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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Kompakted said:
The point he is making is that they're squeezing businesses like teabags. 95% of employers in the UK are SME businesses that are operating on or within the margins of economic peaks and troughs. They've already had covid to contend with and if they were exporting/importing from the EU they've had the Brexit related changes to deal with. Now they're being clobbered and they're either going to have to put prices up, wages down or let people go. Most analysts believe all 3 will happen. Reeves herself has had to admit her budget will hit "working people" in contradiction to her election pledges.

Zero hours contracts are not a disgrace, they're a very useful option for many. I myself had a zero-hours sales contract while I was at uni. If I had a spare afternoon after morning lectures I could go down to the office grab some new merchandise examples and go out to clients in the area and try and get them to stock them. I earned a % of whatever I sold. It was great for my circumstances at the time.
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Tesco made 2 billion in profit last year.

Why are defending these greedy bastards?
 
Batspur said:
But...but..but Labour have been in power for 5 months now! Why haven't they fixed everything? WAH WAH WAH. It's just so tragic to see how the right wing press and media have gas lit the lower orders so much that they can't see how hard this job is going to be. Starmer isn't very good but he is a details guy, a serious politician. It's the best we can hope for after the mess we were left with after nearly 15 years of nation wreckers at the helm.
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This has made me chuckle on this cold snowy Friday
Serious ok, seriously brick
 
P.D. said:
Yeah tax and policy, his commentary is pretty neutral and easy to understand. Income tax is the most progressive tax we have, much more effective to raise it. Instead the greatest impact is now on low earners. Likely there's more to come as well.
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Yes, income tax taken via payroll is the only reliable means of raising revenue. Because every other form of taxation taxes an activity for which there are alternatives (I.e. raising taxation can mean the activity you are taxing reduces and you simply end up getting a higher % of less money).

The rise in employer's NI contributions is a case in point. This is introducing an extra cost to employers of employing people in the UK, which, actually, they don't have to do. Coupled with the increase in minimum wage and Rayner's planned changes to employment rights legislation (which will make it very hard to get rid of poorly performing or badly behaving employees), the likely outcome will be more offshore outsourcing contracts such as foreign call centres and service centres, small businesses making do with less staff and so although Labour have calculated "if I raise employer NI it will generate X", that's merely an "on paper" assessment. And as most analysts expect unemployment to rise you'll see a decline in income tax and NI revenue and an increase in benefit payments.

I'm sorry, but every Labour government in history has been economically illiterate. Labour have invariably left office with the UK in an economic crisis and it always starts with excessive budget deficits being run due to the casm that always exists between what Labour think they'll raise to fund their public spending and what actually comes in.

Last Labour government came to power in 1997 and by 2004 the EU opened an excessive deficit procedure against the UK under the stability and growth pact. Despite committing to bring the deficit to within 3% of GDP by 2006 (the UK weren't full members of S&G not being a euro member and complied with excessive deficit procedures on an agreement/voluntary/best endevours basis), the government failed to meet this target and the procedure was extended several times. By 2010 when Labour left office, the deficit was 10% of GDP meaning the UK was forced to borrow 10% of its GDP every year.

It took Osbourne and Cameron until 2016 to comply with our EU commitments leading to the EU to close the procedure in 2018. I've attached screenshot of the European Council's summary from the abrogation decision.
 

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Batspur said:
Tesco made 2 billion in profit last year.

Why are defending these greedy bastards?
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You see stuff like this makes me cringe, I do this stuff as my job (I'm a risk manager for a large bank).

Tesco's operating profit was actually £2.69 billion. Their operating expenses were £16.59 billion.

So I'm glad they've made a profit of over £2 billion, because that means they can absorb an increase in operating costs of over 10% without putting the business in financial jeopardy. I.e. they're acting responsibly in their role of running one of the UK's key suppliers and employers.

Although they may want to consider boosting that margin due to increased economic uncertainty globally (ECB is warning of another euro zone debt crisis)
 
Kompakted said:
You see stuff like this makes me cringe, I do this stuff as my job (I'm a risk manager for a large bank).

Tesco's operating profit was actually £2.69 billion. Their operating expenses were £16.59 billion.

So I'm glad they've made a profit of over £2 billion, because that means they can absorb an increase in operating costs of over 10% without putting the business in financial jeopardy. I.e. they're acting responsibly in their role of running one of the UK's key suppliers and employers.

Although they may want to consider boosting that margin due to increased economic uncertainty globally (ECB is warning of another euro zone debt crisis)
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Ahhh....You're a banker.

It all makes sense now.
 
thfcsteff said:
If your own eyes don't tell you, this might help.

https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk#:~:text=More than 1 in 5,nearly 3 in 10) children
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You (and the author(s) of that article) are still missing the point. Look at the measure they use for calculating poverty - a proportion of the median income.

Let me explain with an example. If the median income became £100k tomorrow and nothing happened to inflation, a £60k salary would be considered to be in poverty. Now £60k isn't a lot in London with a family and a mortgage, but it's a million miles from what any sensible person would describe as being in poverty. Would you still insist that people earning £60k are in poverty? Or would you concede that a percentage of median income is an incredibly silly and politically loaded way to measure poverty?

thfcsteff said:
It depends on who is employing and what sort of business they want to run. If it is one where workers should be squeezed like teabags and squeezed again until they have nothing, then indeed, the 'problem' might well be exacerbated. Everything in that first link is excellent. Zero hours contracts are a disgrace.
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What about the right to release employees within 2 years? Many of the people that work for me now would never have started working for me without that option - we would never have taken a chance on them.

And zero hour contracts can be very useful. In the past, we've had customers ask for ancillary work on a fairly sporadic basis. It's impossible to have permanent employees for that work, they'd spend most of the year standing around with their thumbs up their arses. So we have two options - zero hour contracts for people that want sporadic work and don't want to be tied to 40 hours, or use an employment agency which has exactly the same result for the employee except they get paid a little less, we pay a little more and the agency sharks get some more money to buy coke with.

Which is the better option?
 
Kompakted said:
By "rebalance" what you mean is that Labour have clobbered everyone with taxes to give more money to public sector union members? Because whatever extra money is being generated will be going straight into funding those pay deals, and actually they'll have to borrow more just to fund them, particularly as the tax and wage burden they've imposed is going to slow the economy down and reduce tax revenue.
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If you want to repair our second world health, education and infrustructure systems - yes.

Or if you want iliterate children and to die alone on a trolley in a hospital corridor, keep defunding public services.
 
Batspur said:
IMG-20241121-WA0015.thumb.jpg.0a56686cf210fc0ed162e40e5292152d.jpg
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He has stated that he doesn't mind the government going after people who by land to dodge tax.

He just wants the government to leave family farms alone.
 
Gutter Boy said:
Can we now invite him over for a tea party with the queen, and then happen to have Interpol waiting at the baggage carousel?
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He wouldn't get as far as the baggage carousel and wouldnt need interpol, immigration and customs officers have powers of arrest and in fact are individually legally obliged to act on international arrest warrants which would trigger an alert when they scanned his passport. Not that he'd set foot in a British territory after this
 
Gutter Boy said:
If you want to repair our second world health, education and infrustructure systems - yes.

Or if you want iliterate children and to die alone on a trolley in a hospital corridor, keep defunding public services.
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I have 3 kids in primary school. There's absolutely nothing wrong with our education. Just had a hernia operation also. Within 5 weeks of referral from my GP. Things are not as bad as people make out.
 
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