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6.7m people in Britain are in financial difficulty
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! " . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is." That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. " That's right, fuck poor people. Vote Tory | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. That's right, fuck poor people. Vote Tory " What does your answer have to do with anything that the other poster said? | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. That's right, fuck poor people. Vote Tory "  | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. That's right, fuck poor people. Vote Tory What does your answer have to do with anything that the other poster said? " I was agreeing with him. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. That's right, fuck poor people. Vote Tory What does your answer have to do with anything that the other poster said? I was agreeing with him." He didn't say vote Tory. Nor did he say fuck poor people. How did you agree with him then? | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me." Of all the nonsense spouted in this forum this has to be up there with the most ridiculous post I’ve ever seen. Feel free to explain how society will function in this scenario… | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. Of all the nonsense spouted in this forum this has to be up there with the most ridiculous post I’ve ever seen. Feel free to explain how society will function in this scenario… " Perhaps key words such as "suggestion" and "initiative" give you a clue. This is simply something to discuss amongst other initiatives that could help with wealth distribution. There is no magic wand and no simple solution but to simply dismiss any suggestions as being nonsensical is pointless. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. Of all the nonsense spouted in this forum this has to be up there with the most ridiculous post I’ve ever seen. Feel free to explain how society will function in this scenario… Perhaps key words such as "suggestion" and "initiative" give you a clue. This is simply something to discuss amongst other initiatives that could help with wealth distribution. There is no magic wand and no simple solution but to simply dismiss any suggestions as being nonsensical is pointless." equality and a deep dive to the bottom of the barrel by limiting wealth is not the answer, unless you have a communists mindset | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is." I know there have been other posts on this but just had to say what utter nonsense. Who made this suggestion? | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. Of all the nonsense spouted in this forum this has to be up there with the most ridiculous post I’ve ever seen. Feel free to explain how society will function in this scenario… Perhaps key words such as "suggestion" and "initiative" give you a clue. This is simply something to discuss amongst other initiatives that could help with wealth distribution. There is no magic wand and no simple solution but to simply dismiss any suggestions as being nonsensical is pointless." People who have 10 Million usually hold that money in investments. Those investments can go up or down anytime. And if you put artificial limits like this, the country will probably run out of investments. This is the kind of idea that comes from people who have never touched an economics book in their life. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me." If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure " Rubbish | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure " Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread." Really??? It is not as simple as that The ceiling of £10 million is only a suggestion and certainly not a realistic figure given how a London townhouse costs more. A cap is certainly a viable option but the limit needs to be thrashed out be realistic. Money would not automatically go to the poor however surely there are better ways to distribute it such as a more realistic minimum wage. This is not a simple yes/no solution or quick fix and there are many complexities but the solution holds merit along with others. Or perhaps we should stick with the status quo and bury our heads in the sand denying that there is actually any problem with poverty in the UK. "I'm alright Jack" perhaps sums up the attitude of some of the populace but I had hoped to not see it here amongst the good people of Fab. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. " Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases." Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. " What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected." This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? " Only if the highest paid person wants to earn £1,000,000. " Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company." Why? They’re free to earn as much as they like, no one is stopping them. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve " If the only incentive your employees have to improve is financial, then you are a terrible leader. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? Only if the highest paid person wants to earn £1,000,000. " You know lots of software engineers and finance bankers earn £1,000,000 per year already right? It's not just the ones in the top. They are getting paid that much because of supply/demand. " Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company. Why? They’re free to earn as much as they like, no one is stopping them. " Pay is based on supply/demand. If you are artificially forcing obstacles on paying a high demand employee higher salary, that person wouldn't have an incentive to gain skills to become that high demand employee. What you suggest is a recipe to rot the economy. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected." So what you are saying is sack most of the low paid so you can afford to pay some a bit more. This will probably also include the cost of what you do going up so the poor can no longer it.. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. " Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! " A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty,so in nut shell 6.7 million are spending more than they earn. I some times work 16 hour shifts 7 days a week when the world is there any one can work more to improve there life. Most could ballance the budget if they realy wanted 2. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. " Or they are better off investing money into machines that can be used to clean everything that the cleaners whose salaries they are trying to protect will just lose their jobs. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? Only if the highest paid person wants to earn £1,000,000. You know lots of software engineers and finance bankers earn £1,000,000 per year already right? It's not just the ones in the top. They are getting paid that much because of supply/demand. " Doesn’t bother me how much people in the middle earn, only the one at the very top, and those at the bottom. " Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company. Why? They’re free to earn as much as they like, no one is stopping them. Pay is based on supply/demand. If you are artificially forcing obstacles on paying a high demand employee higher salary, that person wouldn't have an incentive to gain skills to become that high demand employee. What you suggest is a recipe to rot the economy." That’s how we currently do it, who is to say we can’t do it differently? Like I said, it’s only the people at the very top and bottom concern who me. If they don’t want to pay the lowest paid a lot of money then there’s a very simple way to not do that. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. Or they are better off investing money into machines that can be used to clean everything that the cleaners whose salaries they are trying to protect will just lose their jobs." Same out, come ride on swipers are even in supermarkets these days 1 person for a few hours rather then lots of in store cleaner's. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. " You’ve not read my post, have you? | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve If the only incentive your employees have to improve is financial, then you are a terrible leader." And yet the post is about people struggling financially... | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. Or they are better off investing money into machines that can be used to clean everything that the cleaners whose salaries they are trying to protect will just lose their jobs." The amount of extra tax we collect we could afford the benefits for the people made redundant. Good luck in finding the robots that can clean in all the nooks and crannies, or lift things up and clean underneath them etc. | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve If the only incentive your employees have to improve is financial, then you are a terrible leader. And yet the post is about people struggling financially..." They won’t be when they are on 10% and f what the highest earner is on. | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve If the only incentive your employees have to improve is financial, then you are a terrible leader. And yet the post is about people struggling financially... They won’t be when they are on 10% and f what the highest earner is on." 10% of what | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. You’ve not read my post, have you?" Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. | |||
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" Doesn’t bother me how much people in the middle earn, only the one at the very top, and those at the bottom. " It just shows you haven't thought through the whole thing. How exactly did you arrive at the number 1,000,000? Compare a company that makes 10B in revenue per year and a competitor that makes 200M revenue. The method you suggest makes it easy for the big company to grow while small companies will lose the competition. Is that what you want? " Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company. Why? They’re free to earn as much as they like, no one is stopping them. Pay is based on supply/demand. If you are artificially forcing obstacles on paying a high demand employee higher salary, that person wouldn't have an incentive to gain skills to become that high demand employee. What you suggest is a recipe to rot the economy. That’s how we currently do it, who is to say we can’t do it differently? Like I said, it’s only the people at the very top and bottom concern who me. If they don’t want to pay the lowest paid a lot of money then there’s a very simple way to not do that." That's the way it is because we know that's the way that works. If a society needs a lot of doctors/nurses, we need to pay them higher until we have enough people training to become doctors/nurses. In UK, it doesn't happen because the salaries are set arbitrarily by public organisations. If you artificially inflate the cleaner's pay to over 100,000 then there isn't an incentive to train for the people to train for any other more difficult job that pays similar. Sure you can say that the other jobs' salaries must also rise similarly. In that case, everyone's salary increases and the 100,000 will not be worth half of it today because of inflation. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Well that's simple enough to fix only employ executives on high wages in the company, other staff can be contractors so not employees. You could even set up another company that holds the low paid staff jobs like cleaners, and contract that company out to company A. That way yoy also get to take 2 salaries, one from the first company nice and high and a low one from the second one to keep wages low. Or they are better off investing money into machines that can be used to clean everything that the cleaners whose salaries they are trying to protect will just lose their jobs. The amount of extra tax we collect we could afford the benefits for the people made redundant. Good luck in finding the robots that can clean in all the nooks and crannies, or lift things up and clean underneath them etc." One can create robots that do everything as long as there is investment. Right now, manual labour charge for cleaning isn't that high and that's exactly why investment in automating it isn't high either. Amount of extra tax. Lol. Unless you charge them 100% of the extra money they make out of automation, you won't be able to use that money to pay for people who don't work. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? Only if the highest paid person wants to earn £1,000,000. You know lots of software engineers and finance bankers earn £1,000,000 per year already right? It's not just the ones in the top. They are getting paid that much because of supply/demand. Doesn’t bother me how much people in the middle earn, only the one at the very top, and those at the bottom. Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company. Why? They’re free to earn as much as they like, no one is stopping them. Pay is based on supply/demand. If you are artificially forcing obstacles on paying a high demand employee higher salary, that person wouldn't have an incentive to gain skills to become that high demand employee. What you suggest is a recipe to rot the economy. That’s how we currently do it, who is to say we can’t do it differently? Like I said, it’s only the people at the very top and bottom concern who me. If they don’t want to pay the lowest paid a lot of money then there’s a very simple way to not do that." So the top are fine we know that. The bottom I class as struggling in soisial hosing but have little aspiration to improve there life lost Drink, Smoke and or do drugs. The middle are getting less and less support from government and socierty on the hole. Are what we are talking abut as pore are more pore then the pore of 40 years ago. Or where the pore 40 years ago just more adaptable and able to better look after there money in ma simpler life. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve If the only incentive your employees have to improve is financial, then you are a terrible leader. And yet the post is about people struggling financially... They won’t be when they are on 10% and f what the highest earner is on. 10% of what " O if this system you sergest was applied to supermarket's the person on the till or stacking the shelf is going to be paid 1/10 of the CEO And you don't think the price will go up so things cost more for everyone. Oh let's look at energy company's oh the is owed buy a foreign company and the CEO has incomes from 3 companies. How would that work. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank." To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings." But if the cleaner provides there own Transport, hover, cleaning products etc, ad if they work more ad hoch as I 2 hours one day the do a night so there is no pattern it would be definited as sub contract as far as IR35 is concerned. Or they could just work on a price £ for one office £ for the common way no hours to be payed. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. But if the cleaner provides there own Transport, hover, cleaning products etc, ad if they work more ad hoch as I 2 hours one day the do a night so there is no pattern it would be definited as sub contract as far as IR35 is concerned. Or they could just work on a price £ for one office £ for the common way no hours to be payed." I would not be employing / contracting an individual cleaner though I'd be getting a service from a company ir35 is when you are playing a contracted person not a company. The cleaning company pays the cleaner from payroll so their income is not "off payroll". As the company receiving the service I will not care if the cleaner is a different person each time and the cleaning company will provide all tools nessassary. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings." I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! " Can I ask you and the rest what you see pucive is poverty. Most of the poor are in social housing, so at least they do have a roof. Traveling India you see the real poor in this world. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes." The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty,so in nut shell 6.7 million are spending more than they earn. I some times work 16 hour shifts 7 days a week when the world is there any one can work more to improve there life. Most could ballance the budget if they realy wanted 2." So you are ok with doing a person out of a job by doing the hours of two people, 16 hours when 8 is the norm, the utter greed and double standards of some people | |||
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"So now if a company wants to buy in sandwiches for a client meeting the sandwiches service needs to have an employee with a minimum income of 10% my wage ? And you don't see how that will stop people using these services and reduce employment opportunities? " I’d only apply it to work done on site, delivery does not count. In the case of the catering company the same rule would apply for the highest to lowest paid ratio, minimum wage obviously still applies. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. " I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty,so in nut shell 6.7 million are spending more than they earn. I some times work 16 hour shifts 7 days a week when the world is there any one can work more to improve there life. Most could ballance the budget if they realy wanted 2. So you are ok with doing a person out of a job by doing the hours of two people, 16 hours when 8 is the norm, the utter greed and double standards of some people" More then happy and my bank ballance is all the better for it. Have always had more the one job and don't see that changing. There are so meny jobs out there to be filled it hard to know why more people don't fill the positions and work more. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! Can I ask you and the rest what you see pucive is poverty. Most of the poor are in social housing, so at least they do have a roof. Traveling India you see the real poor in this world." I’m not sure ‘we’re not as bad as India’ is quite as good an argument as you think. | |||
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"So now if a company wants to buy in sandwiches for a client meeting the sandwiches service needs to have an employee with a minimum income of 10% my wage ? And you don't see how that will stop people using these services and reduce employment opportunities? I’d only apply it to work done on site, delivery does not count. In the case of the catering company the same rule would apply for the highest to lowest paid ratio, minimum wage obviously still applies." Mark Dowie, chief executive of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, is taking a 50% pay cut as part of the charity's response to the coronavirus crisis. Dowie's annual salary was £160,000 last year, according to the RNLI website.9 Apr 2020 So should all RNLI people be payed under your system? | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! Can I ask you and the rest what you see pucive is poverty. Most of the poor are in social housing, so at least they do have a roof. Traveling India you see the real poor in this world. I’m not sure ‘we’re not as bad as India’ is quite as good an argument as you think." Go to Kerala and go to the slum area or watch the kids hunting plastic on the rubbish that's poor. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty,so in nut shell 6.7 million are spending more than they earn. I some times work 16 hour shifts 7 days a week when the world is there any one can work more to improve there life. Most could ballance the budget if they realy wanted 2. So you are ok with doing a person out of a job by doing the hours of two people, 16 hours when 8 is the norm, the utter greed and double standards of some people" From the ONS. In the three months to February 2024, there were approximately 908,000 job vacancies in the UK, compared with 928,000 in the previous month. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs." Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences." And this is exsasabated with the encouragement of people working for them self and there for able to exploit the loop holes created for the rich, but are now being used my more and more of the middle to reduce there tax burden. | |||
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" There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. " You are correct up to a point. Arguably, minimum and living wages are artificially enforced pay structures, pegged to RPI or political expediency or whatever. Certainly, a 10%-of-CEO flat minimum structure is absurd and oversimplified. But the concept is sound - dividends, executive pay and bonuses could all be somehow linked to average or minimum pay, perhaps in a limited capacity. Different companies could have different models. The idea has merit and should be explored. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. Absolutely! Sadly, the only way to make the rich care about the poor is to ensure that their prospects are connected. This doesn't encourage people to strive to improve If the only incentive your employees have to improve is financial, then you are a terrible leader. And yet the post is about people struggling financially... They won’t be when they are on 10% and f what the highest earner is on." And why should they be? don't make the successful subsidise anymore than they already do | |||
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" There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. You are correct up to a point. Arguably, minimum and living wages are artificially enforced pay structures, pegged to RPI or political expediency or whatever. Certainly, a 10%-of-CEO flat minimum structure is absurd and oversimplified. But the concept is sound - dividends, executive pay and bonuses could all be somehow linked to average or minimum pay, perhaps in a limited capacity. Different companies could have different models. The idea has merit and should be explored. " IMO minimum wage rules never worked. But that's a whole different argument. Why do you think a CEO is paid so much money by a board? What incentive is the board having in paying so much to the CEO? They believe that the CEO is worth that much money. The moment you go and say that increasing a CEO salary comes at a cost, many things could happen. - They just move the company elsewhere - They increase the pay for everyone but end up increasing their prices. They lose to companies from China and US who do not have to follow these laws - All the people stop training themselves in jobs which are in demand and instead go for the lowest paid job which is already over 100,000. Companies see that this country doesn't have skilled man power and leave the country. - Companies just fire the low level workers and get contractors to do the job. - The company manages to pay the CEO in some indirect way using loopholes in the law Of all the other outcomes, the last one is probably the best outcome for the country. Just like rent controls, this is just another thing that sounds good when you look at it in isolation but fail miserably once you think about how it will turn out in practice. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Rubbish" In what way this is rubbish? | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. " Nobody would be able to afford the cleaners on this rate, so they would not be employed. An employer pays the market rate, they can employ 1 or thousands, again the model simply would not work. Organisations need people at the helm who can generate returns, which in turn create employment and taxes, this will not change under any government elected in our life times. | |||
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" IMO minimum wage rules never worked. But that's a whole different argument. " A huge problem today in the UK is that the government is subsidising businesses with our taxes. The UK government provides below-cost workers to companies, sometimes that do not benefit the country. When a company pays less than a worker needs to survive, the government steps in and picks up the slack. When the company is based overseas and profits go there, then it's a pretty pathetic deal for the UK. We want taxes to go down and benefits to be minimised. This means that companies need to pay workers adequately. Otherwise the government is subsidising companies, which goes against free market capitalism. Minimum wages (pegged to something, be it RPI, CEO pay, cost of living, whatever) are a way of preventing the otherwise inevitable exploitation and the need for government benefits. | |||
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" IMO minimum wage rules never worked. But that's a whole different argument. A huge problem today in the UK is that the government is subsidising businesses with our taxes. The UK government provides below-cost workers to companies, sometimes that do not benefit the country. When a company pays less than a worker needs to survive, the government steps in and picks up the slack. When the company is based overseas and profits go there, then it's a pretty pathetic deal for the UK. We want taxes to go down and benefits to be minimised. This means that companies need to pay workers adequately. Otherwise the government is subsidising companies, which goes against free market capitalism. Minimum wages (pegged to something, be it RPI, CEO pay, cost of living, whatever) are a way of preventing the otherwise inevitable exploitation and the need for government benefits." Unskilled workers will always be at the lower end of the pay band, if you inflate the bottom, the middle and top follow and inflation will rise. Tax payers contribute a % of their earnings to support through benefits those who need extra support, the more a person earns the more they contribute. What is unfair with the system, or how can the system be made better without impacting the economy? | |||
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" IMO minimum wage rules never worked. But that's a whole different argument. A huge problem today in the UK is that the government is subsidising businesses with our taxes. The UK government provides below-cost workers to companies, sometimes that do not benefit the country. When a company pays less than a worker needs to survive, the government steps in and picks up the slack. When the company is based overseas and profits go there, then it's a pretty pathetic deal for the UK. We want taxes to go down and benefits to be minimised. This means that companies need to pay workers adequately. Otherwise the government is subsidising companies, which goes against free market capitalism. Minimum wages (pegged to something, be it RPI, CEO pay, cost of living, whatever) are a way of preventing the otherwise inevitable exploitation and the need for government benefits." This a circular argument. Where do 'our' taxes come from in the first place? Corporation tax, dividend tax, employer NI contributions, tax on employee earnings, employee NI, VAT on purchases....it's companies that generate tax revenues!! | |||
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" IMO minimum wage rules never worked. But that's a whole different argument. A huge problem today in the UK is that the government is subsidising businesses with our taxes. The UK government provides below-cost workers to companies, sometimes that do not benefit the country. When a company pays less than a worker needs to survive, the government steps in and picks up the slack. When the company is based overseas and profits go there, then it's a pretty pathetic deal for the UK. We want taxes to go down and benefits to be minimised. This means that companies need to pay workers adequately. Otherwise the government is subsidising companies, which goes against free market capitalism. Minimum wages (pegged to something, be it RPI, CEO pay, cost of living, whatever) are a way of preventing the otherwise inevitable exploitation and the need for government benefits. This a circular argument. Where do 'our' taxes come from in the first place? Corporation tax, dividend tax, employer NI contributions, tax on employee earnings, employee NI, VAT on purchases....it's companies that generate tax revenues!!" Where is the circular argument? | |||
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"People have to live within their means " And so say me, the poor just have less spend but most are very happy.. | |||
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"People have to live within their means " Exactly, and if they want to improve their situation they need to get better knowledge and skills to move up the ladder. I fail to see the difficulty in understanding this basic concept | |||
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"People have to live within their means Exactly, and if they want to improve their situation they need to get better knowledge and skills to move up the ladder. I fail to see the difficulty in understanding this basic concept " Agree. There needs to be a welfare safety net for people who hit hard times, but this should be temporary. Now we have a situation where two thirds of local government budgets are spent on social welfare. | |||
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"So now if a company wants to buy in sandwiches for a client meeting the sandwiches service needs to have an employee with a minimum income of 10% my wage ? And you don't see how that will stop people using these services and reduce employment opportunities? I’d only apply it to work done on site, delivery does not count. In the case of the catering company the same rule would apply for the highest to lowest paid ratio, minimum wage obviously still applies. Mark Dowie, chief executive of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, is taking a 50% pay cut as part of the charity's response to the coronavirus crisis. Dowie's annual salary was £160,000 last year, according to the RNLI website.9 Apr 2020 So should all RNLI people be payed under your system?" Again, the highest paid person cannot be paid over 10x more than the highest paid person. That’s pretty easy to understand, surely? Volunteers are not paid members of staff. | |||
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"That's fine then as the building owner I'll employ the cleaners to clean the offices, now my other company can have nice clean offices that they rent, and my main income company does not have to worry. Under this process the cleaners are sub contracted by the building owner. And mybmain company is renting space. There is a point that you cant prevent this without causing further effect to the poorest though loss of jobs / opportunities." This is easily blocked by closing such loopholes. | |||
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" Again, the highest paid person cannot be paid over 10x more than the highest paid person. That’s pretty easy to understand, surely? Volunteers are not paid members of staff." The system cannot be so simplistic; it could be semi-enforced with tax advantages, for example. The idea is very right, but it's implementation needs a lot of refinement. | |||
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"So now if a company wants to buy in sandwiches for a client meeting the sandwiches service needs to have an employee with a minimum income of 10% my wage ? And you don't see how that will stop people using these services and reduce employment opportunities? I’d only apply it to work done on site, delivery does not count. In the case of the catering company the same rule would apply for the highest to lowest paid ratio, minimum wage obviously still applies. Mark Dowie, chief executive of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, is taking a 50% pay cut as part of the charity's response to the coronavirus crisis. Dowie's annual salary was £160,000 last year, according to the RNLI website.9 Apr 2020 So should all RNLI people be payed under your system? Again, the highest paid person cannot be paid over 10x more than the highest paid person. That’s pretty easy to understand, surely? Volunteers are not paid members of staff." So if I have a company in which my genius manager/scientist/engineer whatever adds more value to my company than 10 warehouse employees combined, I can't renumerate him/her accordingly? So how to retain him/her? | |||
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"People have to live within their means " 100%. The availability of consumer credit and the abysmal lack of financial education from schools and parents is very much to blame. | |||
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"People have to live within their means Exactly, and if they want to improve their situation they need to get better knowledge and skills to move up the ladder. I fail to see the difficulty in understanding this basic concept Agree. There needs to be a welfare safety net for people who hit hard times, but this should be temporary. Now we have a situation where two thirds of local government budgets are spent on social welfare. " Could you explain what you mean by social welfare? | |||
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"That's fine then as the building owner I'll employ the cleaners to clean the offices, now my other company can have nice clean offices that they rent, and my main income company does not have to worry. Under this process the cleaners are sub contracted by the building owner. And mybmain company is renting space. There is a point that you cant prevent this without causing further effect to the poorest though loss of jobs / opportunities. This is easily blocked by closing such loopholes." That's any east statement to say, but not easy to implement at all. There is only so many loop holes yoy can close before you do more harm to those lower paid. The cleaner position for example, I just make keeping the office tidy part of the duties of the executives I higher at a high wage, I save money on unnecessary staff and still get to pay myself a high wage. All you've done now is remove jobs from cleaners and made more unemployment and higher poverty. | |||
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"People have to live within their means Exactly, and if they want to improve their situation they need to get better knowledge and skills to move up the ladder. I fail to see the difficulty in understanding this basic concept Agree. There needs to be a welfare safety net for people who hit hard times, but this should be temporary. Now we have a situation where two thirds of local government budgets are spent on social welfare. Could you explain what you mean by social welfare?" Children’s services and adult social care. You can Google it, I didn't invent the stat  | |||
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" So if I have a company in which my genius manager/scientist/engineer whatever adds more value to my company than 10 warehouse employees combined, I can't renumerate him/her accordingly? So how to retain him/her?" This is where refinement of the idea is needed. Equity could get around this. The banker bonus legislation shifted renumeration to salary (was good for many bankers, less so for banks) - treating salary, bonuses, equity, dividends, etc. differently could find a model that prevents those at the top getting too greedy while squeezing those at the bottom. Companies need to thrive, but not at the expense of employees who cannot live and are a burden on the government. That's perverse. Imagine a tax on top line profits that varies with whether all employees are paid a national living wage. Creative solutions should be explored, not dismissed ab initio. | |||
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" That's any east statement to say, but not easy to implement at all. There is only so many loop holes yoy can close before you do more harm to those lower paid. The cleaner position for example, I just make keeping the office tidy part of the duties of the executives I higher at a high wage, I save money on unnecessary staff and still get to pay myself a high wage. All you've done now is remove jobs from cleaners and made more unemployment and higher poverty." Cleaning is one job that people will pay anything to get someone else to do. A better argument would be juniors, who will miss out on initial opportunities. But even that can be tweaked with special clauses for apprentices, etc. Supply and demand. Cleaners will always get jobs. If an office doesn't need a cleaner, even better. The company becomes leaner and more efficient. The argument against government waste is equally valid to companies. That cleaner can now perform a note fruitful job. | |||
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"That's fine then as the building owner I'll employ the cleaners to clean the offices, now my other company can have nice clean offices that they rent, and my main income company does not have to worry. Under this process the cleaners are sub contracted by the building owner. And mybmain company is renting space. There is a point that you cant prevent this without causing further effect to the poorest though loss of jobs / opportunities. This is easily blocked by closing such loopholes. That's any east statement to say, but not easy to implement at all. There is only so many loop holes yoy can close before you do more harm to those lower paid. The cleaner position for example, I just make keeping the office tidy part of the duties of the executives I higher at a high wage, I save money on unnecessary staff and still get to pay myself a high wage. All you've done now is remove jobs from cleaners and made more unemployment and higher poverty." Cool, good luck in getting your highly paid execs to clean the office. | |||
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"People have to live within their means Exactly, and if they want to improve their situation they need to get better knowledge and skills to move up the ladder. I fail to see the difficulty in understanding this basic concept Agree. There needs to be a welfare safety net for people who hit hard times, but this should be temporary. Now we have a situation where two thirds of local government budgets are spent on social welfare. Could you explain what you mean by social welfare? Children’s services and adult social care. You can Google it, I didn't invent the stat "Do you think these are in some way connected to out of work benefits? | |||
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" So if I have a company in which my genius manager/scientist/engineer whatever adds more value to my company than 10 warehouse employees combined, I can't renumerate him/her accordingly? So how to retain him/her? This is where refinement of the idea is needed. Equity could get around this. The banker bonus legislation shifted renumeration to salary (was good for many bankers, less so for banks) - treating salary, bonuses, equity, dividends, etc. differently could find a model that prevents those at the top getting too greedy while squeezing those at the bottom. Companies need to thrive, but not at the expense of employees who cannot live and are a burden on the government. That's perverse. Imagine a tax on top line profits that varies with whether all employees are paid a national living wage. Creative solutions should be explored, not dismissed ab initio." TM gets it. This is a forum on a sex site, I wouldn’t expect someone on a sex site to come up with a fully developed policy. The point is that it is possible to think differently, and do things differently if you don’t take what extremely rich capitalists tell you as gospel. They told us that the minimum wage would destroy the economy but did it? When rich people tell you that things which would make them less rich are impossible don’t believe them. It doesn’t need to be a 10x limit, it could be 20x, stop being so literal and think differently. Rich people create systems that benefit rich people, and they tell us that the world will end if we try to change those systems. It won’t. | |||
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"There was a time when people who were employed and also claimed benefits were arrested and fined or put in jail. Now it is acknowledged that working people can also claim benefits due to the financial situation they have found themselves in. It is acknowledged that employers are paying as less as they can and have various excuses as to why they can pay no more, and whey their profits have increased. We all foot this bill we all have to make up the shortfall by our taxes going to the benefit bill to support working families who are not paid enough. I wonder when it was that we accepted this as the norm and present excuses as to why we have to support low paying employers." The middle but is true of larger corporations, offshoring they’d call centres for lower wages is an example SME are struggling, economy, exporting, staffing, increased costs, employer extra national insurance, workplace pension contributions, 32% increase in the rate of corporation tax (1925pc), and thousands of government and eu quango legislative rules and regulations. | |||
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" So if I have a company in which my genius manager/scientist/engineer whatever adds more value to my company than 10 warehouse employees combined, I can't renumerate him/her accordingly? So how to retain him/her? This is where refinement of the idea is needed. Equity could get around this. The banker bonus legislation shifted renumeration to salary (was good for many bankers, less so for banks) - treating salary, bonuses, equity, dividends, etc. differently could find a model that prevents those at the top getting too greedy while squeezing those at the bottom. Companies need to thrive, but not at the expense of employees who cannot live and are a burden on the government. That's perverse. Imagine a tax on top line profits that varies with whether all employees are paid a national living wage. Creative solutions should be explored, not dismissed ab initio. TM gets it. This is a forum on a sex site, I wouldn’t expect someone on a sex site to come up with a fully developed policy. The point is that it is possible to think differently, and do things differently if you don’t take what extremely rich capitalists tell you as gospel. They told us that the minimum wage would destroy the economy but did it? When rich people tell you that things which would make them less rich are impossible don’t believe them. It doesn’t need to be a 10x limit, it could be 20x, stop being so literal and think differently. Rich people create systems that benefit rich people, and they tell us that the world will end if we try to change those systems. It won’t. " The thing is there will always be a way round it. That's the point I'm making every time a loop hole is blocked a new one is found its a loosing battle. | |||
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" So if I have a company in which my genius manager/scientist/engineer whatever adds more value to my company than 10 warehouse employees combined, I can't renumerate him/her accordingly? So how to retain him/her? This is where refinement of the idea is needed. Equity could get around this. The banker bonus legislation shifted renumeration to salary (was good for many bankers, less so for banks) - treating salary, bonuses, equity, dividends, etc. differently could find a model that prevents those at the top getting too greedy while squeezing those at the bottom. Companies need to thrive, but not at the expense of employees who cannot live and are a burden on the government. That's perverse. Imagine a tax on top line profits that varies with whether all employees are paid a national living wage. Creative solutions should be explored, not dismissed ab initio. TM gets it. This is a forum on a sex site, I wouldn’t expect someone on a sex site to come up with a fully developed policy. The point is that it is possible to think differently, and do things differently if you don’t take what extremely rich capitalists tell you as gospel. They told us that the minimum wage would destroy the economy but did it? When rich people tell you that things which would make them less rich are impossible don’t believe them. It doesn’t need to be a 10x limit, it could be 20x, stop being so literal and think differently. Rich people create systems that benefit rich people, and they tell us that the world will end if we try to change those systems. It won’t. The thing is there will always be a way round it. That's the point I'm making every time a loop hole is blocked a new one is found its a loosing battle. " There will always be thieves, should we stop trying to arrest burglars and shoplifters? | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. " For a single person UC is less than £400 per month (rent on top, but possibly not enough to cover all of it). So out of that money you pay utilities, food, council tax (reduced rate), other expenses. God help you if you're addicted to cigarettes/alcohol. God help you if you need clothes and shoes or a staycation for your well-being. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is." Tax the king  | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. Tax the king "Eat the rich. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! . It looks like people need to plan better. Universal Credit helps those in need including payment of rent. If these people are struggling what exactly are they spending their benefits or income on. ? If food banks exist people will use them. That is their purpose . I do not see any evidence of people living in poverty. Universal Credit takes care of that. That's right, fuck poor people. Vote Tory What does your answer have to do with anything that the other poster said? I was agreeing with him. He didn't say vote Tory. Nor did he say fuck poor people. How did you agree with him then?" Cause and effect  | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. Exactly this! Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases." I think they are tied to the average increase given to public sector workers. I think we'd all prefer it tied to the lowest increase. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company." Have to disagree. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty,so in nut shell 6.7 million are spending more than they earn. I some times work 16 hour shifts 7 days a week when the world is there any one can work more to improve there life. Most could ballance the budget if they realy wanted 2." A good job you said most and not all. | |||
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"Cap the earnings of the highest paid person in any organisation at 10x the lowest paid person. Include any organisation that is a subsidiary of that organisation, and any member of staff that works for an organisation that is subcontracted to do work such as cleaning etc. Include bonuses and stock options in the equation too. Want to earn £1,000,000 a year? Cool, pay your cleaners £100,000. What happens to others who were already earning 80,000? Should they increase everyone's salary upwards? Your method disincentivices anyone who wants to grow and lead the company. Have to disagree." Why? Not everyone has the skills to be a CEO. If you want someone to build the skills for doing it well, you need to incentivise them with more money. For the same reason why the pay for doctors have to be high if we don't ha enough to them. If the company thinks a CEO's pay has to be X and they couldn't really pay X because they have to pay all low level workers to increase the CEO's pay, they end up paying lower to the CEO compared to what is based on supply/demand. This obviously incentivices people who are capable of leading the company to either not be fussed with it or just leave the country. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! Can I ask you and the rest what you see pucive is poverty. Most of the poor are in social housing, so at least they do have a roof. Traveling India you see the real poor in this world." You're comparing absolute and relative poverty. This thread is concerned about relative poverty. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences." Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth  ...
It only works for those at the top  | |||
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" Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. I think they are tied to the average increase given to public sector workers. I think we'd all prefer it tied to the lowest increase." Really? https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mps-pay-and-pensions 2014 average MP salary was 67,060. 2024 will be 91,346. Did public sector really get that kind of bump over ten years? If so, then fair enough - kind of. So long as all other sectors of society are in line. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth ...
It only works for those at the top "That's because NHS salaries are not decided by market but based on the whims of politicians. Your example proves my point. Nurses in the US get paid a lot higher because they are paid by market. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth ...
It only works for those at the top "You can include doctors in that too. Funny how the all powerful market only applies to certain areas. The government spends billions every year on corporate welfare because it’s apparently essential to pay CEOs huge salaries but not lower paid people enough to live on. Let’s spend that money on public services instead, and put people ahead of shareholder value. | |||
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"People have to live within their means And so say me, the poor just have less spend but most are very happy.." I guess you're here all week | |||
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"People have to live within their means Exactly, and if they want to improve their situation they need to get better knowledge and skills to move up the ladder. I fail to see the difficulty in understanding this basic concept " I gained an excellent degree and a disability - what now? | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth ...
It only works for those at the top
You can include doctors in that too. Funny how the all powerful market only applies to certain areas. The government spends billions every year on corporate welfare because it’s apparently essential to pay CEOs huge salaries but not lower paid people enough to live on. Let’s spend that money on public services instead, and put people ahead of shareholder value."As I said above, NHS doesn't work based on market. The salary isn't decided based on market. You can't take a government run service as an example to bash free markets. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. Tax the king
Eat the rich."Nom nom nom | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth ...
It only works for those at the top
You can include doctors in that too. Funny how the all powerful market only applies to certain areas. The government spends billions every year on corporate welfare because it’s apparently essential to pay CEOs huge salaries but not lower paid people enough to live on. Let’s spend that money on public services instead, and put people ahead of shareholder value.
As I said above, NHS doesn't work based on market. The salary isn't decided based on market. You can't take a government run service as an example to bash free markets."So it’s possible to run organisations and decide pay not based on the market? | |||
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" Also tie MP salary increases to the lowest of of national living wage, state pension and average salary increases. I think they are tied to the average increase given to public sector workers. I think we'd all prefer it tied to the lowest increase. Really? https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mps-pay-and-pensions 2014 average MP salary was 67,060. 2024 will be 91,346. Did public sector really get that kind of bump over ten years? If so, then fair enough - kind of. So long as all other sectors of society are in line." Remember their 11% increase? It happened after that. | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth ...
It only works for those at the top
That's because NHS salaries are not decided by market but based on the whims of politicians. Your example proves my point. Nurses in the US get paid a lot higher because they are paid by market."We have been stealing nurses from other countries for approximately a quarter of a century and in all that time the vacancy crisis continues. Pay them more = reduced attrition, higher employment, more taxes paid, a better staffed service, less waiting times - WIN WIN | |||
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" You’ve not read my post, have you? Yep, the companies do not have to be subsidiaries of that company, and the contract would be with the company not the cleaner involved in the cleaning. Company one provides a cleaning service and instructs their employees where to clean. Company too engages in a contract with company b to provide a cleaning service, but the cleaning staff still are only employees of company b, and not contracted staff of company A. Same for admin work, you contract a service from the company not the staff directly. Yoy could also own the building and charge each of those companies rent to have offices within it as a third company. Which is fairly standard already to be Frank. To clarify also, you would be purchasing a service , not subcontracting. To be considered subcontracting the contracted company would have to be providing part of the end project that the original company is liable for. Cleaning would be purchasing a service, just like having delivered bring sandwiches for the board meetings. I would add that into it too, close down all the loopholes. The rich use the loopholes why would the rich want to shoot them self in the foot. I’m not the rich, this is my solution, not theirs. Your solution is artificial price control. Just like rent controls, this doesn't work either. Do you really think economists haven't thought about the idea you have mentioned? All you have to do is to simulate the idea in your mind, take it to its natural conclusion to see how things fall apart. The problem with the left is that they keep getting obsessed with money. Inflation? Just increase the salary for everyone. Of course inflation is caused because of supply not meeting the demand and just paying people more money won't help. There is a reason why supply/demand based pay works. Artificially enforced pay structures only create terrible incentives. The problem in UK is that ratio of people who are working against ratio of people who aren't working is bad and it will only get worse with ageing population. This means social welfare systems will neither money nor resources to sustain them. Same with rest of Europe. Social welfare was all cool when people had lots of children and they were all working and paying into the pot. That has abruptly stopped and we are facing the consequences. Supply and demand huh? Since before the new century we have had crises in nursing vacancies - some economist tell the chancellor this supply and demand myth ...
It only works for those at the top
That's because NHS salaries are not decided by market but based on the whims of politicians. Your example proves my point. Nurses in the US get paid a lot higher because they are paid by market.
We have been stealing nurses from other countries for approximately a quarter of a century and in all that time the vacancy crisis continues. Pay them more = reduced attrition, higher employment, more taxes paid, a better staffed service, less waiting times - WIN WIN"Yes, a free market would do exactly that. Salaries for healthcare workers in the US are much higher because their salaries are based on supply/demand. But NHS salaries aren't based on supply/demand of workers. It's decided by politicians. If anything, this example is a strong argument against public ownership of healthcare. | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners "Think of it differently... Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits. Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back. It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point. | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point."I agree with just about everything you've said there. One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me. | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me. "But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages? The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required. If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable. | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point."This idea just looks like a variation of minimum wage, but only forcing it on big companies. In reality, it will hit the smaller companies lot more that they can't sustain. These small companies aren't failing because they are bad. They are failing because the balances in small companies are usually pretty tight and you forced them to close by forcefully setting higher wages for a job. Markets don't react the way you like it to. Do you know what happened around the time GDPR was enforced? Big companies had enough money to pay for the lawyers to understand and work to have their websites meet the GDPR regulations. Small companies couldn't do it. The EU came up with this wonderful idea and said that the laws will only apply for companies having over 200 employees. Guess what happened? Companies with 200-300 employees just sacked many of the workers to reduce the count to 200. More companies having less than 200 workers would not want to hire employees that would make them lose their small business exemption. Just like most other ideas, these kind of arbitrary rules ok arbitrary numbers like 1,000,000 will end up in job losses, more jobs moving to China, India and US and people in UK and other European countries with a shocked pikachu face wondering why their businesses aren't doing well. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread." I can see a lack of consideration towards basic economic impacts, things sound feasible in isolation which tends to fit left wing stereotypes, which obviously can’t be across the board, but always seems to be. This area concerns me greatly when I consider we will be governed by Labour in the coming months. | |||
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" This idea just looks like a variation of minimum wage..." To a point, yes. And everything you say may be correct, to a greater or lesser degree. There is a clear problem that some companies make huge profits, which are often taken out of the country, and our taxes subsidise the labour upon which these companies build their profits. Trickle down works, capitalism works and markets should be free. But the economy also needs to work for the country. One issue is that companies are legally bound to maximise profits, even at the expense of morality. What would your solution be, or would you even agree with, the problem: Entities that return large profits to stakeholders and/or pay executives phenomenal sums sometimes do so while paying employees a rate upon which they cannot live, forcing the government to pay the shortfall from our taxes. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread. I can see a lack of consideration towards basic economic impacts, things sound feasible in isolation which tends to fit left wing stereotypes, which obviously can’t be across the board, but always seems to be. This area concerns me greatly when I consider we will be governed by Labour in the coming months. " You’ve no need to worry, Labour is far from left wing. Rachel Reeves studied PPE at Oxford and Economics at LSE, she then went on to work as an economist for the Bank of England, the foreign office in Washington DC, and HBOS. She’s not going to tax and spend, as much as I think she should. | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable."I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies. However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread. I can see a lack of consideration towards basic economic impacts, things sound feasible in isolation which tends to fit left wing stereotypes, which obviously can’t be across the board, but always seems to be. This area concerns me greatly when I consider we will be governed by Labour in the coming months. You’ve no need to worry, Labour is far from left wing. Rachel Reeves studied PPE at Oxford and Economics at LSE, she then went on to work as an economist for the Bank of England, the foreign office in Washington DC, and HBOS. She’s not going to tax and spend, as much as I think she should." I’ve got to admit the last sentence actually made laugh out loud
She will need to dig deep to prevent over spend, we can’t afford to have economy tank again. | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread. I can see a lack of consideration towards basic economic impacts, things sound feasible in isolation which tends to fit left wing stereotypes, which obviously can’t be across the board, but always seems to be. This area concerns me greatly when I consider we will be governed by Labour in the coming months. You’ve no need to worry, Labour is far from left wing. Rachel Reeves studied PPE at Oxford and Economics at LSE, she then went on to work as an economist for the Bank of England, the foreign office in Washington DC, and HBOS. She’s not going to tax and spend, as much as I think she should. I’ve got to admit the last sentence actually made laugh out loud
She will need to dig deep to prevent over spend, we can’t afford to have economy tank again. "I genuinely don’t see the issue with an overspend predicated on increasing growth but perhaps the time to do that was 5 or 6 years ago when borrowing was dirt cheap. The economy of the country is definitely not like household budgeting as the government would have us think though, and as the US under Biden has shown, you have to invest to promote growth. | |||
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" This idea just looks like a variation of minimum wage... To a point, yes. And everything you say may be correct, to a greater or lesser degree. There is a clear problem that some companies make huge profits, which are often taken out of the country, and our taxes subsidise the labour upon which these companies build their profits. Trickle down works, capitalism works and markets should be free. But the economy also needs to work for the country. One issue is that companies are legally bound to maximise profits, even at the expense of morality. What would your solution be, or would you even agree with, the problem: Entities that return large profits to stakeholders and/or pay executives phenomenal sums sometimes do so while paying employees a rate upon which they cannot live, forcing the government to pay the shortfall from our taxes." I agree that companies taking out profits elsewhere is a problem. "Trickle down" is a meaningless term anyway. The actual goal of those policies is to improve supply and hence reducing the prices, not for something to trickle down to people. Entities returning large profits to stakeholders itself isn't itself a problem. For every stakeholder that makes a profit, there are numerous stakeholders in other companies who make losses. Investments are subject to risks and if you don't give them good profit, what even is the point of investing? As for solution, our focus should be to build a population that is skilled enough to do high demand jobs, which pay well enough. Use the tax to invest on building skills of people, instead of giving out free money. Have policies that help businesses and promote competition so that the prices go down and even people with lower pay have higher purchasing power. Trying some idea of artificial salary control just for the sake of doing something will only make things worse, just the way rent controls did | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable.
I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies.
However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. "is inflation and wages 121 though ? I've not seen this worked through. So I a sense it's only partially artificial. I also observe that the poor are told to live within their means even though much is out of their control. SMEs are given more grace. | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable.
I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies.
However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. is inflation and wages 121 though ? I've not seen this worked through. So I a sense it's only partially artificial.
I also observe that the poor are told to live within their means even though much is out of their control. SMEs are given more grace. "I'm not claiming its 121. I'm saying that inflating wages to a 'living wage' (that's supposedly what min wage is for) will artificially inflate prices, especially in small business, people then using those small businesses are now having to pay more and are no better off. This whole argument is really about big business but big business really isn't the backbone of our country. | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable.
I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies.
However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. "I know who sets the minimum wage. It isn't artificial inflation. At the moment we are all forced to subsidise things we don't buy as a proportion of our taxes are spent on in work benefits. Taxes should be reduced by that amount, and we should pay the proper going rate for goods and services. Imports should be taxed if they aren't made to the same environmental and welfare standards as they are here. Again, why should we subsidise things we don't want to buy? | |||
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"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable.
I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies.
However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. is inflation and wages 121 though ? I've not seen this worked through. So I a sense it's only partially artificial.
I also observe that the poor are told to live within their means even though much is out of their control. SMEs are given more grace.
I'm not claiming its 121. I'm saying that inflating wages to a 'living wage' (that's supposedly what min wage is for) will artificially inflate prices, especially in small business, people then using those small businesses are now having to pay more and are no better off.
This whole argument is really about big business but big business really isn't the backbone of our country. "I think the argument is really about any business, a living wage is a living wage, if you can’t afford to pay it then you need to reconsider your business model. SMEs may have to take things slower when it comes to expansion, and be more deliberate about who they employ, but that might not be such a bad thing. | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable.
I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies.
However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. is inflation and wages 121 though ? I've not seen this worked through. So I a sense it's only partially artificial.
I also observe that the poor are told to live within their means even though much is out of their control. SMEs are given more grace.
I'm not claiming its 121. I'm saying that inflating wages to a 'living wage' (that's supposedly what min wage is for) will artificially inflate prices, especially in small business, people then using those small businesses are now having to pay more and are no better off.
This whole argument is really about big business but big business really isn't the backbone of our country.
I think the argument is really about any business, a living wage is a living wage, if you can’t afford to pay it then you need to reconsider your business model. SMEs may have to take things slower when it comes to expansion, and be more deliberate about who they employ, but that might not be such a bad thing."Profit margins in many small business' do not allow for higher wages. An awful lot of small business owners earn less than staff members at times. I'll say it again ads I'm not sure it's sinking in. Increased wages = increased prices = higher 'living wage' needed. Rinse and repeat and those people are still no better off in real terms. | |||
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"The highest outgoing for just about every adult in this country is housing. Why are house prices artificially high?" Yeah housing is the biggest expense for everyone. About a couple of decades back, everyone was spreading doomsday theory about how population explosion will lead mass starvation and hunger. The fact is in spite of a rapid increase in population, we have managed to reduce the percentage of people struggling to get food, thanks to science and capitalism. The only two areas where we struggle a lot to meet the demands are housing and power. While we have had improvements in housing by building high rise apartments, it obviously did not catch up with the increase in demand. Power too has similar issues. We have found numerous ways to generate electricity, but the demand just keeps going up. I do believe the power situation will be sorted out given the amount of money invested into it. It's housing that will be the pain in the ass. You fix the housing situation and most working people will have enough money for everything else. | |||
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"The highest outgoing for just about every adult in this country is housing. Why are house prices artificially high?" The price of a house is as much as someone will pay for it. If nobody buys it the price will go down Stupid people pay stupid prices People demand a pay rise, prices of goods and services rise to cover the pay rise, usually by more than the pay rise and if people buy stuff it will keep going until they stop buying it. Most good in Marks and Spencer are much more expensive than Tesco Most goods in Tesco are much more expensive than Lidl. Why do people pay more ? | |||
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"The highest outgoing for just about every adult in this country is housing. Why are house prices artificially high? The price of a house is as much as someone will pay for it. If nobody buys it the price will go down Stupid people pay stupid prices People demand a pay rise, prices of goods and services rise to cover the pay rise, usually by more than the pay rise and if people buy stuff it will keep going until they stop buying it. Most good in Marks and Spencer are much more expensive than Tesco Most goods in Tesco are much more expensive than Lidl. Why do people pay more ? "  | |||
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"The highest outgoing for just about every adult in this country is housing. Why are house prices artificially high? The price of a house is as much as someone will pay for it. If nobody buys it the price will go down Stupid people pay stupid prices People demand a pay rise, prices of goods and services rise to cover the pay rise, usually by more than the pay rise and if people buy stuff it will keep going until they stop buying it. Most good in Marks and Spencer are much more expensive than Tesco Most goods in Tesco are much more expensive than Lidl. Why do people pay more ? " This is not the case for 5 million private renters. | |||
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"The highest outgoing for just about every adult in this country is housing. Why are house prices artificially high?" 40 years of market interference. Miras Double miras Endowment mortgages Right to buy Shared ownership Home buy Help to buy 100%, 120% negative equity lending Teaser interest rates Self certification mortgages 4-8x income mortgages Second home, holiday home, buy to let, portfolio but to let Equity release, home income plans To name a few in the face of not building enough homes, increase in sole occupancy households, ageing population. Financial industry and government have thrown everything at it Now the average property (£260,000) is 8.5X average income , and a lot more in high value areas, I read as high as 23X in central london These high property prices, less people in final salary or decent pensions is how old age care will be financed. | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread. I can see a lack of consideration towards basic economic impacts, things sound feasible in isolation which tends to fit left wing stereotypes, which obviously can’t be across the board, but always seems to be. This area concerns me greatly when I consider we will be governed by Labour in the coming months. " Reeves has said that increased public services spending will come from economic growth, not higher taxes. I can see that being unpicked very quickly What economic model is going to provide enough tax revenue for public services. National debt has already trebled under the tories, on top of labour doubling it, and what do we have for that debt, austerity and highest tax rises since 1948. | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! Can I ask you and the rest what you see pucive is poverty. Most of the poor are in social housing, so at least they do have a roof. Traveling India you see the real poor in this world. You're comparing absolute and relative poverty. This thread is concerned about relative poverty." Relevant to what the top 1% then 99% are poor | |||
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"People have to live within their means And so say me, the poor just have less spend but most are very happy.. I guess you're here all week "So are you saying your poor or in the bottom 10% | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"So what were saying here is a cleaner in a multi-national could possible earn 100k (due to the 10x idea) but a cleaner in a small business can only earn 10k? Small business wouldn't have any cleaners
Think of it differently...
Have living wage bands. Say that if a company does not pay a living wage, then top level remuneration is capped. If you want to pay top level remuneration at high levels, ensure that nobody who works for you needs benefits.
Would this make things more difficult for smaller companies? Sure. If a company essentially needs subsidised labour, then perhaps it shouldn't exist. Would this stifle commerce and innovation? Yes and no. Bad companies can be allowed to fail and this whole thing can be phased slowly, managed and rolled back.
It's clearly a very delicate balancing act. It's not a full solution, but rather a discussion point.
I agree with just about everything you've said there.
One point that really hits home is how much it would affect small companies, and being that small companies are this countries largest employers, it makes it a non starter for me.
But why should the state (i.e. the rest of us) subsidise low wages?
The minimum wage should be set at a level where in work benefits are not required.
If a company can't pay that, they aren't viable.
I'm not sure whether you are aware or not but the minimum wage isn't set by companies.
However, to answer you're question. Wage rises means cost rises means product price rises. No one is better off with artificial inflation. is inflation and wages 121 though ? I've not seen this worked through. So I a sense it's only partially artificial.
I also observe that the poor are told to live within their means even though much is out of their control. SMEs are given more grace.
I'm not claiming its 121. I'm saying that inflating wages to a 'living wage' (that's supposedly what min wage is for) will artificially inflate prices, especially in small business, people then using those small businesses are now having to pay more and are no better off.
This whole argument is really about big business but big business really isn't the backbone of our country.
I think the argument is really about any business, a living wage is a living wage, if you can’t afford to pay it then you need to reconsider your business model. SMEs may have to take things slower when it comes to expansion, and be more deliberate about who they employ, but that might not be such a bad thing."And if a living wage is a living wage Should it be based on housing cost in that area. And should it be taxed. As there is no point getting more in wages then losing out. | |||
Reply privately (closed, thread got too big) | |||
"People have to live within their means And so say me, the poor just have less spend but most are very happy.. I guess you're here all week
So are you saying your poor or in the bottom 10%"I laughed cos how the heck do you know whether most poor people are happy? | |||
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"A record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a campaign group has claimed, as the cost of living crisis pushes more households into debt. A survey for Debt Justice found that 13% of adults had missed three or more credit or bill payments in the last six months, a figure that rose to 29% among 18- to 24-year-olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds. The claim is supported by data from charities showing a surge in requests for help with problem debts, and official figures published on Friday showing an increase in the number of people becoming insolvent. Author Hilary Osborne Taken from the Guardian 18th March, 2024 ----------------------- We have a thread about the World's richest and people banding about numbers in the 0.00000001% or thereabouts regarding the super wealthy but the super wealthy are only part of the problem. I am sure that I will be corrected but the UK population is about 65 million so 6.7 million is about 10% so a significant number. We have food banks and charity shops which appear to have become accepted as normality and, yes, we have moved on on 200 years from poor houses and the country ran by rich landowners and industrialists but by how much? Is it fitting in this day and age on a developed country like Britain to see so many in poverty? The gap between those who have and those who have not is too great. It is easy to say that only 0.000001% of people are super wealthy but what does that figure actually mean? Are those people worth £1bn, £10bn, a trillion pounds? What is the measure of being super wealthy and what does it really matter? We need to help those who cannot afford to feed themselves, cannot afford to heat their homes or clothe themselves and find a way to tax those who are wealthy enough to pay rather than continuing to tax the relatively poor. The rich are getting richer whilst the poor are getting poorer - this simply cannot continue. I also will stick my hand up and say that I do not have a solution! Can I ask you and the rest what you see pucive is poverty. Most of the poor are in social housing, so at least they do have a roof. Traveling India you see the real poor in this world. You're comparing absolute and relative poverty. This thread is concerned about relative poverty. Relevant to what the top 1% then 99% are poor " Relative vs Absolute Poverty Defining different types of poverty Read the above article. | |||
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" So if I have a company in which my genius manager/scientist/engineer whatever adds more value to my company than 10 warehouse employees combined, I can't renumerate him/her accordingly? So how to retain him/her? This is where refinement of the idea is needed. Equity could get around this. The banker bonus legislation shifted renumeration to salary (was good for many bankers, less so for banks) - treating salary, bonuses, equity, dividends, etc. differently could find a model that prevents those at the top getting too greedy while squeezing those at the bottom. Companies need to thrive, but not at the expense of employees who cannot live and are a burden on the government. That's perverse. Imagine a tax on top line profits that varies with whether all employees are paid a national living wage. Creative solutions should be explored, not dismissed ab initio." I agree with this theory but same as everything else there will be a loophole that is difficult to manage. Company employees people on living wage rate, but lower contract hours, the employees still need topped up with UC, the company saves tax and the govt is out of pocket twice. We already have minimum wage and still have to top it up with UC so i don’t see how any wage incentives can change that | |||
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"There has been a suggestion, to cap wealth at 10 million no matter who the person is. That seems to be a reasonable initiative to me. If £10 million became the ceiling, everything would adjust below this. We would likely find £1 would be worth £100 going forward, wages would reflect this, prices would reflect this too. There can be no ceiling without serious repercussions, and economic failure Usual left wing economics that fails to understand how money works. If you just take away the money from the rich, the rest of the country will magically have lot of goods to live a comfortable life. It's not like people will all end up waiting in a really long queue for a piece of bread. I can see a lack of consideration towards basic economic impacts, things sound feasible in isolation which tends to fit left wing stereotypes, which obviously can’t be across the board, but always seems to be. This area concerns me greatly when I consider we will be governed by Labour in the coming months. Reeves has said that increased public services spending will come from economic growth, not higher taxes. I can see that being unpicked very quickly What economic model is going to provide enough tax revenue for public services. National debt has already trebled under the tories, on top of labour doubling it, and what do we have for that debt, austerity and highest tax rises since 1948. " I’ve read her plans for the economy and it is a mixed bag, on hand there is a message of support for increasing productivity and GDP, on the other a little more concerning is a statement of government involvement in the markets. It is Tory sounding in approach, which makes me think we could have gap when the time comes to take the reins, we shall see, but the positives are there is no meddling in interests rates, BoE or wild left ideals on taxation, which is a watch this space alert!  | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that." Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast." I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. | |||
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"This whole wage cap thing fails to address that super-wealth is a symptom of a malfunctioning system, not a cause. A working system would not feature the conditions necessary for one individual to take home thousands or tens of thousands of times more money than another. " What if the person with super wealth got that because of their ideas, inventions and innovations? An obvious example being Bill Gates who revolutionised desktop computing. Are you saying someone like him should not have benefitted proportionately to the impact he had on the world? I know you are not advocating communism but for those that do, the idea of us all being equal is ridiculous. Why should a brain surgeon be paid the same as a bank cashier, or a road sweeper. Why shouldn’t intelligence generate reward? | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them." Laudable intentions. So what are “we” going to do about it? | |||
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"This whole wage cap thing fails to address that super-wealth is a symptom of a malfunctioning system, not a cause. A working system would not feature the conditions necessary for one individual to take home thousands or tens of thousands of times more money than another. What if the person with super wealth got that because of their ideas, inventions and innovations? An obvious example being Bill Gates who revolutionised desktop computing. Are you saying someone like him should not have benefitted proportionately to the impact he had on the world? I know you are not advocating communism but for those that do, the idea of us all being equal is ridiculous. Why should a brain surgeon be paid the same as a bank cashier, or a road sweeper. Why shouldn’t intelligence generate reward?" Well, we're talking proportionately, aren't we. It's inarguable that Bill Gates has had a tremendous impact on the world. But firstly, does he as an individual deserve the total credit for it, and secondly does it necessarily follow that his personal wealth should therefore equal the GDP of a medium-sized nation? Jeff Bezos has had a similar impact on the World, and he made his unimaginable wealth also by using his ideas. Does he deserve it all? Or can we agree it's fine for a very successful businessman to be comparatively rich while also agreeing that it might be a bit excessive for him to be so rich that if you started counting his money at the birth of Jesus you wouldn't be close to halfway through today? The wealth gap between brain surgeons and street sweepers isn't really the problem. Brain surgeons might do pretty well but they don't in general have personal political clout in the way that billionaires have. Although I imagine street sweepers could probably do with a bit of a pay bump. | |||
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"This whole wage cap thing fails to address that super-wealth is a symptom of a malfunctioning system, not a cause. A working system would not feature the conditions necessary for one individual to take home thousands or tens of thousands of times more money than another. What if the person with super wealth got that because of their ideas, inventions and innovations? An obvious example being Bill Gates who revolutionised desktop computing. Are you saying someone like him should not have benefitted proportionately to the impact he had on the world? I know you are not advocating communism but for those that do, the idea of us all being equal is ridiculous. Why should a brain surgeon be paid the same as a bank cashier, or a road sweeper. Why shouldn’t intelligence generate reward?" Range boss Chris Dawson here in Plymouth, can’t read nor write, has no email address for same reason, has built a billion pound company employing 12,000 people and £1.5bn going into uk economy every year with £300m vat. Add all the suppliers and related gdp. Why should he be penalised by a miserly £10m wealth cap, I don’t see and politicians or economic commentators making this much positive impact on the economy. | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them." Yes, there needs to be a balance and there is indeed an 'unacceptable face of capitalism'. But we already have a lot of regulation and social policy in the UK. How far can we go before losing the incentive to create wealth through business venture? | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. Laudable intentions. So what are “we” going to do about it?" Not voting for people who are bankrolled by gammon who want to shoot Diane Abbott might be a start. | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. Yes, there needs to be a balance and there is indeed an 'unacceptable face of capitalism'. But we already have a lot of regulation and social policy in the UK. How far can we go before losing the incentive to create wealth through business venture?" Quite far. Considering the regulation currently in force barely touches the sides, I reckon we could push it a lot further. And I would also question the assumption that wealth-creation through business venture is automatically worthy of being incentivised. | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. Laudable intentions. So what are “we” going to do about it? Not voting for people who are bankrolled by gammon who want to shoot Diane Abbott might be a start." I think the election is there for Labour to lose. Barring a miracle, the Tories are toast. It will be interesting to see what Labour does but they are inheriting a shitshow and will have little wiggle room, and they are no longer a proper left wing socialist party anyway so I don’t expect radical wealth redistribution policies. | |||
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" Why should he be penalised by a miserly £10m wealth cap, " I've just got to highlight that. In what world is £10M "miserly"? I'm not advocating a cap, but pre-tax and without spending a penny you would need to earn £200k a year for 50 years to make that. Over six times the average UK wage for your entire working life. | |||
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" And I would also question the assumption that wealth-creation through business venture is automatically worthy of being incentivised." Why? What is better: A) A company with a £50m turnover employing 200 people and paying corp taxes. B) A company with a £1bn turnover employing 10,000 people and paying corp taxes. Which of those benefits the country more? And let’s not go down the tax avoidance rabbit hole as this is all hypothetical. In that case the founder/owner of company B is going to be far richer than the founder/owner of company A but will have been in the same position as A at some point. Why would they want growth if there is no personal reward for them? Why not stay at company A level? | |||
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" I think the election is there for Labour to lose. Barring a miracle, the Tories are toast. It will be interesting to see what Labour does but they are inheriting a shitshow and will have little wiggle room, and they are no longer a proper left wing socialist party anyway so I don’t expect radical wealth redistribution policies." Completely agree. But politics is a game of incremental change. An inch in the right direction is still a good start. | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. Yes, there needs to be a balance and there is indeed an 'unacceptable face of capitalism'. But we already have a lot of regulation and social policy in the UK. How far can we go before losing the incentive to create wealth through business venture?" Why don’t we start by seeing how close to that line we can get? Instead of stopping when super rich people say they are going to leave the country, let’s see if they actually do, and indeed this has a detrimental effect on the UK. | |||
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" And I would also question the assumption that wealth-creation through business venture is automatically worthy of being incentivised. Why? What is better: A) A company with a £50m turnover employing 200 people and paying corp taxes. B) A company with a £1bn turnover employing 10,000 people and paying corp taxes. Which of those benefits the country more? And let’s not go down the tax avoidance rabbit hole as this is all hypothetical. In that case the founder/owner of company B is going to be far richer than the founder/owner of company A but will have been in the same position as A at some point. Why would they want growth if there is no personal reward for them? Why not stay at company A level?" A. The reason is that if the market is 1Bn, I would rather it be divided between 20 companies than dominated by 1. Companies that metastasise to massive proportions rarely use that extra size for the benefit of larger society. There's plenty of examples of that besides tax avoidance. | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. Yes, there needs to be a balance and there is indeed an 'unacceptable face of capitalism'. But we already have a lot of regulation and social policy in the UK. How far can we go before losing the incentive to create wealth through business venture? Why don’t we start by seeing how close to that line we can get? Instead of stopping when super rich people say they are going to leave the country, let’s see if they actually do, and indeed this has a detrimental effect on the UK." *indeed see if this has a detrimental effect | |||
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"The idea that we can’t do anything about inequality is exactly what the super rich want everyone to believe, and they are doing a fabulous job of it. The inequalities we have in the UK have been traced back to Norman times, ie. People directly descended from Normans who arrived over a thousand years ago are still more likely to be wealthy than those who are not. This is not a natural inequality, it is baked into a system which is designed to protect that very inequality. This utter nonsense that ‘the poor are happy’ is just bullshit fed to us by those who have a vested interested in people believing that some people have the right to have so much money they could never spend it, while others struggle to put food on their plates. Unfortunately we have too many useful idiots who very much conform to Steinbeck’s view of Americans. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Ronald Wright - A Short History of Progress If we want a fairer society we need to stop saying that things are impossible or pointless because… we need to start, instead, to looking at what can be done, and then building on that. Well yes, the principle of fairness is laudable. But so far, political ideologies along the lines of egalitarianism have failed (socialism, communism). Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have by a country mile. Even Deng Xiao Ping realised that China needed some billionaires to make their economy work. Now Xi Jing Ping is reversing those principles, and China is going downhill fast. I don’t think anyone is saying that we have to move wholesale away from capitalism but we have to create a situation where people are more important than capital. It’s not as if we can’t enforce change, we didn’t used to have health and safety, children used to work in factories, there was such thing as an annual leave entitlement, or a minimum wage. We need to stop assuming we can’t change the system because the people who benefit most from the system tell us we can’t. We need to stop being the puppets of capitalists and start challenging them. Yes, there needs to be a balance and there is indeed an 'unacceptable face of capitalism'. But we already have a lot of regulation and social policy in the UK. How far can we go before losing the incentive to create wealth through business venture?" We already went too far. That's why UK and Europe lost against US, India and China in the tech boom. That's how these countries lost in the EV battle. That's how we will lose the AI battle too. As always, the left will have a shocked face and try to blame these problems elsewhere and make it even more difficult for businesses. The cycle will go on. | |||
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" We already went too far. That's why UK and Europe lost against US, India and China in the tech boom. That's how these countries lost in the EV battle. That's how we will lose the AI battle too. As always, the left will have a shocked face and try to blame these problems elsewhere and make it even more difficult for businesses. The cycle will go on." I mean, yeah, if you compare us to countries so deregulated that the workforce have basically zero protection or representation, then yes that's an example of regulation chasing business away. But, you know, for those of us who don't want to work in buildings that have anti-suicide nets around their top floors, it seems a price worth paying. And again, some of us don't accept that massive automotive overproduction or the emergence of commercial AI is an unqualified benefit to society. | |||
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" We already went too far. That's why UK and Europe lost against US, India and China in the tech boom. That's how these countries lost in the EV battle. That's how we will lose the AI battle too. As always, the left will have a shocked face and try to blame these problems elsewhere and make it even more difficult for businesses. The cycle will go on. I mean, yeah, if you compare us to countries so deregulated that the workforce have basically zero protection or representation, then yes that's an example of regulation chasing business away. But, you know, for those of us who don't want to work in buildings that have anti-suicide nets around their top floors, it seems a price worth paying. And again, some of us don't accept that massive automotive overproduction or the emergence of commercial AI is an unqualified benefit to society." What you said is only partially true. Other countries winning over Europe in business development isn't solely down to ability to get away with bad working conditions. There are numerous other regulations at play here. If I want to start a new software company, it takes a lot of effort to understand the "War and peace" size regulations in Europe, hire a lawyer and do the and get extra software engineers to do it. I am more incentivised to just start the company in US/India first, make a lot of money and then expand to Europe with the capital I have built. If I want to build a competitor to any of the big websites, I am better of going to US to do it, instead of getting stuck trying to satisfy every lame regulation here, thereby helping the monopolies. Remember that software engineers in the US get paid a LOT higher than anywhere in Europe. Not to mention the social issues. Thanks to the repetitive push from media portraying successful businessmen as evil, ambition is basically dead in the continent. Sure, you can argue that material wealth is not everything. I completely agree with it. But the decision has its consequences and you need to learn to live with it. Wealth in the country will go down and it will be a struggle to sustain infrastructure and social welfare. Don't complain about these things because they are results of the policies you are supporting. | |||
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" We already went too far. That's why UK and Europe lost against US, India and China in the tech boom. That's how these countries lost in the EV battle. That's how we will lose the AI battle too. As always, the left will have a shocked face and try to blame these problems elsewhere and make it even more difficult for businesses. The cycle will go on. I mean, yeah, if you compare us to countries so deregulated that the workforce have basically zero protection or representation, then yes that's an example of regulation chasing business away. But, you know, for those of us who don't want to work in buildings that have anti-suicide nets around their top floors, it seems a price worth paying. And again, some of us don't accept that massive automotive overproduction or the emergence of commercial AI is an unqualified benefit to society." Example P&O are paying people a pittance, they fly them in and out to work on their boats and these people are more than happy earning much more than they could in their own country. The UK are trying to change the law so they get UK minimum wage. Ferry proces will go up, these people will probably lose their jobs People need to live within their means amd let the marketplace pay people what they are worth and if they want to earn more they work harder and get promoted. After COVID restaurants couldn't get chefs as they earned more and had a better quality of life stacking shelves in Tesco for minimum wage. The minimum wage a living wage is the worst thing ever it kills ambition and fuels inflation | |||
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" We already went too far. That's why UK and Europe lost against US, India and China in the tech boom. That's how these countries lost in the EV battle. That's how we will lose the AI battle too. As always, the left will have a shocked face and try to blame these problems elsewhere and make it even more difficult for businesses. The cycle will go on. I mean, yeah, if you compare us to countries so deregulated that the workforce have basically zero protection or representation, then yes that's an example of regulation chasing business away. But, you know, for those of us who don't want to work in buildings that have anti-suicide nets around their top floors, it seems a price worth paying. And again, some of us don't accept that massive automotive overproduction or the emergence of commercial AI is an unqualified benefit to society. What you said is only partially true. Other countries winning over Europe in business development isn't solely down to ability to get away with bad working conditions. There are numerous other regulations at play here. If I want to start a new software company, it takes a lot of effort to understand the "War and peace" size regulations in Europe, hire a lawyer and do the and get extra software engineers to do it. I am more incentivised to just start the company in US/India first, make a lot of money and then expand to Europe with the capital I have built. If I want to build a competitor to any of the big websites, I am better of going to US to do it, instead of getting stuck trying to satisfy every lame regulation here, thereby helping the monopolies. Remember that software engineers in the US get paid a LOT higher than anywhere in Europe. Not to mention the social issues. Thanks to the repetitive push from media portraying successful businessmen as evil, ambition is basically dead in the continent. Sure, you can argue that material wealth is not everything. I completely agree with it. But the decision has its consequences and you need to learn to live with it. Wealth in the country will go down and it will be a struggle to sustain infrastructure and social welfare. Don't complain about these things because they are results of the policies you are supporting." I mean, yes, there are numerous other regulations, not just workers' rights. But these regulations also exist because it has been deemed that the potential loss of business investment is less detrimental than not having those regulations in place. The perception of businessmen as evil is not something that the media have just fabricated. The high echelons of commercial industry are not clogged with philanthropists. Ambition isn't dead, either. We aren't short of people whose ambition is to make lots of money. Sustaining infrastructure and social welfare isn't contingent on remaining attractive to big business. The idea that if we don't deregulate, businesses will leave, the economy will suffer and we'll all be poor is a well-rehearsed Tory threat and it's demonstrably nonsense. | |||
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" Example P&O are paying people a pittance, they fly them in and out to work on their boats and these people are more than happy earning much more than they could in their own country. The UK are trying to change the law so they get UK minimum wage. Ferry proces will go up, these people will probably lose their jobs People need to live within their means amd let the marketplace pay people what they are worth and if they want to earn more they work harder and get promoted. After COVID restaurants couldn't get chefs as they earned more and had a better quality of life stacking shelves in Tesco for minimum wage. The minimum wage a living wage is the worst thing ever it kills ambition and fuels inflation " This is such an ass-backwards way of looking at it. If a business can't pay its employees enough to live well in the country where they work, is it THE BUSINESS that needs to learn to live within its means. Travel prices are artificially low because companies have slashed their operating costs to afford it. Meanwhile shareholders make out like bandits. I just don't get this narrative that business is such an amazing thing for society but people need to accept sl*ve wages in order for it to function correctly. If we didn't have minimum wage laws, businesses would en masses reduce wages to poverty level and the welfare tax bill would skyrocket, more than wiping out any putative tax benefit from these businesses operating and employing people onshore (if the businesses pay taxes, that is). Businesses treat their employees well when there are laws that say they have to. If there aren't laws, employees are exploited. History is pretty clear on this. | |||
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" We already went too far. That's why UK and Europe lost against US, India and China in the tech boom. That's how these countries lost in the EV battle. That's how we will lose the AI battle too. As always, the left will have a shocked face and try to blame these problems elsewhere and make it even more difficult for businesses. The cycle will go on. I mean, yeah, if you compare us to countries so deregulated that the workforce have basically zero protection or representation, then yes that's an example of regulation chasing business away. But, you know, for those of us who don't want to work in buildings that have anti-suicide nets around their top floors, it seems a price worth paying. And again, some of us don't accept that massive automotive overproduction or the emergence of commercial AI is an unqualified benefit to society. What you said is only partially true. Other countries winning over Europe in business development isn't solely down to ability to get away with bad working conditions. There are numerous other regulations at play here. If I want to start a new software company, it takes a lot of effort to understand the "War and peace" size regulations in Europe, hire a lawyer and do the and get extra software engineers to do it. I am more incentivised to just start the company in US/India first, make a lot of money and then expand to Europe with the capital I have built. If I want to build a competitor to any of the big websites, I am better of going to US to do it, instead of getting stuck trying to satisfy every lame regulation here, thereby helping the monopolies. Remember that software engineers in the US get paid a LOT higher than anywhere in Europe. Not to mention the social issues. Thanks to the repetitive push from media portraying successful businessmen as evil, ambition is basically dead in the continent. Sure, you can argue that material wealth is not everything. I completely agree with it. But the decision has its consequences and you need to learn to live with it. Wealth in the country will go down and it will be a struggle to sustain infrastructure and social welfare. Don't complain about these things because they are results of the policies you are supporting. I mean, yes, there are numerous other regulations, not just workers' rights. But these regulations also exist because it has been deemed that the potential loss of business investment is less detrimental than not having those regulations in place. " But it has been already proven to be detrimental and many of them do not have any benefit to the users. Do you really think there is any benefit in having to click a button on the cookie consent window that shows up on top of every website? These regulations were passed by politicians to create optics that *look like* they are doing something good for the people. But they aren't. This is left wing populism in a nutshell. " The perception of businessmen as evil is not something that the media have just fabricated. The high echelons of commercial industry are not clogged with philanthropists. Ambition isn't dead, either. We aren't short of people whose ambition is to make lots of money. " If you look at portfolio of the richest people. They either donate a lot directly to charity or they invest in businesses. Both are good. By investing in businesses, they are creating new job opportunities and producing more goods which help people in the end. It's only problematic if they keep the money in cash, which most rich people don't do. As for ambition, I have come across people from multiple cultures. The enthusiasm in trying to start businesses to solve real world problems is practically dead in Europe, compared to people from US and Asia. " Sustaining infrastructure and social welfare isn't contingent on remaining attractive to big business. The idea that if we don't deregulate, businesses will leave, the economy will suffer and we'll all be poor is a well-rehearsed Tory threat and it's demonstrably nonsense." Infrastructure needs goods and services. Social welfare needs goods and services. You need businesses for goods and services. It's not a Tory threat. It's economics 101. These things don't grow on trees. | |||
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" And I would also question the assumption that wealth-creation through business venture is automatically worthy of being incentivised. Why? What is better: A) A company with a £50m turnover employing 200 people and paying corp taxes. B) A company with a £1bn turnover employing 10,000 people and paying corp taxes. Which of those benefits the country more? And let’s not go down the tax avoidance rabbit hole as this is all hypothetical. In that case the founder/owner of company B is going to be far richer than the founder/owner of company A but will have been in the same position as A at some point. Why would they want growth if there is no personal reward for them? Why not stay at company A level? A. The reason is that if the market is 1Bn, I would rather it be divided between 20 companies than dominated by 1. Companies that metastasise to massive proportions rarely use that extra size for the benefit of larger society. There's plenty of examples of that besides tax avoidance." Hmmm that was a tricksy reply as I made no mention of market size. The key points were higher revenue = more corp tax (generally) and more employment = more income tax. ie big isn’t always bad. This was in the context of incentives to successful people pushing forward for more success. | |||
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" I mean, yes, there are numerous other regulations, not just workers' rights. But these regulations also exist because it has been deemed that the potential loss of business investment is less detrimental than not having those regulations in place. But it has been already proven to be detrimental and many of them do not have any benefit to the users. Do you really think there is any benefit in having to click a button on the cookie consent window that shows up on top of every website? These regulations were passed by politicians to create optics that *look like* they are doing something good for the people. But they aren't. This is left wing populism in a nutshell." The reason that's such a toothless step is specifically because businesses have too much political power so regulations aren't strong enough. Your solution is we shouldn't have anything at all to tell people their data is being tracked. How is that better? "The perception of businessmen as evil is not something that the media have just fabricated. The high echelons of commercial industry are not clogged with philanthropists. Ambition isn't dead, either. We aren't short of people whose ambition is to make lots of money. If you look at portfolio of the richest people. They either donate a lot directly to charity or they invest in businesses. Both are good. By investing in businesses, they are creating new job opportunities and producing more goods which help people in the end. It's only problematic if they keep the money in cash, which most rich people don't do." Yeah, that's a ridiculously naive way of looking at it. Most of the richest don't give to charities, they own charities which they use to earn tax breaks and exert political power. Same with the businesses they start. "As for ambition, I have come across people from multiple cultures. The enthusiasm in trying to start businesses to solve real world problems is practically dead in Europe, compared to people from US and Asia." My anecdotal experience is different to yours. There is no evidence that entrepreneurial spirit in Europe is dying. "Sustaining infrastructure and social welfare isn't contingent on remaining attractive to big business. The idea that if we don't deregulate, businesses will leave, the economy will suffer and we'll all be poor is a well-rehearsed Tory threat and it's demonstrably nonsense. Infrastructure needs goods and services. Social welfare needs goods and services. You need businesses for goods and services. It's not a Tory threat. It's economics 101. These things don't grow on trees." Yeah, I'm aware how economies work. What they don't need is corporate monopolies, the reckless pursuit of wealth, endless deregulation or "innovation" for its sake. Business can take place without being a turbocapitalist masturbation fantasy. | |||
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