An Evening With... Jeremy Corbyn

Fella

ruggedtoast wrote: »

If can't run your business well enough to pay your staff a living wage then it's a failure anyway and you should go and do something at which you are more capable.

The era of sweatshops being staffed by serfs, run by cigar smoking fat cats is over.

Surely you must know that in a global economy the above isn't true?

UK employees on the current (let alone proposed) minimum wage already earn squillions more than the poor sods in the 3rd world who are often doing exactly the same job. UK Govts can decree the minimum wage must be whatever they like but that won't result in everyone in the UK having a decently paid job, it'll just result in millions more having no job at all.

Think about how businesses come into existence. It's largely when a one-man-band, probably earning quite a lot, decides to expand & take on people. That simply won't happen if the costs are too high, it's much easier & less risky to stay a fairly well-off one-man-band. Make the minimum wage too high & on day one all the people on minimum wage are better off. A couple years down the line half of them no longer have a job and the other half are doing twice as much work for an extra 10% pay.

westernpromise

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Sounds more like you are running a charity than a business.

Thankfully for you, under a Corbynised economy, investment in capital infrastructure and education will empower the little man to take on the mega corporations who outcompete you while hiding their profits in offshore tax havens.

Rejoice!

What Corbynised economy?

ruggedtoast

Fella wrote: »

Surely you must know that in a global economy the above isn't true?

UK employees on the current (let alone proposed) minimum wage already earn squillions more than the poor sods in the 3rd world who are often doing exactly the same job. UK Govts can decree the minimum wage must be whatever they like but that won't result in everyone in the UK having a decently paid job, it'll just result in millions more having no job at all.

Think about how businesses come into existence. It's largely when a one-man-band, probably earning quite a lot, decides to expand & take on people. That simply won't happen if the costs are too high, it's much easier & less risky to stay a fairly well-off one-man-band. Make the minimum wage too high & on day one all the people on minimum wage are better off. A couple years down the line half of them no longer have a job and the other half are doing twice as much work for an extra 10% pay.

The global economy is as big as the trade tariffs that you have say that it is.

cells

ruggedtoast wrote: »

If can't run your business well enough to pay your staff a living wage then it's a failure anyway and you should go and do something at which you are more capable.

This is true.

One of the biggest culprits guilty of this are schools that hire class assistants abd there are tens if thousands of them. Sadly I don't think they can really afford to pay them a full teachers wages and the productive good thing for them and the economy would be simply to fire them so they can get more productive (and higher pay) work. Would you agree? Or do you think wealth can be created by keeping low productivity jobs but just paying them more?

Oh and most business do pay good wages. What's the median full time wage? Is that a decent wage?

cells

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The global economy is as big as the trade tariffs that you have say that it is.

These types of ideas just alient everyone to your world views. People who are undecided will know which way to vote when they hear this garbage

The idea that you can shut yourself off from the world is stupid. More importantly world trade makes the participants richer for exactly the same reason national free trade makes nations richer than limiting it to a smaller geography or the sane reason as you specialising at a job and trading that rather than making your own shoes and drilling your own fillings and manufacturing your own spectacles etc

cells

Fella wrote: »

Surely you must know that in a global economy the above isn't true?

UK employees on the current (let alone proposed) minimum wage already earn squillions more than the poor sods in the 3rd world who are often doing exactly the same job. UK Govts can decree the minimum wage must be whatever they like but that won't result in everyone in the UK having a decently paid job, it'll just result in millions more having no job at all.

Think about how businesses come into existence. It's largely when a one-man-band, probably earning quite a lot, decides to expand & take on people. That simply won't happen if the costs are too high, it's much easier & less risky to stay a fairly well-off one-man-band. Make the minimum wage too high & on day one all the people on minimum wage are better off. A couple years down the line half of them no longer have a job and the other half are doing twice as much work for an extra 10% pay.

The min wage should be increased to about £10ph now and rise with inflation. As a society we already subsidise these people we might as well do it directly via prices than via taxes.

This group of about 2 million people on the min wage , maybe 1.5 million of them would be no better or worse off as their benefit top ups would likely reduce on a 1:1 basis.

The other 63 million will have to pay slightly higher prices but will pay slightly lower taxes to almost compensate.


Competing on the global stage doesn't really come into it. I can't see many business in the UK that sell abroad with a min wage heavy workforce. My guess would be that exporters actually pay more than the roughly £35k per full time worker cost in the UK (actually its more due to employers NI too). The min wage jobs tend to supply domestic goods and services

I can also see a positive increase in actual productivity if the policy was implemented. With unemployment about 1% in the UK I don't see an issue or that it be likely that the min wage staff will be displaced to unemployment.


Edit. I think I would favour a method where the min wage was not a fixed sum but dependant on service. Eg it might be £10ph for employees of 2 years or more. Maybe £9 for those 1 year or longer. £8 for 6 months or longer. £7 for 3 months or longer. £6 for sub 3 months. Or something along those lines.

There also needs to be no financial incentive for employers to hire two part time workers over one fill time that is a bad idea and makes the country poorer. From what I understand the employers NI seems to encourage this which is bad I'd true and should be amended.

seven-day-weekend

cells wrote: »

This is true.

One of the biggest culprits guilty of this are schools that hire class assistants abd there are tens if thousands of them. Sadly I don't think they can really afford to pay them a full teachers wages and the productive good thing for them and the economy would be simply to fire them so they can get more productive (and higher pay) work. Would you agree? Or do you think wealth can be created by keeping low productivity jobs but just paying them more?

Oh and most business do pay good wages. What's the median full time wage? Is that a decent wage?

They do not have anywhere near the qualifications and training of a teacher; why should thy be paid the same?

Moby

westernpromise wrote: »

Umunna is a snide, oily creep. Bring him on.

Bring him on to what? Are you really a centre ground moderate......? :rotfl:
Love this thread. Rugged isn't it time for you to poke these small business tory types again:rotfl: You stir 'em up and sit back and watch the freak show. Looking forward to another round of boomer invective and hate;). He's playing you folks and you cant resist it. I think its due to repressed self centredness and guilt over your boomer appropriation of resources............that you worked so hard for........by sleeping in cars and not taking a wage from your businesses while paying your employees oodles of money.................purleeeeese. That one made me choke on my coffee.....it was hilarious.:rotfl:

chris_m

cells wrote: »

Edit. I think I would favour a method where the min wage was not a fixed sum but dependant on service. Eg it might be £10ph for employees of 2 years or more. Maybe £9 for those 1 year or longer. £8 for 6 months or longer. £7 for 3 months or longer. £6 for sub 3 months. Or something along those lines.

Whilst that may seem a good idea, just watch the less scrupulous employers switch to only ever offering 3 month contracts with no renewal.

bugslet

Moby wrote: »

Bring him on to what? Are you really a centre ground moderate......? :rotfl:
Love this thread. Rugged isn't it time for you to poke these small business tory types again:rotfl: You stir 'em up and sit back and watch the freak show. Looking forward to another round of boomer invective and hate;). He's playing you folks and you cant resist it. I think its due to repressed self centredness and guilt over your boomer appropriation of resources............that you worked so hard for........by sleeping in cars and not taking a wage from your businesses while paying your employees oodles of money.................purleeeeese. That one made me choke on my coffee.....it was hilarious.:rotfl:

Aw bless you moby, no idea that actually there are really decent people in the world. I've always slept in a bed other than work as with many drivers and always paid myself a wage of some sort.

Fella's assertion that business arises when someone who is well-paid takes on an employee, is not a model I recognise, but I'm not familiar with every business model only my own sector.

I have no guilt, probably because I could never afford to go to uni, never had a pension beyond my own and live in a house worth less than the average. If only all boomers fitted into your neat little concepts.

There was a job advert for a major haulier for a truck driver based not far from my base that paid less than I pay my van drivers. Money has never been a motivator for me - just never wanted to work for someone else.


I've avoided invective and nastiness, you might like to try and polish up your own tawdry responses.