The Budget

Graham_Devon

Some interesting arguments coming out on the back of all this. Just listening to one argument, the person on tax credits against the person who's "paying for it" who's kids have flown the nest.

It really is dividing people. The "older" generation, for want of a better word, appear to be going along with the line of "we didn't have kids if we couldn't afford them....we bought our house and made sacrificies, I stayed at home to bring them up".

The generation taking the tax credits today with kids are saying "it's impossible in todays age to stay at home and cover the outgoings without tax credits".

There appears to be very little movement inbetween, just arguments.

It's weird in a way listening to the two arguments. The older generation describing staying at home and having one wage as a "sacrifice". The younger would probably bite off your hand to have that and likely see it as a luxury.

So you have two people arguing with each other, one daming the other for not making a sacrifice, but the other desperately wanting to make that "sacrifice". Seems stupid....they are at each others throats, when infact, the people they need to look to are the government.

wotsthat

vivatifosi wrote: »

Re supermarket salaries... If you look at Aldi, it already pays more than other supermarkets by quite a margin. They also have one of the most competitive and best paid graduate management schemes. Hence the likes of Tesco would need to increase wages but their most feared competitor wouldn't.

My local Aldi often has job ads in the window and virtually all pay £8+ per hour and none are min wage. Asda also pay more than Tesco, which is known as a quite stingy payer.

I don't know for sure but I'd wager Aldi's checkout operators are dramatically more efficient than say, Sainsburys, so they need fewer of them and can pay the better ones more. You don't get asked if you need bags, if you've got a nectar card, you don't need to walk out with vouchers coming out your ears and, if you've got a big shop, you expect to bag it away from the checkout so they can get on with the next customer. So less space being wasted on checkouts and a bigger % of floor space holding stock.

Aldi are a much more efficient overall - suppliers have to deliver in packaging which is completely shelf ready and they can handle single traded units containing more than one different retail unit. These are small things but the bigger retailers have, despite many 'initiatives', failed to come close. One reason is because the big brands have sufficient power to bend the rules and deliver in units which require staff handling but look better on shelf.

Overall the net effect is that Aldi can work on lower product margins which is passed on to the customer.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

So you have two people arguing with each other, one daming the other for not making a sacrifice, but the other desperately wanting to make that "sacrifice". Seems stupid....they are at each others throats, when infact, the people they need to look to are the government.

Just one bunch of rent seekers moaning about another bunch of rent seekers. As I'm representing the UK in the World rent seeking championships I can see right through the arguments.

michaels

wotsthat wrote: »

In many cases we'd be richer overall by giving Bob unemployment because tax credits are more expensive and incentivise business to engage in inefficiency.

If the gas light company was receiving a big enough taxpayer sub to employ gas lighters we might never have switched to electric lights.

I'm not making an economic case for the 'british' system as opposed to the French one but I think their might be a societal case that can be made that it is 'better' not to have a large underclass of disaffected who are priced out of employment by the minimum wage and their own lack of productivity.

(Where better possibly means safer from aquisitive crime such as car theft and muggings, anti-social behaviour and even extremism)

wotsthat

michaels wrote: »

I'm not making an economic case for the 'british' system as opposed to the French one but I think their might be a societal case that can be made that it is 'better' not to have a large underclass of disaffected who are priced out of employment by the minimum wage and their own lack of productivity.

(Where better possibly means safer from aquisitive crime such as car theft and muggings, anti-social behaviour and even extremism)

There are some social benefits to paying people to work for their benefits and I don't think there's a case to eradicate them. There's a balance but I doubt we're going to be anywhere close to finding the 'tipping point' in today's budget.

kabayiri

It was interesting that the BBC news this morning chose to focus on productivity. Of course, managing the public narrative is no accident.

The case was made that manufacturing is now lean and productive, but the challenge was on to make the nigh on 80% service more efficient/productive.

My thoughts switched to the PPI mis-selling saga. Dozens of PPI companies have sprung up to handle and obviously profit from processing the claims.

Would it not have been more efficient and productive just to force the banks to return the mis-sold money? The claims companies typically add 30% as their margin.

Then again, they add jobs to the economy, and some are using the work to springboard into other areas.

So, open question...can you manage productivity in the service sector more on a macro level with policy initiatives?

vivatifosi

Am online with a TV in front of me and will live type budget updates from 12.30. If for any reason this doesn't appear, that means my broadband is playing up again and I'll be the one you'll be able to hear from Herts kicking my router.

vivatifosi

OK here goes...

budget to put security first and recognise hard work and sacrifice of British people... will be a budget for working people. Setting out plan to move us to a lower tax higher wage lower welfare economy.

Conservative one nation budget that can only be delivered because British people trusted us to deliver the budget.

British economy fundamentally stronger than five years ago and faster growing than any other major developed economy. All our problems are not solved - only need to look at Greece to see what happens if you are not in control of budgets. Determined to change.

First conservative only budget since 1996.

vivatifosi

We now have budgets that fit the economic forecast. Mar budget thought economy grew by 2.6%, but now know it was 3%, but global risks growing. Global growth forecast revised down. Need to get our own house in order.

For the second year in a row Britain expected to be best growth of any developed major nation. 2.4% up for following year, steady growth for rest of decade. Bus invest up 31.9% since 2010.

Founder member of Investment bank for Asia - didn't catch full name.

vivatifosi

OBR forecast 1m more jobs created over next five years. Ambition is to create 2m more jobs on route to full employment.

Confidence comes from Britain getting house in order. Budget deficit now less than half of that inherited. Need to run a surplus to get high levels of debt down.

1st key measure: HOW FAST CUT DEFICIT?

Same pace as in last parliament - not faster or slower. No roller coaster ride in public spending.

Tax receipts are stronger than forecast. More asset sales. Govt getting on with the job. Surplus 2019-20. Budget puts economic security first.

Difficult decisions required to save money. Plan taxes account OBR debt and deficit forecasts. Deficit due to fall to 1/3 of deficit inherited in coming year (lots of data in terms of surpluses and how the numbers will pan out to get there). Will be first surplus in 40 years.

2010 we borrowed 153bn pa
Mar 75.3bn (2015)
69.5bn over next year tapering therafter..

2019-20 will be 10bn surplus and rising thereafter.