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Politics, politics, politics

dingdongo said:
Will he still come out of it looking good or are people starting to doubt him?
I haven't been following that closely
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I guess that depends on the result of the referendum. If the Greeks vote overwhelmingly against the bailout terms, then they are sticking with Syriza. If they vote for them, then they are going with the EU plan and, therefore, moving back towards the thinking of the more mainstream parties. At that point, I'd have thought Syriza would become fractured as a party and that the far-right might become more popular as the party of the anti-EU/austerity movement.

My understanding of this whole situation is fairly limited, so take what I post with a pinch of salt!
 
dingdongo said:
Will he still come out of it looking good or are people starting to doubt him?
I haven't been following that closely
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To be fair to Tsipras, he was voted in on an anti-austerity manifesto.

If he's going to agree to what the creditors want, he probably does need a new mandate from the electorate.
 
Greeks look set to vote 'no' to the bailout terms.

Jeremy Corbyn gets backing from Unite union for Labour leadership.

Interesting times!
 
I'm in the process of applying for a mortgage, I hope this situation doesn't have a negative impact on the UK banks in the upcoming weeks.
 
Doubt it, from what I've read UK banks don't have a huge amount of exposure (up to £10 billion) I believe and obviously we're not in the Euro but guess you never know what could happen.
 
The Greeks are playing this game out well. By going to a referendum, the Government have a renewed mandate to refuse the EU offer. Now the Germans realise they will likely get nothing. I see a renewal of negotiations coming on, with improved terms for the Greeks. Something is a better outcome for the Germans than nothing.
 
I'm asking this out of ignorance of figures/facts but in terms of a bail out, didn't we bail banking organisations globally to a brick load more than Greece are currently in debt for?
 
We did but it's all our own currency so we can do what we like (as long as we don't cause rampant inflation) and most of the bailout was in the form of bank funding guarantees I believe. £100bn or so was pure funding as in buying out RBS, Lloyds, Northern Rock etc rest was made available if required to other financial institutions but actually very little if any was taken up.

Actually just found this and it was £123bn but I think we'll get most of it back and probably make a profit eventually.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...tis/2011/sep/12/reality-check-banking-bailout
 
So, The Budget....anybody affected?

I think initially, I'm about the same and then will be a bit worse off as time goes by (due to 'In Work Benefits' freeze). To be honest, I am all for a high enough minimum wage to mean that tax credits and housing benefit are no longer needed by anyone. But then you are probably talking a wage of £10 an hour as of right now, rather than £9 in 5 years.

I feel sorry for youngsters who haven't got a solid family behind them. They get the lowest pay, they get the least help, and that seems exacerbated by this budget. Totally political, because they don't vote in large enough numbers.
 
the dza said:
To be honest, I am all for a high enough minimum wage to mean that tax credits and housing benefit are no longer needed by anyone.
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I'm not sure about this one. I genuinely don't know where I stand on it.

One one hand there's a valid argument that tax credits are simply government subsidising business. In some cases, especially larger corporates that's probably true.

On the other hand, businesses have the right to expect the government to properly educate its populace. There are people who work for me at a little over £7/hr and I genuinely find it hard to justify that much. Had the government educated them properly and given them the ability to be properly valuable to us (rather than just being a robot with no initial investment) then they'd earn more money. All a "living wage" does is make the argument for automation that much more clear.

Looking at it from a market forces angle, if we're offering very high basic wages as a minimum then we should expect immigration of marginally more skilled/able workers to (rightfully) take these jobs instead of the less skilled, native workers. I'm fairly sure that's not an intended consequence as the amount then paid to those workers would be massively increased as unemployment benefit.
 
scaramanga said:
I'm not sure about this one. I genuinely don't know where I stand on it.

One one hand there's a valid argument that tax credits are simply government subsidising business. In some cases, especially larger corporates that's probably true.

On the other hand, businesses have the right to expect the government to properly educate its populace. There are people who work for me at a little over £7/hr and I genuinely find it hard to justify that much. Had the government educated them properly and given them the ability to be properly valuable to us (rather than just being a robot with no initial investment) then they'd earn more money. All a "living wage" does is make the argument for automation that much more clear.

Looking at it from a market forces angle, if we're offering very high basic wages as a minimum then we should expect immigration of marginally more skilled/able workers to (rightfully) take these jobs instead of the less skilled, native workers. I'm fairly sure that's not an intended consequence as the amount then paid to those workers would be massively increased as unemployment benefit.
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I think the government should legislate for a higher minimum wage and then make the companies claim the 'tax credits' to then top up their workers' wages, rather than individual workers having to claim. For smaller businesses, I think the public would be happy for the government supporting them this way. For large corporations, the public could be rightly p1ssed off at their huge profits and government subsidised workforce and maybe they would then be more inclined to pay higher wages to save from the negative public reaction.

If it's only market forces we are to worry about, then allow immigration of unskilled workers from any country to come and do low skilled, repetitive jobs (which most low-wage jobs are) with no statutory minimum wage. I'm sure plenty would come and work for £2.50 an hour and bunk down in over-crowded houses to make it pay -- something no native would want to do, but if the market dictates then, so what? Selfishly, I prefer the government to ensure that I don't have to live that way if I happen to have a job that the market deems of a low value.
 
the dza said:
I think the government should legislate for a higher minimum wage and then make the companies claim the 'tax credits' to then top up their workers' wages, rather than individual workers having to claim. For smaller businesses, I think the public would be happy for the government supporting them this way. For large corporations, the public could be rightly p1ssed off at their huge profits and government subsidised workforce and maybe they would then be more inclined to pay higher wages to save from the negative public reaction.
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Not a bad idea in principle, but I wouldn't trust the average Joe to know the difference between a large-scale, low-margin company earning £1b profits (which would cease to exist with large wage hikes) and a smaller-scale higher-margin one earning £500m in profits which could comfortably afford the increase.

Any individual person can be intelligent, but it pays to remember that people, on the whole, are pretty fvcking stupid.

the dza said:
If it's only market forces we are to worry about, then allow immigration of unskilled workers from any country to come and do low skilled, repetitive jobs (which most low-wage jobs are) with no statutory minimum wage. I'm sure plenty would come and work for £2.50 an hour and bunk down in over-crowded houses to make it pay -- something no native would want to do, but if the market dictates then, so what? Selfishly, I prefer the government to ensure that I don't have to live that way if I happen to have a job that the market deems of a low value.
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I don't have any issue with that. If someone's willing to so the job for less than someone else they have every right to that job. If British people aren't willing to work for that wage then they need to skill up and get a better paid job.
 
Only just had a chance to read the budget properly and I can't say I'm overly impressed.

Whilst the cuts in spending are long overdue and very welcome, I'm far less impressed with the rest of it.

The new VED rules are fvcking ridiculous. "Premium cars" being anything over £40k?! Can anyone think of a single "premium car" available for £40k? That would barely get you a specced C-Class - a junior management runabout at best.

The increase in the higher rate band is welcome but it's been raised by an insultingly low amount - certainly not enough for anyone to notice the difference in their pay packets. Again, someone has their definitions wrong - £43k is not a salary deserving of a punitive tax rate.

I think the apprentice ideas are promising, although I'm not sure about the implementation.

Living wage is a terrible idea though from my calculations. It's only a brief forecast but it looks like our company will be losing 15 UK staff - and we're a fairly small company.
 
scaramanga said:
Living wage is a terrible idea though from my calculations. It's only a brief forecast but it looks like our company will be losing 15 UK staff - and we're a fairly small company.
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Is it not subsidised by lower corporation tax? How low are your profits?
 
Bullet said:
Is it not subsidised by lower corporation tax? How low are your profits?
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Profits are pretty good but margins in our industry are tiny.

We've not borrowed to invest in plant and cut staff because of the uncertain economic outlook. This makes it pretty certain that we will.

Corporation tax also drops for our competitors. Those that are more automated than us will not see a corresponding rise in labour costs. Raising the cost of employing the most basic of staff will only ever increase the drive for automation. That's not a problem on the macro economic level as long as the government does its job and raises educational standards so that people transition from manual to technical roles. That's not happening though.
 
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