Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:03 pm  

JerryChicken wrote: 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 ... No amount of selfish "Well I'm ok" or "Well work harder" or "Well get another job" can alter the facts. You cannot expect real income to improve quickly after such a serious crisis. The fact that so many new jobs have been created is a big step in the right direction. Once confidence and growth return then productivity then profits and then income will then have a chance to increase.

JerryChicken wrote: 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 ... No amount of selfish "Well I'm ok" or "Well work harder" or "Well get another job" can alter the facts. You cannot expect real income to improve quickly after such a serious crisis. The fact that so many new jobs have been created is a big step in the right direction. Once confidence and growth return then productivity then profits and then income will then have a chance to increase.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:06 pm  

Lord Elpers wrote:

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.

Does uncertainty multiply exponentially? There are a lot of known unknowns in there. As well as unmeasurables.

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.

Really?

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:14 pm  

Lord Elpers wrote:

You cannot expect real income to improve quickly after such a serious crisis.

Why not? Gideon's plans are "proven to be clearly working". If he's that good, why are incomes not improving as fast for non-MPs?

The fact that so many new jobs have been created is a big step in the right direction. Once confidence and growth return then productivity then profits and then income will then have a chance to increase.

So only if a company starts making a profit, they might be able to pay more in wages? And not more to shareholders? And the costs of producing the goods and services don't already include the cost of wages? And of course no bosses in a private company will ever just carry on with the same wages for staff while filling up the Bentley with the increased company income.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:23 pm  

DaveO wrote:

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.

We already know these figures, the numbers are in the papers almost every day.

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?

I'm not subsidising any employer, they employ people on a salary, if governments choose to bump up this salary with "free" money then that's their shout and will be reflected in my thoughts come election day.

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.

Why would employers take on more staff when there are people willing to work the extra for time and a half/double time?
The name "zero hour contracts" may not have existed but I bet the practice did, did bar staff in the local Lib/Lab/Con club have cast iron contracts guaranteeing work? How many shop assistants? I know when I worked in a bar, a long time ago, I didn't. I had 2 pencilled in shifts, Sunday 1:30-3:00 (didn't get paid for the bottling up) and Thursday 7:30-11:00 (no bottling up). This could change on the day depending on the needs of the landlady. To be fair, it was usually asking me to come in early to cover, usually Friday afternoon.

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

I'm almost certain there are, the population is aging, the health of the population increases people stay active longer, (I've just left my dad on scaffolding painting the side of a house, he's pushing 70).
Why are people working longer? Need money? Like to do something? Escape the spouse?

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.

Hog jobs?

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.

Did they plan to almost close the plant? Funny you should mention agency work, VW in Germany recently announced an intake of agency staff in Germany.

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?

Then the employees hold the whip hand.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:30 pm  

Why are people fixated with retiring at an arbitray age - such as 65? If I live that long and am fit enough I'd like to work until at least 75. I'd be happy greeting people at B&Q or whatever. Why not?

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:33 pm  

Lord Elpers wrote:

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?

Its what the opposition does, its what every opposition party does, there wouldn't be any point in an opposition party if all they did was agree with the government.

But heres the thing - they may object in parliament but it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have done exactly the same thing themselves in the same situation - thats the luxury of being in opposition, you can object and sneer at the governing party all you like and yet offer no alternative or solution or even offer some credible advice - its where the parliamentary party system fails.

Was accidentally reading Osbornes reaction to the bailing out of the banks in 2008, he criticised Darling and Brown for giving any assistance to any bank and blamed everything on Labours economic policies and their wasteful use of public money in those policies - as was his right - yet he offered no suggestion as to what he would have done, nor has he since, as is his right.

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:34 pm  

Lord Elpers wrote:

You cannot expect real income to improve quickly after such a serious crisis. The fact that so many new jobs have been created is a big step in the right direction. Once confidence and growth return then productivity then profits and then income will then have a chance to increase.

I'm expecting nothing, I'm just highlighting how the predictions have failed so miserably over several years and how revision follows revision just as Spring follows Winter...

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:03 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

We already know these figures, the numbers are in the papers almost every day.

There's a limit to the number of smilies permitted, so I'll stick with two

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:13 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

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.

Yes you do seem to have a problem with it.
No I don't. I think their economies were affected by a Euro fiscal problem within the Eurozone that required billions of Euros to bail out some of their monetary partners. Fortunately we didn't have that problem as we stayed with the pound. There's a reason it was called a Eurozone crisis.

If you think it affected the UK that badly, how do you explain the fact that UK exports kept increasing during that period?
Not to mention why consumer confidence, business confidence etc would fall so quickly after the Coalition coming into power despite rising just before?

Re: No More Arguments: Austerity is Working! : Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:20 pm  

DaveO wrote:

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?

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.


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?

Firstly I am a Tory voter and I will always vote that way - damage limitation in my opinion. The idea that we are in recovery is just fantasy IMO. I do think there is the beginnings of a better feeling but it is the beginnings IMO and it will take several months.

I think your appraisal of a manufacturing supply chain is way off the mark for the majority of businesses. Supply chain planning is one of the most difficult jobs in any organisation and a challenge that even the best - Apple - have not mastered. Even simple supply chains are complex.

The idea that there is no case for labour flexibility - zero hour contracts are a no-no for me - because planning is so easy is so far from reality that it is obvious you know very little about supply chain and manufacturing.