[DaveO]

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:59 am  

BobbyD wrote:

If it isn't unemployment then why count it as it is, let it have it's own measure, give it's own identity, make it feel important.

The more logical measure to adopt would be those in full time employment, defined say as a minimum of 35 hours a week.

It would then be simple enough to calculate a total figure of how many people are part-time, on zero hours and actually unemployed.

No politician is gong to do that though as I suspect the figures would be pretty shocking but it would give us a true figure of how many of those 30m people in work stand a chance of supporting themselves as they have a full time job.

The rest? Well the state (i.e. you and me assuming you are a taxpayer) will be topping up their wages with benefit payments i.e. subsidising the profits of their employers.

Are you happy to be doing that?

On the flip side, are there overemployed (made up word) people? How many want less hours?

My Dad used to say (and this is decades ago I remember him saying it) that overtime was a great evil as it meant employers could save on employing enough workers to do the necessary work. It has always happened that people in employment take extra hours and employers are happy for them to do so. Back when my Dad said this is would have been seen as very left wing given things like zero hours contracts were unheard of.

There are also increasing numbers ( record numbers in fact) of over 65's still working.

What is needed is a combination of decent wages, pensions and legislation to ensure employers don't exploit people and people don't hog jobs.

Then there's the firms themselves, if they don't have the orders surely it's better to employ on the basis of what they can fulfill? I was at a customer last Thursday, the line runs on average 3 days per week, but things are picking up and that will increase probably towards the middle of next year based on how the sector operates. Vauxhalls at Ellesmere Port is another. You can bet the guys/girls at these places would class themselves as underemployed, but I will also bet they'd rather be that than unemployed.

Companies like Vauxhall do things called planning. They know what the demand for cars is at particular times of year and they employ economist to predict what they need to build. They aren't take by surprise and suddenly need to rush out and contact an employment agency to employ someone on zero hours contracts.

They couldn't anyway as I doubt there are people with the necessary skills sat by the phone waiting for a few hours assembly line work this week so they will retain their workers as a proper contract with a certain amount of guaranteed work - and pay.

For things like shops that have a Christmas employment issue they know what day Christmas falls on and ha e for decades planned accordingly. Temporary work at such times has always been there but is no excuse for zero hours jobs elsewhere.

Basically zero hours contracts excuses companies from planning and competence. They can just rush out and pick a few people up. If unemployment ever does drop significantly they won't be able to find people to work like this. What are they going to do then?

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:03 am  

Lord Elpers wrote:

Not every one has the time to spend their life on forums. Some of us have to work.

what? In the Real World?

Lord Elpers wrote:

Well we disagree. Given the state of the world's economies what we are seeing in the UK is very good news. Nobody is doing cartwheels and I have stated there is much more still to do. But the evidence is clear Osbornes austerity plan is working and his critics have been proven to be wrong. You appear to be a sore loser!

It's not very good news. It's better than contraction, but all the other economic indicators point to a still weak economy. Especially one so reliant on consumer spending. Just repeating that austerity is working over and over again doesn't make it so. The last 3 years have proved it didn't work. You appear to be a cheerleader for George Osborne.

Lord Elpers wrote:

Some of this maybe true but the overall number of new jobs has risen which should be welcomed given the very difficult hand this government were dealt. This increase in jobs is the complete opposite of what the left wing economist doom-mongers predicted.

This government were presented with a growing economy and all economic indicators being positive and managed to turn that around. Whilst any increase in jobs is welcome, again the other indicators point to the economy being weak. Some of the left may have gone over board. So did some on the right. Most notably the Chancellor of the Exchequer when comparing us to Greece. But some peoples predictions doesn't detract from what actually happened under this government.

Lord Elpers wrote:

Really?

Yes, that fake little follower of yours has already proved it for me

Lord Elpers wrote:

So you think the many and serious problems left by Labour and the world economic meltdown could all be solved at a stroke eh?

I think the effects on ordinary people could have been mitigated far, far more by pursuing a different and more logical economic policy.

Lord Elpers wrote:

Are you really saying the euozone crisis and recession had no serious impact on our economy?

I'm sure it did have an impact, the amount of which won't truly be known for a long time if ever. But it certainly didn't have an impact before it actually started.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:03 am  

Chris28 wrote:

While others conveniently ignore the reasons for the whole balls up in the first place...

No one is disputing the world financial crash and the effects it had on all economies. What some Labour supporters choose to overlook is the poor state Britain had been left in by the Blair/Brown Government's disasterous economic policies.

Despite enjoying 10 years of a worldwide economic boom Buster ("no more boom and bust") Brown and Ed Balls-up presided over an unprecedented period of borrow and spend which grew the state (and their potential re-election supporters) out of proportion. In those good times they failed to do the maintenance work the country so badly needed. They also failed to regulate our own financial services industry adequately. So when the world economic bubble burst Britain was in much poorer shape than most of the other leading economies with a huge deficit and no policies in place to halt the downward plunge.

The coalition inherited a country in a serious fiscal crisis with its public services "broken" and mired in "deep-seated problems of unsustainable spending, uncompetitive taxes and unreformed public services" as Osborne said.

These, and the other factors I have previously mentioned are the reasons why things have taken so long to see the real signs of recovery. This is the Buster Brown/ Ed Balls-up legacy that we all shouldn't forget.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:34 am  

Lord Elpers wrote:

The coalition inherited a country in a serious fiscal crisis with its public services "broken" and mired in "deep-seated problems of unsustainable spending, uncompetitive taxes and unreformed public services" as Osborne said.

These, and the other factors I have previously mentioned are the reasons why things have taken so long to see the real signs of recovery. This is the Buster Brown/ Ed Balls-up legacy that we all shouldn't forget.

Being a politician is an unusual job.

You can spend years, even decades sitting on your hands in opposition viewing the government at close quarters, working with civil servants, understanding how civil service departments work, hell you ARE a civil servant, you spend all this time watching and waiting and criticising and planning on how you would do things differently, preparing shadow budgets that you profess would work much better and come election time you present yourself as the most eminently qualified person to do the job.

And then you get elected and on your first day in the new job you run screaming from the building with "I didn't realise it was THIS BAD!!!" and spend the next five years blaming your predecessor.

In a private business you'd get away with that for a few weeks but then your boss would start to ask you what YOUR plans were and how, given that you knew what the job was when you applied for it, YOU were going to put it right.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:18 pm  

Him wrote:

GDP per Capita when the Coalition came to power - 32809
Latest GDP per Capita - 32722

Thanks for proving the GDP per capita figures have fallen since 2010.

?????

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:21 pm  

Him wrote:

Again, thanks for proving that the Coalition took over a growing economy and caused it to falter before any Eurozone issue occurred.

Is it an interpreting graphs thing? IT seems to go on a lot round here. Unless you think Osborne's policies influenced the French, Germans and Italians.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:28 pm  

Him wrote: :lol: what? In the Real World? . It is interesting to note that all these moderator types who spend so much time on here all have left wing views and seem to know a lot about under-employment. I wonder why? How many are public servants? How many are employed? and if so do their employers know they are moonlighting? Him wrote: :It's not very good news. It's better than contraction, but all the other economic indicators point to a still weak economy. Especially one so reliant on consumer spending. Just repeating that austerity is working over and over again doesn't make it so. The last 3 years have proved it didn't work. You appear to be a cheerleader for George Osborne. . All the signs are for the recovery to continue. We have just had the biggest upward revision of growth in an official forecast for 14 years as I previously reported (OBR's jump from 0.6% to 1.4% and forecast 2.4% for 2014) Business optimism has been even stronger with the three main sectors of the economy - services, manufacturing and construction - are showing the strongest pick-up since the mid 1990s when the economy was recovering strongly. So clearly Osborne has stuck to his plan despite all his many critics demanding he change direction. His austerity policy is now proven to be clearly working and bearing fruit and he has won the intellectual economic policy argument over Labour with their borrow and spend and others with the Keynesian dogma. Him wrote: :This government were presented with a growing economy and all economic indicators being positive and managed to turn that around. Whilst any increase in jobs is welcome, again the other indicators point to the economy being weak. Some of the left may have gone over board. So did some on the right. Most notably the Chancellor of the Exchequer when comparing us to Greece. But some peoples predictions doesn't detract from what actually happened under this government. . See my piece above (and previous comments) about what Buster Brown & Ed Balls-up left behind. The economy had dived 7.2% in 2008/9 and any improvement prior to the 2010 election should not be taken as a "growing economy" You are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Him wrote: :Yes, that fake little follower of yours has already proved it for me. Because there are those that agree with my points does not make them followers or indeed fakes. You seem obsessed and I could perhaps take you more seriously if you stopped being so personal. Him wrote: :I think the effects on ordinary people could have been mitigated far, far more by pursuing a different and more logical economic policy. . Ok then lets have some details on your "different more logical economic policy" Him wrote: :I'm sure it did have an impact, the amount of which won't truly be known for a long time if ever. But it certainly didn't have an impact before it actually started. The eurozone crisis started before the UK election. January 2010: The worlds biggest bond trader warned "the UK's debt was resting on a bed of nitroglycerine". Official figures confirmed that Britain had emerged from recession by the narrowest of margins. April 2010: the govenor of the BoE warned that the victor in the imminent election will be forced into austerity measures that will keep the party out of power for a generation. April 2010: First bail out for Greece June 2010: Euro sinks to 4 year low August 2010: British exports to Portugal, Itlay, ireland, Greece & Spain plunge by 16% etc etc etc http://www.theguardian.com/business/interactive/2012/oct/17/eurozone-crisis-interactive-timeline-three-years

Him wrote: :lol: what? In the Real World? . It is interesting to note that all these moderator types who spend so much time on here all have left wing views and seem to know a lot about under-employment. I wonder why? How many are public servants? How many are employed? and if so do their employers know they are moonlighting? Him wrote: :It's not very good news. It's better than contraction, but all the other economic indicators point to a still weak economy. Especially one so reliant on consumer spending. Just repeating that austerity is working over and over again doesn't make it so. The last 3 years have proved it didn't work. You appear to be a cheerleader for George Osborne. . All the signs are for the recovery to continue. We have just had the biggest upward revision of growth in an official forecast for 14 years as I previously reported (OBR's jump from 0.6% to 1.4% and forecast 2.4% for 2014) Business optimism has been even stronger with the three main sectors of the economy - services, manufacturing and construction - are showing the strongest pick-up since the mid 1990s when the economy was recovering strongly. So clearly Osborne has stuck to his plan despite all his many critics demanding he change direction. His austerity policy is now proven to be clearly working and bearing fruit and he has won the intellectual economic policy argument over Labour with their borrow and spend and others with the Keynesian dogma. Him wrote: :This government were presented with a growing economy and all economic indicators being positive and managed to turn that around. Whilst any increase in jobs is welcome, again the other indicators point to the economy being weak. Some of the left may have gone over board. So did some on the right. Most notably the Chancellor of the Exchequer when comparing us to Greece. But some peoples predictions doesn't detract from what actually happened under this government. . See my piece above (and previous comments) about what Buster Brown & Ed Balls-up left behind. The economy had dived 7.2% in 2008/9 and any improvement prior to the 2010 election should not be taken as a "growing economy" You are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Him wrote: :Yes, that fake little follower of yours has already proved it for me. Because there are those that agree with my points does not make them followers or indeed fakes. You seem obsessed and I could perhaps take you more seriously if you stopped being so personal. Him wrote: :I think the effects on ordinary people could have been mitigated far, far more by pursuing a different and more logical economic policy. . Ok then lets have some details on your "different more logical economic policy" Him wrote: :I'm sure it did have an impact, the amount of which won't truly be known for a long time if ever. But it certainly didn't have an impact before it actually started. The eurozone crisis started before the UK election. January 2010: The worlds biggest bond trader warned "the UK's debt was resting on a bed of nitroglycerine". Official figures confirmed that Britain had emerged from recession by the narrowest of margins. April 2010: the govenor of the BoE warned that the victor in the imminent election will be forced into austerity measures that will keep the party out of power for a generation. April 2010: First bail out for Greece June 2010: Euro sinks to 4 year low August 2010: British exports to Portugal, Itlay, ireland, Greece & Spain plunge by 16% etc etc etc http://www.theguardian.com/business/interactive/2012/oct/17/eurozone-crisis-interactive-timeline-three-years

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:30 pm  

Him wrote:

Again, thanks for proving that the Coalition took over a growing economy and caused it to falter before any Eurozone issue occurred.

What nonsense. See my points above.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:42 pm  

So its a blog and it writer has an opinion, but those opinions are linked to facts (within the article) provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility which is basically Osbornes mentors, have a read at the stats they came out with this week which seem, unusually, to have been hidden quite well by the ho-hah over the employment figures, possibly because these figures are not as optimistic. http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/the-rise-of-the-hardworking-poor/ Doesn't really matter what your political opinions are, if you can read a graph you can ignore the rhetoric and decide for yourself whether or not wages are keeping pace with economic growth or past projections - they aren't by the way. Personally I'm of a mind to agree with the last paragraph ... It seems that our economy and, to be fair, those of a number of other western countries, can no longer create enough jobs that pay well enough to keep people off benefits. The stereotype of the work-shy dole scrounger is out of date. These days, someone poor and on benefits is more likely to come from one of those hardworking families the government keeps telling us about. No amount of selfish "Well I'm ok" or "Well work harder" or "Well get another job" can alter the facts.

So its a blog and it writer has an opinion, but those opinions are linked to facts (within the article) provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility which is basically Osbornes mentors, have a read at the stats they came out with this week which seem, unusually, to have been hidden quite well by the ho-hah over the employment figures, possibly because these figures are not as optimistic. http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/the-rise-of-the-hardworking-poor/ Doesn't really matter what your political opinions are, if you can read a graph you can ignore the rhetoric and decide for yourself whether or not wages are keeping pace with economic growth or past projections - they aren't by the way. Personally I'm of a mind to agree with the last paragraph ... It seems that our economy and, to be fair, those of a number of other western countries, can no longer create enough jobs that pay well enough to keep people off benefits. The stereotype of the work-shy dole scrounger is out of date. These days, someone poor and on benefits is more likely to come from one of those hardworking families the government keeps telling us about. No amount of selfish "Well I'm ok" or "Well work harder" or "Well get another job" can alter the facts.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:43 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

Being a politician is an unusual job.

You can spend years, even decades sitting on your hands in opposition viewing the government at close quarters, working with civil servants, understanding how civil service departments work, hell you ARE a civil servant, you spend all this time watching and waiting and criticising and planning on how you would do things differently, preparing shadow budgets that you profess would work much better and come election time you present yourself as the most eminently qualified person to do the job.

And then you get elected and on your first day in the new job you run screaming from the building with "I didn't realise it was THIS BAD!!!" and spend the next five years blaming your predecessor.

In a private business you'd get away with that for a few weeks but then your boss would start to ask you what YOUR plans were and how, given that you knew what the job was when you applied for it, YOU were going to put it right.

Osborne and Cameron and the Libs did have plans and put them into action and to their great credit have steadfastly refused to change or compromise in the face of the huge opposition from Labour and the leftie chattering classes. Their policy has now been proven to be working despite several strong outside forces that have delayed the results from showing earlier. But with a new election on the horizon why should we forget the economic mess that was left by Labour? And why should we forget Labour's opposition to every single move the government has made to recify our economy and we should not forget either Labour's runinous alternative policy?