2009, Fubar_Saunders
...I can assure you if the private sector had to provide it's own infastructure and security etc. then you would be looking at the level of 'deals' made in the middle ages.
===
Who built all the canals and then latterly, all the railways? Clue: NOT the public sector.
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330. At 4:02pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555 wrote:
I'm ending this discussion because you have a serious 'time relativity' problem.
"Canary Wharf of no benefit to anyone except the private companies who work there? HMRC don't seem to think so when they get the taxes from those companies. The point is, of course, that the private sector CREATES things, the public sector depends entirely upon this."
...and how do the owrkers get to work at Canary Wharf?
Who built the Jubilee line?
Who built city airport?
Who educated the workers?
Who makes sure they stay alive and healthy?
It all PAYBACK - get it into your head - you can't simply pick a point in time and see which way the money is travelling and then assume that one is supporting the other!!!
Piffle - that's about all you can manage - because you didn't read the part about who built the M1 - instead you revert back to your statement about oil and gas - which I stated 10 years is not long term in Government terms (or any terms)
How about thinking past your own lifetime..
P.s. in other countries they ARE building electric cars (or at least subsidising them) - but I'm sure if this country started doing it then fools like you would start crying because your taxes went up and you would claim the private sector could do it.
....a bit like the way we ended up with MetroNet failing to manage the tube.
No wonder the countries in a mess - this Government (or any Government) could manipulate you all day and you still wouldn't realise it.
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It does of no importance anyway, no matter how many posts writingonthewall plasters all over the blog. The money has run out, the Government is in massive debt and the private sector is shrinking so less taxes. Then we will soon see who funds what will we not.
The public sector is bloated, unaffordable, with its high paid none jobs and quangos. It has proved over time to have actually overtaken the private sector in wages and is far less productive. There are more days lost to people going off sick. Add to this public sector pensions which are off book and should have been reformed years ago which run into billions, Unions which have held back progress over the years and you have a full picture. However despite all of this Brown is still expanding the public sector. Now someone tell me please which private company could be run in this way without going bankrupt.
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333. At 4:11pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555 wrote:
"I'm releaved it's people like me who run businesses and it's people like you that theorise."
Don't flatter yourself - you only run a business because the public sector taxes people - still I suppose in your unreslitic world you don't need taxation to provide tax advice - it can all be done in the private sector.
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334. At 4:12pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
I really don't want to get into a parking debate - but what you say is true, teh charging for parking is a driver for illegal parking.
However you forget that's because most car parks are run by private companies (NCP) - and they're in it to make profit!
I would be all in favour of free parking everywhere - and I suspect you wouldn't need traffic wardens at all! - however it's a problem caused by private sector involvement in something that never used to be.
"I would point straight out the parts of the public sector that deal with international aid"
Now you're lying to yourself - look at the map of Africa - ask yourself why the borders are mainly straight - ask yourself why there might be so much tribal fighting and then realise they're straight - because we drew them
I cannot argue with someone who denies history. Sure there's no benefit to international aid - but where do you think the wealth of this country came from? Our superb intelligence?
Don't make me laugh - did you not learn about colonialism at school?
Finally (because I'm going home)
"If we had multiple different companies providing the same service it would have kept the price down."
you do - they're called couriers and they are not cheaper - which is why despite the threats and moaning, most business will stick with Royal mail - industrial action or not - they cannot get cheaper elsewhere.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#335
Sorry, I forgot that you were a....er...no we don't actually know what you are or what expereince you have of life and business beyond the classroom and the textbook.
"I was thinking about the tax that companies actually pay on their earnings"
Then your thinking is poor. If the company did not exist, those jobs would not exist, the VAT would not be paid, the stamp duty and CGT would not be paid, the dividends would not be paid. If Tesco did not exist that money would not be going to the Government. It is entirely appropriate that the total contribution made by Tesco should be considered.
"...and the stars of tesco come from the private education establishments you mention do they? Really?"
Rather patronising of those that work at Tesco, aren't you?
You start by saying that the private sector don't get involved in education. I point out that they do. You then try and change what you meant (and insult staff at Tesco as you do it). I think you'll find that Tesco employ accountants, lawyers, financial analysts and all sorts, many of whom might well have reeived private education at some point. Or are you an inverse snob who believes that educated people wouldn't get involved in retail?
"The example of a 'law college' is like comparing school to employment training.
...or do you think they're producing the inventors, scientists and other useful academics at the law school?"
They're producing people with law degrees not lawyers so it isn't employment training. Many people with law degrees go into all sorts of areas of business, as I'm sure you'd realise if you were in business yourself.
"I didn't think so - they are merely producing employees cheaper than 'buying them on the open market'."
I have no idea what that means? Who is buying what on the open market? I can only guess that you might mean that employers can get someone from a law college for less salary than by recruiting someone already in employment elsewhere as a lawyer. Bleedin' obviously, as someone already in employment will have expereince so will be worth more, as anyone in business would know. But what merit has that point?
"...I suppose next you'll be suggesting that football acadamies are at the forefront of educating our children!"
I didn't mention football academies but I know that some of them include acedmic studies, often as a catch up for the failed public sector.
As for Tesco opening their own schools. It's not the sector they are in (yet) so why should they? They pay enough taxes of all sorts to expect the Government to do it for them. Or are you advocating a system where you pay the Government to do something but know that you're only going to have to pay more to do it yourself properly anyway.
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#340 "The Government planned it's spending. It did not plan for an extra 175 Billion (or whatever) that was needed to bailout the banks."
The Government is about 760 billion in debt, around 135 of that is the bank bail-out. Until the banking collapse there were no plans by Labour to slow down the growth in public spending. Inthe same way that only an idiot believes that house prices can keep rising at a rate faster than wages, only an idiot belives that Government spending can continue to outgrow the growth in the economy. The banking colapse was the 'final sraw' but this Government was going to run out of money sooner or later.
"If you budget carefully at home, then decide you're going to invest in a shed to put the stuff that clogging up the garage - to benefit the family and allow your daughter to park her car indoors - you are doing a socially good thing for your family.
However, once you buy the shed you're errant son runs up a credit card bill of £3000 which you have to cover (as he's your responsibility for arguments sake) - is that your fault - are you a bad planner?
That is what happened with Government."
A better analogy is that you have a perfectly good shed already and your daughter has never once moaned about not being able to park in the garage and is it really the end of the earth if she parks on the drive?. Howvere, you decide that everyone deserves a new shed so you knock down the good one and rebuild it on credit on the basis that you got a payrise last year so you're bound to get one this year. Then you decide it would be great if your daughter and son also had their own shed, as everyone deserves one. They don't need it but they deserve it and besides, you still have credit on your card and there will be another payrise in year 3 and another in year 4, surely. You've aleadt spent the next three years' payrises and the interest on the credit card is starting to bite, so you take a cash advance of the rest of the limit on your credit card and sit hoping nothing goes wrong.
So, yes, when it goes wrong it was bad planning and it was your fault.
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#338, writingsonthewall wrote:
"323. At 3:41pm on 15 Oct 2009, fairlyopenmind
I think in the case of Nationalised industries the Government didn't invest - but look how we ended up with Northern Rock - we took on debt and the responsibility for that debt - something the private sector were not prepared to do (hence no buyers)"
Writings,
I've an idea that some businesses wanted to buy - certainly explored the opportunity to buy - Northern Rock before it went completely doo-lally, but there was resistance from government as it could create a rather too dominant player in the mortgage market. Companies like LloydsTSB.
The same government that encouraged Lloyds to pick up a basket case organisation like HBoS and waive any competition scrutiny.
Because the same government didn't want to nationalise HBoS, so - led by a certain G. Brown - stuffed up the shareholders of Lloyds, with the total connivance of the Lloyds board of directors. The people, who in my opinion should be sued for breaking the value of organisations who hold pension funds within their shares. (Actually, I rather would like to see pension fund managers being brought to account, too.)
I'd have thought that G. Brown had done enough in stuffing up the private pension schemes since 1997. Wouldn't you?
And now the EU is saying that the Lloyds/HBoS stuff should be broken up.
Why does it take some apparatchik in Brussels to state the bleeding obvious?
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"348. At 4:59pm on 15 Oct 2009, writingsonthewall wrote:
333. At 4:11pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555 wrote:
"I'm releaved it's people like me who run businesses and it's people like you that theorise."
Don't flatter yourself - you only run a business because the public sector taxes people"
Well, I'm sure the business you run is a good one too. Bet mummy says so just before she packs it away and tucks you in.
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"It all PAYBACK - get it into your head - you can't simply pick a point in time and see which way the money is travelling and then assume that one is supporting the other!!!"
That's odd, because that's exactly what you are doing. You are saying it's all investment by the public sector and that everything subsequent is 'payback'. You still can't say where that money came from that the public sector is investing.
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#331, writingsonthewall wrote:
"317. At 3:20pm on 15 Oct 2009, fairlyopenmind
I guess you didn't see the recent Panorama documetary on outsourced health care and the deaths it's caused of heathly NHS patients.
I certainly don't think Bliar's healthcare plans were a good idea - I also think where they did invest public money it was a shambles (like turning the hose full blast on dry dusty soil - erosion was the result, not actually getting the roots wet)"
Writings,
I think I said I didn't like the Blair/Milburn - Brown sponsored - approach. So don't blame an essentially free-market guy like me for a set of policies (in the loosest definition) inspired by a bunch of people claiming the benefits they would deliver for the poorest.
It hasn't happened. Because most of this mob have no idea how business works. So they equate "spend" with investment. Remember how many times Blair and Brown said "We have increased "investment" by 20, 50, 100%"?
NOT that we have delivered 20,50,100% better outcome...
Anybody can spend somebody else's money. Making it work for them over the long term is hard.
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writingsonthewall wrote:
334. At 4:12pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
I really don't want to get into a parking debate - but what you say is true, teh charging for parking is a driver for illegal parking.
However you forget that's because most car parks are run by private companies (NCP) - and they're in it to make profit!
I would be all in favour of free parking everywhere - and I suspect you wouldn't need traffic wardens at all! - however it's a problem caused by private sector involvement in something that never used to be."
I think that the majority of car parks are still council run (they certainly are around here). My experience of the NCP car parks is that they tend to be slightly more expensive but have better security and are better lit (probably to convince people to choose them over the council parks)
"Now you're lying to yourself - look at the map of Africa - ask yourself why the borders are mainly straight - ask yourself why there might be so much tribal fighting and then realise they're straight - because we drew them"
I am not denying history and my comment was that International Aid was not required for the day to day running of the country and the aid doesn't benefit us as a nation. And your point would be true if we only provided aid to Africa, we don't - I believe (and correct me if I am wrong) that we even provide aid to China which is well on it's way to becoming the new super-power!
I also don't believe that the western world is entirely to blame for Africa. India was also under colonial rule and yet the behaviour of the country after the British left is totally different to the African example. India prospered and moved forwards however at least certain African states have moved backwards since the colonials left turning instead to in-fighting.
We have no idea the state that Africa would be in if the British had left it alone - it might have been in an even worse state.
"Finally (because I'm going home)
you do - they're called couriers and they are not cheaper - which is why despite the threats and moaning, most business will stick with Royal mail - industrial action or not - they cannot get cheaper elsewhere."
Couriers are a different breed to the royal mail, they don't have the workforce in place to do a universal delivery in the same way that the Royal Mail does. It comes down to economics of scale the Royal Mail might have hundreds of thousands of letters going to a town but a courier may have less than a hundred parcels.
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343:
Oh don't give up just because you have no relevant and compelling arguments!
Firstly, if you had a million men with shovels, the Hoover Dam wouldn't be built. The Channel Tunnel wouldn't be built. The only things that were built that way were the Pyramids, and the cost in workers lives then was beyond our ability to understand now. Are you suggesting that's a GOOD thing?
Secondly, any collusion in this matter was initited and driven by the oil companies protecting their profits. I know - I worked in that industry for a number of years, and the runours about what COULD have been possible you'd never believe. Car companies had some interest in the matter, for sure, but they are in the business of selling cates, not in keeping the bloated, over-powerful oil companies afloat. I never suggested that the Car manufacturers had our best interests at heart. I DID say that they had THEIR best interests at heart, and that means making sure people still buy cars irrespective of what's happening to the global oil economy.
But then why let a simple thing like relevant facts get in the way of your opinion? Reading back through your posts, this is not something you've bothered about up to now.
And you thought I was delusional! The mind boggles.....
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Britain is done and dusted, from now until the GE Labour will be fast tracking immigrants to being granted passports, many more Brits will have emigrated, the birth rates of the immigrants from 3rd world countries (in particular Muslim) will continue to outstrip those of the British. It's no wonder the Muslims are now calling for Sharia to be adopted throughout the country - the future for Britain is Islamic, the demographics dictate it to be the case!
Sadly all 3 Parties plus the Unions support it!
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335. At 4:18pm on 15 Oct 2009, writingsonthewall wrote:
321. At 3:35pm on 15 Oct 2009, AndyC555
......Still - you managed to avoid answering the point which is why aren't tesco starting their own education system if this one is so bad?
***************************
Tesco along with many other businesses and their employess pay billions of £££ in taxes of many kinds.
Amongst other uses of these taxes is an element for EDUCATION.
The Government is not delivering on this. We are not getting what we are paying for. Unlike Tesco, the Government do not have a policy for refunds if something is unfit for purpose. Therefore Terry Leahy is well within his rights to complain about the education system failings.
Perhaps a lot more people should do the same thing!
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#349, writingsonthewall wrote:
"334. At 4:12pm on 15 Oct 2009, Mark_WE
...Now you're lying to yourself - look at the map of Africa - ask yourself why the borders are mainly straight - ask yourself why there might be so much tribal fighting and then realise they're straight - because we drew them
I cannot argue with someone who denies history. Sure there's no benefit to international aid - but where do you think the wealth of this country came from? Our superb intelligence?
Don't make me laugh - did you not learn about colonialism at school?
Writings,
Everybody knows that the division of "Africa" countries was the result of lots of people coming in to squabble about which bit each should dominate. Some came from the Arabic/Islamic world. Most came from Europe. That was bad.
Just as it was "bad" for some Africans to round up and sell other Aricans to the slave traders. That happened on both sides of the continent. Some went West - sold into slavery in the Americas, so went East - sold into the East.
I'm rather relieved that a Brit (who happened to be a Tory) fought to stop the slave trade. Aren't you?
"Finally (because I'm going home)"
What?
Are you really saying that you post stuff on a blog when you should be working?
Regardless if it's a private or public sector job, that just ain't right.
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fairlyopenmind 361
"Are you really saying that you post stuff on a blog when you should be working? Regardless if it's a private or public sector job, that just ain't right."
Except, of course, if there is a certain intersection between his work and writing on this blog.
I saw a little discussion at the weekend on LabourList (I like to drop in over there occasionally, just to lower their morale). It concerned a variety of campaigning based around a form of nihilism, apparently calculated to make people who might float their vote away from Labour a little more inclined to stay at home instead. Sort of an applied version of "a curse on all their houses", but with a pink tint. I see certain parallels in writingsonthewall's posting style. Pure idle speculation, of course!
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332#
"So you're simply interested in the here and now - i.e. who touched the money last.
....and that proves what exactly?
How about you look at it like
"The private sector REPAYS WHAT IT OWES to the public sector for providing infastructure which allows it to make greater profit today"
No funding - a debt owed."
OK. I can see it that way. Makes no difference though, does it? We're not talking about 100, 200 years ago. We're talking about the here and now, our lifetimes.
And you can try and spin it any way you want. If you dont get that tax revenue in to fund the state, there is no state sector.
Unless you're in a communist/one party, entirely publicly owned dictatorship. If you're happy to subscribe to that kind of existance, crack on. I'm sure there'll be a 747 leaving for Pyongyang sometime in the next week or so.
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@ 295
would you like to convince Saga then?
DH is, as ever, correct - the private sector uses the public sector but does not subsidise it - the subsidy, although hard to measure, probably goes the other way
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#364
Good grief, we seem to agree on this topic.
Please don't let it happen again.
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364#
Thats being selective about what dhw said Saga, stop it.
What he said was "Surely the private sector pays for the public sector because THEY USE IT. To keep their workers healthy, to educate their workforce, to keep transport links flowing, to protect their business and tax collection to enable them and the employees to help pay for it. To enable it to carry on working. Public Sector workers also pay a contribution from their own public sector efforts."
To say that the public sector subsidises the private sector is not entirely accurate. The public sector, when it contracts out a service to the private sector sometimes (like with Rail and London buses) pays out a subsidy to the provider to provide the service. But, it does not have to do that, if it has the ability to provide that service itself, as used to be the case prior to deregulation and privatisation under Major.
You still cant get away from the fact that without a tax base, without direct and indirect tax contributions not only from the little people (regardless of whether they are in private or public sector employment) but also from private sector businesses as well, you would not have the funds available to be able to provide any kind of services through the public sector.
That is inescapable, 100%, cast iron fact.
Anything else is denial.
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