Divide & conquer

StevieJ

bendix wrote: »

Ignoring the welsh is not racist. It's just common sense and good breeding. Everyone knows that.

Yes I see that racist attitude all the time, especially living in Chester where the clock face pointing at Wales was removed because they wouldn't give the Welsh the time of day not to mention the right to kill one if caught within the city walls after midnight, some good game on Friday and Saturday nights :eek:

lemonjelly

StevieJ wrote: »

Yes I see that racist attitude all the time, especially living in Chester where the clock face pointing at Wales was removed because they wouldn't give the Welsh the time of day not to mention the right to kill one if caught within the city walls after midnight, some good game on Friday and Saturday nights :eek:

Hence my previous post.

Who'da think it? bendix & marklv are proper little bedfellows eh?:cool:

Thrugelmir

vivatifosi wrote: »

: Labour of overstretching the state on the mistaken belief of the Chancellor that he was so brilliant that he could do what he liked financially as boom and bust would never exist again :eek:. The current government may prove to be guilty of slash and burn in large-scale state contraction.

In reality I want something between the two. A slimmed down state that doesn't waste money but at the same time where vital services are not heavily pruned.

Without going over old ground. Personally I am struggling to see where "mass employment" will be generated from that will rebuild the economic base of the country. We are now in a free trading zone of some 600 million people.

LemonJelly mentioned the minimum wage. Yet the average wage in Bulgaria is still only £3,500 pa for example. So companies will either continue to locate to Eastern Europe. Or people will move West and be happy to earn £6 per hour. As either by saving or sending money home they are bettering themselves.

There is a huge equalisation in the global labour market underway.

In the longer term the majority will have to accept less pay for a days work in the UK. Whether it be private or public. The current boom is over. There isn't enough well paid work to round.

ninky_2

bendix wrote: »

Hang on . . what are businesses doing wrong by paying people minimum wage? They are low earners for a reason - they don't have the skills to be competitive enough to earn more.

Are you turning Tory ninky, and advocating the abolition of the minimum wage?

It is an employer's right to pay whatever salary it can freely negotiate (subject to minimum wage) with the employee. One could argue that if they were obliged to pay more, then they wouldn't hire said people, thus reducing the tax-take further.

no i'm saying its too low. raise wages and you raise tax revenues. more public income is raised from turnover paid into wages than is earned from that which is creamed off into private profit.

there is absolutely no evidence statistically that raising or bringing in a minimum wage increases unemployment. in fact, i tentatively assert that the opposite is true.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

BNPmarklv wrote: »

Now that the two Milibands are competing for the top spot in Labour who is to say that they won't pass state secrets to Mossad when they come to power? Can they be trusted? I'm not convinced that they can. We live in interesting times.

BNP Mark making a t1t of himself as usual, I see.

ninky_2

suggestions that minimum wage introduction (ergo wage rises) does not lead to increased unemployment.....

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/briefingpapers_bp150/

The argument that state minimum wages have had a substantially negative effect on a state's labor market is an extreme repackaging of the perennial claim that minimum wages do more harm than good because they cause many low-wage workers to lose their jobs. While this argument was once more prevalent among economists, recent studies with improved methodologies have reached the opposite conclusion. In general, there is no valid, research-based rationale for believing that state minimum wages cause measurable job losses. Making the extreme case that the job losses are severe enough to show up in a noticeably elevated state unemployment rate is a wild extension of a largely unfounded theory.

LilacPixie

There is no doubt about it, the public sector needs reduced but I have concerns about how that will happen and what will be cut.

NHS I wouldn't want medical staff/front line staff cut nor cuts to research and development/equipment so your left with the managerial/IT stuff and I have no idea how much of that is essential and realistically what would it save.

HMRC/DWP/DVLA/Pension Services and other such departments. Again no idea how much could be cut there. A few of you know I'm and accountant and my employer basically deals with the tax affairs of local businesses and sole traders. In my area one local enquiry centre/office has closed, another office is like a ghost town with rumours that soon it will be a security guard and some phones to be transfered to a call centre. Along from my office is a HMRC call centre and you often get talking to people at the snack bar/salad bar and they were saying that there has been a recruitment freeze for almost 2 years, no one is being replaced when they leave and the work is piling up. Today it was apparently so busy the phone lines actually collapsed under the pressure of calls. I have no idea what calls they take but I presume it is tax credits and PAYE given the recent announcments. If they cut these staff numbers further without decent lines/systems then surely everything will be in an even bigger mess.

vivatifosi

ninky wrote: »

suggestions that minimum wage introduction (ergo wage rises) does not lead to increased unemployment.....

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/briefingpapers_bp150/

There's an issue with using US data where the minimum wages are significantly lower than here. Manufacturing is likely to be paid above the minimum wage (the study highlights this) and the survey instead points to those that would be hit by minimum wage - ie those working in restaurants.

The reality is that if Oregon brings in a higher minimum wage than its neighbouring state, people aren't going to drive to California to buy a burger.

Its the same here. The issue is not whether or not businesses in the retail/restaurant/personal service (hairdressers etc) will be hit by an increase in the minimum wage. Some people may use those services less often, some businesses may choose to absorb the increase, but no-one is going to go to Bulgaria to get their hair cut.

The problem is where you have a minimum wage in a global industry where the country of origin matters little to the end purchaser. Knowledge industries have historically been immune to this because they have paid above the minimum, but there is increasing evidence of IT moving to Bangalore etc. In the future there will be an increasing pull between increasing the minimum wage and reducing competitiveness, particularly where manufacturing is more marginal/less skilled.

bendix

lemonjelly wrote: »

Hence my previous post.

Who'da think it? bendix & marklv are proper little bedfellows eh?:cool:

Whooosh

Right over lemon's head again.

marklv

michaels wrote: »

Reported this.

Reported this for what? Expressing an opinion? It's quite a valid point. Can the Milibands be trusted with the nation's security when they have obviously very close links with Israel? Their views towards Israel can hardly be regarded as unbiased, and at the time when there is unrest in the middle east and the possibility of a future conflict with Iran this is a serious issue.