BBC Thursday: The Future State of Welfare

ILW

Road_Hog wrote: »

I do hope that's tongue in cheek.

Can you fault the logic of it?

Jennifer_Jane

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i'm probably being unreasonable, but she didn't seem too chronically fatigued in that interview, she seemed quite up to having a massive rant about how unfair it was that she needed to prove she wasn't capable of working every six months. no doubt the real interview was at least an hour long and they just pulled out some soundbites for the programme.

to me, she seemed to do quite a good job of demonstrating that she was able to do at least some work of some sort. i'm not suggesting she is made to break up rocks with a sledgehammer, but there must be something part time she could do from the comfort of her own home to at least contribute towards her own upkeep, if not pay for everything.

Well, if she had been me, I would be looking rather fatigued and lying on a sofa or something. Oh no, that IS me.

Anyway, this whole benefits thing has got to a stage where unreasonable demands are being taken for people's 'rights' and people are so bold about it that they don't feel the need to even pretend to be grateful.

Incidentally, a friend of mine who works in a betting shop, says that she gets jeered at (as she is British) from Eastern Europeans as they say 'We are gambling your British taxpayer benefits - thank you very much for giving us money'. It's hard to take, but I suppose we should be glad they are recycling the money within the Country.

Road_Hog

ILW wrote: »

Can you fault the logic of it?

Certainly. There is a level of costs which makes a business unviable and the elasticity of the product value determines that cost.

When I was thinking about UK businesses, the one that always comes to mind is fruit/vegetable picking. Now these farms pay the minimum wage or even less, which can get around by including accommodation and meals. But let's keep it simple and say minimum wage, roughly £6 ph. If the farmer had to pay what is often quoted as the living wage of £8 and couldn't bring in workers from outside of Britain, he would probably pay that and his customers would pay a bit more based on the labour costs. Because we generally need fruit and veg, we'd probably continue to buy it.

Now just for the pedants, there are other factors such as the comparable price of just importing product, but I'm trying to give a simple comparison not write a thesis on the dynamics of a fruit and veg farm.

Back to Starbucks. Nobody needs coffee, we can always have a coke, water or juice, so the price elasticity is very much less. Sure there are some people who would pay £10 for some fancy coffee but probably not enough to support a business. The business owners would sit down and say, based on £30k pa for each employer our staff costs are £300k pa, other costs £200k, and with our new pricing structure we're turning over £1000K pa and with a 50% GP Margin we're making a zero percent net profit.

ILW

Road_Hog wrote: »

Certainly. There is a level of costs which makes a business unviable and the elasticity of the product value determines that cost.

When I was thinking about UK businesses, the one that always comes to mind is fruit/vegetable picking. Now these farms pay the minimum wage or even less, which can get around by including accommodation and meals. But let's keep it simple and say minimum wage, roughly £6 ph. If the farmer had to pay what is often quoted as the living wage of £8 and couldn't bring in workers from outside of Britain, he would probably pay that and his customers would pay a bit more based on the labour costs. Because we generally need fruit and veg, we'd probably continue to buy it.

Now just for the pedants, there are other factors such as the comparable price of just importing product, but I'm trying to give a simple comparison not write a thesis on the dynamics of a fruit and veg farm.

Back to Starbucks. Nobody needs coffee, we can always have a coke, water or juice, so the price elasticity is very much less. Sure there are some people who would pay £10 for some fancy coffee but probably not enough to support a business. The business owners would sit down and say, based on £30k pa for each employer our staff costs are £300k pa, other costs £200k, and with our new pricing structure we're turning over £1000K pa and with a 50% GP Margin we're making a zero percent net profit.

That is partly true, but if government were not in effect subsidising the wages through various types of benefits, then the (mainly working) customers would have a higher level of disposable income (lower taxes) and thereby be prepared to pay more for the coffee.

Jennifer_Jane

Road_Hog wrote: »

.... Because we generally need fruit and veg, we'd probably continue to buy it.

Now just for the pedants, there are other factors such as the comparable price of just importing product, but I'm trying to give a simple comparison not write a thesis on the dynamics of a fruit and veg farm.

I am in Cheshire and was recently nobbled by another customer in my local Somerfield. She said that the butter which I was about to put in my basket was from New Zealand. I said 'It's the cheapest'. She then told me that she was a dairy farmer's daughter and that we should support UK farmers. As it happened I was a bit narked by this and said that I liked to support the Commonwealth Countries. But the truth is, it was cheaper.

I would really love to support local, but even non-Eu stuff which has travelled across the world is cheaper.

Can anyone tell me how they manage that, please?

jamesperrett

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i'm probably being unreasonable, but she didn't seem too chronically fatigued in that interview, she seemed quite up to having a massive rant about how unfair it was that she needed to prove she wasn't capable of working every six months. no doubt the real interview was at least an hour long and they just pulled out some soundbites for the programme.

Chronic Fatigue is a really difficult one because you can look fairly well for a few days (although rarely well enough to do more than a few hours work) while you can be confined to bed on other days. I've been involved in helping a sufferer through the benefits system and regular reviews have been the norm for a while - although possibly not as frequently as every 6 months. Her experience of having to go to appeal is also common - the standard review usually seems to ignore the guidelines on variable illnesses so sufferers often have to appeal to get the authorities to actually comply with the rules.

At one point there was also the concept of therapeutic work. You could work a few hours a week without losing benefits. I don't know if this still exists but I feel that a few tweaks to this concept would make it easier for people to come off incapacity benefit.

James.

heathcote123

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i'm probably being unreasonable, but she didn't seem too chronically fatigued in that interview, she seemed quite up to having a massive rant about how unfair it was that she needed to prove she wasn't capable of working every six months. no doubt the real interview was at least an hour long and they just pulled out some soundbites for the programme.

to me, she seemed to do quite a good job of demonstrating that she was able to do at least some work of some sort. i'm not suggesting she is made to break up rocks with a sledgehammer, but there must be something part time she could do from the comfort of her own home to at least contribute towards her own upkeep, if not pay for everything.

That is completley unfair. ME suffererers are very up and down, and quite often it kicks in during stressful times - like signing on on a Thursday morning.

ruggedtoast

I haven't read any of this thread but I an just chipping in to point out that the TV programme last night had me boiling with rage and indignation.

heathcote123

ILW wrote: »

That is partly true, but if government were not in effect subsidising the wages through various types of benefits, then the (mainly working) customers would have a higher level of disposable income (lower taxes) and thereby be prepared to pay more for the coffee.

Thats good with me, I can at least choose whether i buy a coffee or not. But I simply dont get the option of letting people starve .

John_Pierpoint

The huge container ships famously add about 5 dollars to cost of a Chinese TV sold in new York. Infact 2/3rds of the transport costs are at each end of the transaction when the container is on a lorry of being poked and taxed by HMRC. These ships can have a capacity of up to Capacity: Up to 15,550 TEU (ie nearly 8,000 Juggernaut lorry loads)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship

The New Zealand farmers have a subsidy free system, unlike the EU, the motto is (lean and mean is clean and green). Nobody invests in hobby farms as a method of avoiding inheritance tax. I don't know the present land prices, but 15 years ago the price of grazing land in Tasmania was about £500 an acre. So the down under farmers have nothing like the investment in their land to service or pay the rent on.
Current UK prices for good grazing land is 5 - 8K per acre. Those down under will be restricted in the amount they can sell into the EU by a quota system - so all in all you may well be paying double the "natural" world price for your English butter.

It is likely to get more expensive as the formerly cheap Commonwealth countries give up on Europe and sell to the huge populations of India & China.

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

I am in Cheshire She then told me that she was a dairy farmer's daughter and that we should support UK farmers.

You already are, just look up dad's farm on farmsubsidy.org or failing that count the acres on the Land Registry and multiply by (say) at least £60 per acre too get the subsidy paid each year from what you pay in VAT.
If that fails to wind her up have a go at: Why did your great grandfather refuse to accept the government subsidy for slaughtering his cattle, so that they could be replaced with those giving TB free milk and stop killing thousands of men women and children a year over the Mersey in Lancashire?

It is a funny old world isn't it:

BSG (main shareholder in Czarnikow) is a wholly owned subsidary of Associated British Foods
On 26 March 2011 Associated British Foods, and its parent company Wittington Investments, were targeted over tax avoidance by UK Uncut during anti-cuts protests. [10]. The tax avoidance scheme involved moving capital between ABF/Primark and the affiliated Luxembourg entity ABF European Holdings & Co SNC by means of interest-free loans, avoiding tax of about £9.7 million per year. [11] [12] The protest took the form of a mass sit-in in Fortnum & Mason. [13]

http://farmsubsidy.org/GB/