[DISCUSSION] The Politics Thread

Midtown wrote:The poor and those with few skills don't benefit from the minimum wage.

You’re right about this, and the reason is that minimum wage is too low for the poor to benefit enough from it.

Ookami wrote:

Midtown wrote:The poor and those with few skills don't benefit from the minimum wage.

You’re right about this, and the reason is that minimum wage is too low for the poor to benefit enough from it.

You're missing the argument he's making:

If EmployeeABC doesn't provide a business with at least £X income per month, no employer is going to hire them on a salary of £x per month. The minimum wage basically says "you have to worth £X to be employable".

Extreme Example: You could put the minimum wage up to £20,000 pounds tomorrow. What do you think would happen?

Extralife wrote:Cameron's speech was almost totally devoid any real substance. Fine if you like that sort of thing but it doesn't rock my boat. Enough rhetoric, more policy please.

It had more policies than Gordon Brown's speech to be fair.

Hexx wrote:You're missing the argument he's making.

If EmployeeX doesn't provide a business with £X income per month, no employer is going to hire them on a salary of £x per month. The mimimum wage basically says "you have to worth £X to be employable".

Extreme Example: You could put the minimum wage up to £20,000 pounds tomorrow. What do you think would happen?

You’re kind of missing the argument I’m making too, Hexx.

Put it this way, if the minimum wage is too low, and if raising it isn’t going to help, and if lowering it isn’t going to help, what is the best thing to do?

Memento Mori wrote:

Extralife wrote:Cameron's speech was almost totally devoid any real substance. Fine if you like that sort of thing but it doesn't rock my boat. Enough rhetoric, more policy please.

It had more policies than Gordon Brown's speech to be fair.

There was a lot of rhetoric but that was necessary given the circumstances. The financial crisis has caused all parties to rip up their carefully worked out policy plans. The Tories did have shitloads to announce, but events have overtaken them and now a lot of the plans aren't feasible given the likely Treasury coffers after the election. It would have been far worse to announce stuff that later couldn't be fulfilled.

One thing that seems to have been overlooked was a clear commitment to cut red tape on business and use the savings to cut Corporation Tax by 3%. That's a strawberry floating awesome thing to do.

Eighthours wrote: use the savings to cut Corporation Tax by 3%. That's a ******* awesome thing to do.

How so? I'm intrigued.

Ookami wrote:

Hexx wrote:You're missing the argument he's making.

If EmployeeX doesn't provide a business with £X income per month, no employer is going to hire them on a salary of £x per month. The mimimum wage basically says "you have to worth £X to be employable".

Extreme Example: You could put the minimum wage up to £20,000 pounds tomorrow. What do you think would happen?

You’re kind of missing the argument I’m making too, Hexx.

Put it this way, if the minimum wage is too low, and if raising it isn’t going to help, and if lowering it isn’t going to help, what is the best thing to do?

Well there's one obvious answer. Why do you think it's too low?

Commander Jameson wrote:

Eighthours wrote: use the savings to cut Corporation Tax by 3%. That's a ******* awesome thing to do.

How so? I'm intrigued.

It'll really help out small businesses. It'll encourage larger businesses to stay in this country. It'll make it easier for businesses to expand. It'll help employment. There's not a single downside - if anything, the Treasury will probably end up with more money from business.

As I'm becoming a company director in 4 months, this is an awesome plan.

Eighthours wrote:As I'm becoming a company director in 4 months, this is an awesome plan.

Ahhhhhh, so it's go for you then?

Eighthours wrote:

new*allusion wrote:

Eighthours wrote:

captain red dog wrote:I'm all for unions. They are more often than not the only institutions that stick up for the worker.

It is amazing, however, just how weak most modern unions are.

Just to clarify my earlier comments, I'm all for the idea of unions. However, for me, they suffer the same crippling flaw as Communism - namely that the idea's brilliant but human nature inevitably strawberry floats it up. Unions don't only stand up for the poor and for fairness. Some also campaign for stupidly unrealistic wage deals, rabble-rouse and sow seeds of discontent without reason, and whenever there's a gathering of them together, the moustachioed "Ey up" nature of them reminds me of the worst Working Men's Clubs. Unions need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. Lest we forget, it's some Unions that completely strawberry floated everything up for the economy in the late 70s.

The only union I think needs a bit of a kicking today is the RMT. Bob Crow is a prat, sure rail staff are not well paid, but the actions of his union have turned public sympathy away from them.

The italicised section is something I take some exception to - a very outdated view indeed. Maybe its the fact that I've only really seen Unison and the teaching unions making big statements recently - but I certainly wouldn't characterise them as middle-aged northern men with ludicrous requests. In fact, it is probably this kind of view which makes people less willing to join other unions and slows down modernisation.

That was me exaggerating for effect, to be fair.

It's not wholly without merit, though - modern day presentation is partly about who you get to show up for the media interviews, and too often the unions pansy up some rosy-cheeked fat man with ravioli down his shirt who has an impenetrably thick Scottish accent. Who then rants about something completely ridiculous.

Oh come on... Exaggerating, again?!

This is like someone saying that the Conservatives always pick out of touch well spoken public schoolboys to run for seats of parliament. Most union leaders aren't like this anymore since they've discovered that it doesn't help their case, same for the Conservatives. The only reason why you're hearing so many of them with northern accents is because so much struggling business in this country is based, funnily enough, in the north of the country.

The thought of a Tory government fills me with fear.

Hexx wrote:

Ookami wrote:

Hexx wrote:You're missing the argument he's making.

If EmployeeX doesn't provide a business with £X income per month, no employer is going to hire them on a salary of £x per month. The mimimum wage basically says "you have to worth £X to be employable".

Extreme Example: You could put the minimum wage up to £20,000 pounds tomorrow. What do you think would happen?

You’re kind of missing the argument I’m making too, Hexx.

Put it this way, if the minimum wage is too low, and if raising it isn’t going to help, and if lowering it isn’t going to help, what is the best thing to do?

Well there's one obvious answer. Why do you think it's too low?

I’m glad you’ve worked out the answer, Hexx.

I feel minimum wage isn’t helping the poorest families because I’m in a poor family surrounded by other, poorer families; I can see for myself that it is too low because I know the problems they face, with bills and payments and all that, whether they have a breadwinner or make do with benefits.

I thought that the obvious answer implied this problem, in all honesty.

So how are people gonna vote then mayne???

I'll be strawberry floated if I ever vote Conservative and Labour ain't gonna be doing much.

IMO, Labour already know they ain't gonna get re-elected so wanna hit the Conservatives with as much debt as possible.

Scotticus Erroticus wrote:The thought of a Tory government fills me with fear.

I whole-heartedly agree. The problem is that there is no major political party that doesn't.

Ookami wrote:I’m glad you’ve worked out the answer, Hexx.

So you agree it isn't working, but you think it shouldn't be lowered or highered? Right then. Let's get rid of it!

Expanding on my "this'll help employment" reason, the decision to take on a new member of staff is usually based on risk-reward, where you increase your costs in order to hopefully make more money in return. Often this isn't based on an "I've got an extra £20,000 so let's go for it" kind of reason - the margins between going for it and not are usually much smaller, with a tipping point as to when you think you can comfortably afford to take the risk.

For this reason, a saving of 3% on Corporation Tax will be awesome. Let's say that your company makes a taxable profit of £50,000. Presently you'd be paying £10,500 in CT (it actually went up 1% in April: thanks a bunch, Labour). With this new policy, you'd be paying £9,000 instead. Now, that saving may not sound like much to you, but to a small business the extra money could prove to be the tipping point to allow expansion.

For a larger business, the money saving will be significant and this effect will be amplified still further. At all levels of the economy, it's a really good move.

new*allusion wrote: Oh come on... Exaggerating, again?!

I wish I was!

Seriously!

BobbyDigital wrote:IMO, Labour already know they ain't gonna get re-elected so wanna hit the Conservatives with as much debt as possible.

The Tories tried that in '92, and it backfired massively.

Eighthours wrote:Expanding on my "this'll help employment" reason, the decision to take on a new member of staff is usually based on risk-reward, where you increase your costs in order to hopefully make more money in return. Often this isn't based on an "I've got an extra £20,000 so let's go for it" kind of reason - the margins between going for it and not are usually much smaller, with a tipping point as to when you think you can comfortably afford to take the risk.

For this reason, a saving of 3% on Corporation Tax will be awesome. Let's say that your company makes a taxable profit of £50,000. Presently you'd be paying £10,500 in CT (it actually went up 1% in April: thanks a bunch, Labour). With this new policy, you'd be paying £9,000 instead. Now, that saving may not sound like much to you, but to a small business the extra money could prove to be the tipping point to allow expansion.

For a larger business, the money saving will be significant and this effect will be amplified still further. At all levels of the economy, it's a really good move.

That's one way of looking at it, certainly.

Ookami wrote:I feel minimum wage isn’t helping the poorest families because I’m in a poor family surrounded by other, poorer families; I can see for myself that it is too low because I know the problems they face, with bills and payments and all that, whether they have a breadwinner or make do with benefits.

Trouble is, if it gets raised significantly then more people will be unemployed or prices will have to be raised. Neither scenario would be good for poorer families either. Unfortunately, the answer is for the lower paid to acquire the skills and experience to become better paid. I know that's far easier to write down than actually do, and Government could certainly assist more in this than they are at the moment, but there is an element of personal responsibility here.