Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
I'm very vague about how all this works and 'thankfully' don't earn enough to have to think about it much. But is there a reason we don't have a simpler system like 'for every £10k over £50k your tax rate goes up by 1%' (up to some limit presumably)? I realise there are other things at play like various benefits/allowances etc - but it feels like they could all be under a similar sliding scale rather than all these esoteric and random-seeming cliff-edges.
I feel like I'm missing something as to why we have 'oh, this much income you pay X%, but lose Y% on that, then if you earn another £RANDOM you pay X+Q% and lose...'
Adding another “fix” on top of the first one zillion fixes is so much fun for Chancellors. Plus any attempt to simplify the tax system runs into the issue that tax law is written by tax lawyers…. Not to mention the more idiotic types who think that a simpler system would help the rich….
Ah. In that case I'll just add it into my mental big box full of things like planning legislation, education, health, ....
At my age I should really know better than to think 'there must be a good reason why...'.
Worth reading whole thread "it's not just housing":
In summary: • Parties on the right used to rely on people ageing into conservatism. Millennials are different, likely due to: • Coming of age during econ and home-ownership crises -> forming more left-wing views • Using culture war politics on the most educated generation ever
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
Worth reading whole thread "it's not just housing":
In summary: • Parties on the right used to rely on people ageing into conservatism. Millennials are different, likely due to: • Coming of age during econ and home-ownership crises -> forming more left-wing views • Using culture war politics on the most educated generation ever
Yet given the Conservatives won 39 to 49s in 2019 but Labour won over 60% of under 30s that chart is very dubious.
In France too more under 30s voted for Le Pen and her far right culture wars over Macron in May than over 60s.
Looks like FT had an article and didn't check all the data to ensure it matched. Not all of it does
Millennial: Age range 23-38 in 2019. Total number of millennials in your selected age bracket of 39-49 = 0.
According to that chart, Gen X voted more Con than average, who would include age range 39-49 (Gen X born between 1965-1980, so age 39-54 in 2019).
Yet still given most under 39s rent and the age at which most own a property is now 39, the FT argument that millennials are now lifelong leftwingers rather than just non home owners was rubbish
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
There's loads of room in London and also little opposition to new development. But it needs more infrastructure investment to happen, and we seem to be incapable of that in the UK.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
There is plenty of room for more high rise as most other global cities have.
Average house prices in the UK down 2.5% since August anyway
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
It's not per se either good or bad. It depends on who and what. If you cite 'the market' as justifying high pay - regardless of the circumstances - you have to accept its wisdom when it creates low pay. I don't accept its moral primacy at all. We need other ways of valuing work.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
If you think London is high density compared to similar cities than I have a garden bridge to sell you.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
Allow every terrace in London to add two stories on top & you’d make a huge dent in the housing shortage. The moaning from the usual suspects would be epic mind.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
They only do for the low skilled
But there’s no evidence for this, and much against. Just assertion by the last desperate Brexity hold-outs.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Indeed, hence also many low skilled workers voted for Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Brexit and Boris, Abbott etc
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
Allow every terrace in London to add two stories on top & you’d make a huge dent in the housing shortage. The moaning from the usual suspects would be epic mind.
They’ve actually done that in a few places. Do a whole row in one go, mostly. The residents love it.
There’s apparently a comment up thread from OGH where he says he is going into hospital for a spinal operation shortly. I sincerely hope he recovers more quickly than I have; more like my lumber one, a couple of years ago, where I was out and on my feet within hours. As opposed to my recent cervical one where I have not yet recovered the use of my hands, let alone legs!
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
Allow every terrace in London to add two stories on top & you’d make a huge dent in the housing shortage. The moaning from the usual suspects would be epic mind.
As I have posted many times before, my family home is a 3 story (or 2.5 story) semi detached house less than 2 miles from “Bank”.
Try finding that in New York, Paris, Tokyo etc etc etc.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
I'm very vague about how all this works and 'thankfully' don't earn enough to have to think about it much. But is there a reason we don't have a simpler system like 'for every £10k over £50k your tax rate goes up by 1%' (up to some limit presumably)? I realise there are other things at play like various benefits/allowances etc - but it feels like they could all be under a similar sliding scale rather than all these esoteric and random-seeming cliff-edges.
I feel like I'm missing something as to why we have 'oh, this much income you pay X%, but lose Y% on that, then if you earn another £RANDOM you pay X+Q% and lose...'
Adding another “fix” on top of the first one zillion fixes is so much fun for Chancellors. Plus any attempt to simplify the tax system runs into the issue that tax law is written by tax lawyers…. Not to mention the more idiotic types who think that a simpler system would help the rich….
Ah. In that case I'll just add it into my mental big box full of things like planning legislation, education, health, ....
At my age I should really know better than to think 'there must be a good reason why...'.
In my experience a problem is that Chancellors generally try to solve one thing at a time - where can I find £Xbn without upsetting too many people? How can I increase incentives to work for Middle England? etc. The reason they don't embark on massive reform (e.g. merging NI into income tax or changing all the tax bands) is that:
1. There will be winners and losers and the losers shout loudest. 2. Because it's a BIG reform it will affect nearly everyone. So everyone pays attention (whereas your little tweak to the 40p rate or whatever is soon forgotten). 3. Because of 1 and 2, the impression gains ground that you're a bit mad and putting everyone at risk. Fellow-Ministers complain that you're dominating the picture, obscuring the splendid work they're doing on new cycle paths or whatever.
You can solve this problem in two ways: have a really extensive consultation first (though you'll still get problem 1, maybe you can gauge where the worst cases are and tweak), or do it when the economy is doing so well that you can give sweeties to everyone. The more popular solution for careerist ministers is not to do it, and settle for modest tweaks.
For the same reason, I expect not to see abolition of the Lords really happen in the next 20 years.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
If you think London is high density compared to similar cities than I have a garden bridge to sell you.
Have you ever left Wiltshire?
It depends on your definition of London - some the “it’s low rise” stuff uses a definition that goes beyond the M25.
It’s interesting to see how rapidly the “high density” cities fade into suburbs…
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Indeed, hence also many low skilled workers voted for Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Brexit and Boris, Abbott etc
Irrational. If they're driven by issues of the pocket they should vote for left wing parties.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
Off topic, I went to the Coop earlier. No mince pies left on the shelves, but I was able to pick up a pack of hot cross buns. Easter eggs also on sale, but I resisted.
There’s apparently a comment up thread from OGH where he says he is going into hospital for a spinal operation shortly. I sincerely hope he recovers more quickly than I have; more like my lumber one, a couple of years ago, where I was out and on my feet within hours. As opposed to my recent cervical one where I have not yet recovered the use of my hands, let alone legs!
That’s tough. Sympathies to all PB-ers with ailments!
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Indeed, hence also many low skilled workers voted for Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Brexit and Boris, Abbott etc
Irrational. If they're driven by issues of the pocket they should vote for left wing parties.
On immigration why? The left are more in favour of open door immigration.
Low skilled blue collar workers may be centre to centre left economically but they are more socially conservative than average too and want restricted immigration
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Indeed, hence also many low skilled workers voted for Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Brexit and Boris, Abbott etc
Irrational. If they're driven by issues of the pocket they should vote for left wing parties.
On immigration why? The left are more in favour of open door immigration.
Low skilled blue collar workers may be centre to centre left economically but they are more socially conservative than average too and want restricted immigration
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Indeed, hence also many low skilled workers voted for Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Brexit and Boris, Abbott etc
Irrational. If they're driven by issues of the pocket they should vote for left wing parties.
On immigration why? The left are more in favour of open door immigration.
Low skilled blue collar workers may be centre to centre left economically but they are more socially conservative than average too and want restricted immigration
IIRC there is research showing that Red Wall voters were attracted more by Boris Johnson's tilt left on economic policy ("levelling up" ) than his tilt right on social issues. That agenda is now dead, which is why the Tories will lose the next election and why Labour should be odds on for a majority.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
Given the Gaddafi supporting nonesense published by the LSE - literally “it’s more democratic than actually letting people vote” stuff - I’m not sure that I would class it higher than Kabul.
As some one said “I can only hope they were pimping their souls for the money. The alternative is worse.”
EDIT : I’m in favour of immigration. But pretends it only has positive effects and no effort needs to be expended to create those positive effects is bollocks. Like everything involving humans it is a complex system with complex effects.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
Tell us how you are troubled “on some level” by mass immigration
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
Tell us how you are troubled “on some level” by mass immigration
Profound social change, unsupported by the electorate, and to some extent not explicitly willed even by the government, and potential effects on communal sensibility / trust levels.
Edit: I also note and agree with @Malmesbury’s point that it necessitates infrastructure which the UK govt never seemed to bother about.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Open door migration isn’t a problem for the high skilled jobs, since there is a world wide shortage of such skills and will be for the foreseeable future.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Indeed, hence also many low skilled workers voted for Trump, Meloni, Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Brexit and Boris, Abbott etc
Irrational. If they're driven by issues of the pocket they should vote for left wing parties.
On immigration why? The left are more in favour of open door immigration.
Low skilled blue collar workers may be centre to centre left economically but they are more socially conservative than average too and want restricted immigration
IIRC there is research showing that Red Wall voters were attracted more by Boris Johnson's tilt left on economic policy ("levelling up" ) than his tilt right on social issues. That agenda is now dead, which is why the Tories will lose the next election and why Labour should be odds on for a majority.
If it wasn't for Brexit and tighter immigration controls they wouldn't even have voted for Boris in 2019.
Levelling up proposals just sealed the deal for them
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
Tell us how you are troubled “on some level” by mass immigration
Profound social change, unsupported by the electorate, and to some extent not explicitly willed even by the government, and potential effects on communal sensibility / trust levels.
Fair enough. I agree. High immigration Britain is a huge experiment, and the lack of proper consent for this experiment is deeply troubling. Indeed, when given the chance (Brexit etc) in recent years Britons have asked for and willed LOWER immigration. Yet it has not happened, to put it mildly
We must pray this dangerous experiment does not go horribly wrong
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
Tell us how you are troubled “on some level” by mass immigration
Profound social change, unsupported by the electorate, and to some extent not explicitly willed even by the government, and potential effects on communal sensibility / trust levels.
Fair enough. I agree. High immigration Britain is a huge experiment, and the lack of proper consent for this experiment is deeply troubling. Indeed, when given the chance (Brexit etc) in recent years Britons have asked for and willed LOWER immigration. Yet it has not happened, to put it mildly
We must pray this dangerous experiment does not go horribly wrong
It has on EU immigration which has fallen post Brexit, it is just non EU immigration continuing to rise
The great Tooze is publishing on the state of Britain, a topic he usually avoids as it is “too personal”.
We need to talk about the state of Britain, the situation is dire. But the evocation of earlier debates about decline, debates which stretch back to the 1950s and beyond, is not just beside the point. It distracts from alarming novelty of the current situation. If you don’t engage with the data, the incoherence and repetitive structure of those earlier debates about decline, can seem to justify a relativistic or downright apologetic stance. Ding-dong exchanges between Brexiteers and Remainers have not helped to clarify the situation. Whilst Brexiteers chase the vanishing dream of “global Britain”, the national economic collapse that, according to “Project Fear”, was supposed to follow Brexit, never arrived either. That is not to say that the economic impact of Brexit will not be severe. The latest predictions are nasty. See for instance the CER. But the Brexit effects have not yet been fully felt.
More importantly for our purposes, the shock of 2016 cannot by itself explain what really ought to alarm us, namely the astonishing stagnation in productivity and real incomes that now stretches back over more than a decade.
It's almost like letting in millions of low skilled workers to "rub the rights nose in diversity" ended up undercutting real pay and conditions for half the population, and causing employers to choose cheap labour over capital investment.
A moment that was interesting - a Labour supporting friend met my friend who was emigrating to Australia.
The Labour chap thought that the massive wage increases in parts of the Australian economy due to labour shortages was a bad thing….
Did everyone on the bus get up and cheer as well?
It was fascinating to watch - the mantra of “high wages are bad” had reached a place I didn’t think they would go. Almost - “high wages are a sign of a racist immigration policy”.
If migration lowered wages, the USA and Switzerland must be in deep doo-doo.
At the low end, in the US, you are in the shit. The minimum wage is low and often evaded. Real poverty wages…
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
At the low end of the USA you are in the shit because it has a very low tax take and very limited redistribution.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Pre-taxation wages in the US are also very low at the bottom of the income distribution, so a complete false canard you are throwing.
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
I’m not an ideological a supporter of “mass immigration”. I am, on some level, troubled by the scale of migration in the UK that started around 2000 and seems to continue unabated.
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
The New York Times is not interested in economic analysis.
Of course London restaurants are experiencing shortages of young, enthusiastic Europeans. Some will respond with wage rises, others will just close. The pursuant inflation then simply deflates real wages, and the closed restaurants represent a loss of consumer choice and surplus.
Worth reading whole thread "it's not just housing":
In summary: • Parties on the right used to rely on people ageing into conservatism. Millennials are different, likely due to: • Coming of age during econ and home-ownership crises -> forming more left-wing views • Using culture war politics on the most educated generation ever
Yet given the Conservatives won 39 to 49s in 2019 but Labour won over 60% of under 30s that chart is very dubious.
In France too more under 30s voted for Le Pen and her far right culture wars over Macron in May than over 60s.
Looks like FT had an article and didn't check all the data to ensure it matched. Not all of it does
Millennial: Age range 23-38 in 2019. Total number of millennials in your selected age bracket of 39-49 = 0.
According to that chart, Gen X voted more Con than average, who would include age range 39-49 (Gen X born between 1965-1980, so age 39-54 in 2019).
Yet still given most under 39s rent and the age at which most own a property is now 39, the FT argument that millennials are now lifelong leftwingers rather than just non home owners was rubbish
They addressed that. Even increasing homeownership to earlier levels would only add a couple of percentage points.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
I'm very vague about how all this works and 'thankfully' don't earn enough to have to think about it much. But is there a reason we don't have a simpler system like 'for every £10k over £50k your tax rate goes up by 1%' (up to some limit presumably)? I realise there are other things at play like various benefits/allowances etc - but it feels like they could all be under a similar sliding scale rather than all these esoteric and random-seeming cliff-edges.
I feel like I'm missing something as to why we have 'oh, this much income you pay X%, but lose Y% on that, then if you earn another £RANDOM you pay X+Q% and lose...'
Adding another “fix” on top of the first one zillion fixes is so much fun for Chancellors. Plus any attempt to simplify the tax system runs into the issue that tax law is written by tax lawyers…. Not to mention the more idiotic types who think that a simpler system would help the rich….
Ah. In that case I'll just add it into my mental big box full of things like planning legislation, education, health, ....
At my age I should really know better than to think 'there must be a good reason why...'.
In my experience a problem is that Chancellors generally try to solve one thing at a time - where can I find £Xbn without upsetting too many people? How can I increase incentives to work for Middle England? etc. The reason they don't embark on massive reform (e.g. merging NI into income tax or changing all the tax bands) is that:
1. There will be winners and losers and the losers shout loudest. 2. Because it's a BIG reform it will affect nearly everyone. So everyone pays attention (whereas your little tweak to the 40p rate or whatever is soon forgotten). 3. Because of 1 and 2, the impression gains ground that you're a bit mad and putting everyone at risk. Fellow-Ministers complain that you're dominating the picture, obscuring the splendid work they're doing on new cycle paths or whatever.
You can solve this problem in two ways: have a really extensive consultation first (though you'll still get problem 1, maybe you can gauge where the worst cases are and tweak), or do it when the economy is doing so well that you can give sweeties to everyone. The more popular solution for careerist ministers is not to do it, and settle for modest tweaks.
For the same reason, I expect not to see abolition of the Lords really happen in the next 20 years.
Well, that's... less than cheery. I don't see any signs of Labour making any grand changes even if they won a whopping majority. Maybe in their 2nd term.... or not...
Worth reading whole thread "it's not just housing":
In summary: • Parties on the right used to rely on people ageing into conservatism. Millennials are different, likely due to: • Coming of age during econ and home-ownership crises -> forming more left-wing views • Using culture war politics on the most educated generation ever
Yet given the Conservatives won 39 to 49s in 2019 but Labour won over 60% of under 30s that chart is very dubious.
In France too more under 30s voted for Le Pen and her far right culture wars over Macron in May than over 60s.
Looks like FT had an article and didn't check all the data to ensure it matched. Not all of it does
Millennial: Age range 23-38 in 2019. Total number of millennials in your selected age bracket of 39-49 = 0.
According to that chart, Gen X voted more Con than average, who would include age range 39-49 (Gen X born between 1965-1980, so age 39-54 in 2019).
Yet still given most under 39s rent and the age at which most own a property is now 39, the FT argument that millennials are now lifelong leftwingers rather than just non home owners was rubbish
They addressed that. Even increasing homeownership to earlier levels would only add a couple of percentage points.
Which was also rubbish given most 39 year olds voted Tory in 2019 and the average age at which most own a property is, surprise, surprise, now 39.
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
Every time the Tories are in power the labour share of national income goes down.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
They cannot use single sex bathrooms, this is already Labour policy. You just changed the subject because I called you out for being wrong
If you have self declared as a woman legally then legally too there is nothing to stop you using a female bathroom
As far as I’m aware there’s nothing legally preventing a man from using a female bathroom either. Declaration of gender is irrelevant here - the law doesn’t spell this out either way.
You might be asked to leave if you did so, but that would be up to the establishment in question.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Yes, if you are bringing in people who are higher than average productivity. We should let those in. If you are bringing in people who are lower than average productivity, you are reducing productivity. Also average productivity migrants are probably a net drain once you take into effect the diminishing marginal returns to usable land.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Furthermore having lost 4% of GDP by leaving the EU it ill behoves a LEAVER to crave in aid lack of productivity for low wages
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Migration does have a positive role to play here but so does investment in training of the indigenous population, investment in technology, overcoming infrastructural issues with better roads, transport networks and housing, inward capital investment of those with IPR, etc etc. This is what our governments of any stripe should be focusing on. Grow the cake and share the new cake more fairly than the old.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Migration does have a positive role to play here but so does investment in training of the indigenous population, investment in technology, overcoming infrastructural issues with better roads, transport networks and housing, inward capital investment of those with IPR, etc etc. This is what our governments of any stripe should be focusing on. Grow the cake and share the new cake more fairly than the old.
Absolutely. Immigration can’t and won’t paper over those cracks.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Yes, if you are bringing in people who are higher than average productivity. We should let those in. If you are bringing in people who are lower than average productivity, you are reducing productivity. Also average productivity migrants are probably a net drain once you take into effect the diminishing marginal returns to usable land.
Luckily, Britain was bringing in higher than average productivity, and likely still is.
Of course this is not the same thing as saying every migrant was above average. Perhaps you had a bad experience with an Albanian taxi driver.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Migration does have a positive role to play here but so does investment in training of the indigenous population, investment in technology, overcoming infrastructural issues with better roads, transport networks and housing, inward capital investment of those with IPR, etc etc. This is what our governments of any stripe should be focusing on. Grow the cake and share the new cake more fairly than the old.
The idea that “the right kind of immigration” will increase productivity, as if by magic, is wrong.
Increasing the number of jobs with the structure to support higher productivity and filling them with suitably skilled people is how productivity rises.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
Why do you focus on fault? No one is seeking to blame the low paid, they are seeking to help them. Government policy cannot solve these problems but it can help. £2 of tax relief for every £1 spent on training or new equipment. Demanding better of our poorly performing schools and giving them additional funding to bring in better teachers. There are lots of things we can do, we just seem obsessed with trivialities and quick fixes rather than the hard work actually required.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
There is a whole wealth of literature on the reason why Europe, especially Britain, had an industrial revolution and China didn't. The main reason is that Europe had a surplus of land and shortage of labour so capitalists paid for labour-saving devices that improved productivity, which created a positive cycle of capital accumulation to make the next round of investment.
In China, land was in short supply and labour was abundant, so capital owners simply focused on crowding more and more workers onto smaller plots of land. The return to that was quickly used up by further population growth.
This is what still happens with business owners today. If you can't get the staff, you are forced to automate processes that were previously done manually. That means higher productivity of those remaning employees you do have.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
In the long-run, wages must reflect real productivity.
In the short-term there is a trade-off between capital and labour. Things like trade unionism help protect labour share. As pointed out by another poster, the Tories tend to advantage capital.
The Tories think the public is stupid, that is why they think trans rights is a big vote winner.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
In Australia Albanese neutered the issue by refusing to say trans men, certainly pre surgery, should have access to women only bathrooms despite pressure from the left to do so
They cannot use single sex bathrooms, this is already Labour policy. You just changed the subject because I called you out for being wrong
If you have self declared as a woman legally then legally too there is nothing to stop you using a female bathroom
As far as I’m aware there’s nothing legally preventing a man from using a female bathroom either. Declaration of gender is irrelevant here - the law doesn’t spell this out either way.
You might be asked to leave if you did so, but that would be up to the establishment in question.
(Happy be to corrected on this if I’m wrong!)
If an establishment has women and men toilets not unisex then yes it can ask a man using a female toilet to leave.
It cannot legally ask a former man who has legally self declared to be a woman to leave however
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Yes, if you are bringing in people who are higher than average productivity. We should let those in. If you are bringing in people who are lower than average productivity, you are reducing productivity. Also average productivity migrants are probably a net drain once you take into effect the diminishing marginal returns to usable land.
Luckily, Britain was bringing in higher than average productivity, and likely still is.
Of course this is not the same thing as saying every migrant was above average. Perhaps you had a bad experience with an Albanian taxi driver.
Most Albanian Black Cab drivers are quite unproductive, due to trauma caused by weird passengers.
Policymakers wishing to raise more revenue from those with high incomes could simply raise income tax rates; raising any of the rates of income tax would be progressive. But estimates suggest that the UK’s top marginal income tax rate (which applies to the roughly top 1% of taxpayers) is already close to revenue maximising."
If anything the top rate tax is too high. We really do need to remove the pinch / taper points at the £50,000 and £100,000 levels by say increase rates to 43% from say £70,000.
It is too high.
I pay 62% above £100k, which is confiscatory.
The UC taper rate has entered the chat.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you follow my posts I've consistently argued against that high UC taper too.
Whilst I agree with you on the pinch points of both varieties this still misses the point. The point is that capital is seriously undertaxed with the result that the burden on income, and earned income in particular.
Capital gains should be taxed like income, as it so often is but simply deferred. Inflationary gains in housing need to be taxed. Pension reliefs are still too generous. All of these pile the pressure on rates and personal allowances. We need to change this. Saving capital from income is pretty much impossible in this country. That is consolidating inherited wealth and stunting opportunity.
Oh, I agree.
More houses are required. Not taxes on houses.
In you build enough properties to match the population, prices will go down. It’s the scarcity that turns housing into the default investment.
Scarcity where people want to live.
Brownfield, brownfield…
Brownfield is just an excuse.
Yet average house prices in London are 4 times those of the North East and even 1.5 times those in the home counties.
London brownfield sites are where we need most new building
Where are these magic brownfield sites in London?
Consider - at Canary Wharf, hundreds of millions was spent, literally digging a hole in the ground. Because it was next to the river, they had to flood it with bentonite slurry and excavate underwater to prevent the river causing a collapse.
They are building towers of flats on sites that are next to major roads, all night train lines…
London is one big low-rise brownfield site, and on the largest-scale analysis it spreads all the way to Southend.
There’s actually plenty of room.
Ah, the old “gardens are building sites” approach.
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
If you think London is high density compared to similar cities than I have a garden bridge to sell you.
Have you ever left Wiltshire?
It depends on your definition of London - some the “it’s low rise” stuff uses a definition that goes beyond the M25.
It’s interesting to see how rapidly the “high density” cities fade into suburbs…
I was surprised a while ago to learn that the size and population - and hence population density - of Staten Island and Edinburgh were roughly the same.
I assume one factor is that the City of Edinburgh council area extends quite far out to the rural west, beyond the bypass, but still.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Yes, if you are bringing in people who are higher than average productivity. We should let those in. If you are bringing in people who are lower than average productivity, you are reducing productivity. Also average productivity migrants are probably a net drain once you take into effect the diminishing marginal returns to usable land.
Luckily, Britain was bringing in higher than average productivity, and likely still is.
Of course this is not the same thing as saying every migrant was above average. Perhaps you had a bad experience with an Albanian taxi driver.
Most Albanian Black Cab drivers are quite unproductive, due to trauma caused by weird passengers.
I know this has entered PB mythology… and I am addressing a brick wall… but the Albanian-Italian ex pro-footballer cab driver was absolutely real. No word of a lie
Seattle Times ($) - Facing eviction, Twitter closes Seattle office, reports say
After laying off 208 workers in Washington, Twitter is now facing eviction and will close its downtown Seattle office, according to reports Thursday by The New York Times and tech news publication Platformer.
Since 2014, the social media company’s Seattle office has been at Century Square tower downtown in a space that can accommodate 200 workers. According to The New York Times, janitorial and security services at Twitter’s Seattle office have now been cut, and in some cases the remaining employees have resorted to bringing their own toilet paper.
Landlord Unico Properties did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Seattle Times. Court records do not show any eviction lawsuits pending against Twitter.
In November, 208 workers at the Seattle office were cut among the 3,700 companywide a week after Tesla founder Elon Musk completed his $44 billion Twitter acquisition. Twitter had a 7,500-person workforce.
Platformer reported Thursday evening that Twitter’s remaining Seattle-based workers have been directed to work from home.
Office closures are the latest step taken by Musk to cut costs at Twitter. This month, on a live forum on Twitter, he said the company was on track to have a “negative cash flow situation” of $3 billion next year due to a lack of advertising revenue and increased costs, such as debt payments.
SSI - ". . . Twitter’s remaining Seattle-based workers have been directed to work from home." - updating their resumes!
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
Absolutely correct. So how do you increase productivity? Well, one lever is migration…
Migration does have a positive role to play here but so does investment in training of the indigenous population, investment in technology, overcoming infrastructural issues with better roads, transport networks and housing, inward capital investment of those with IPR, etc etc. This is what our governments of any stripe should be focusing on. Grow the cake and share the new cake more fairly than the old.
The idea that “the right kind of immigration” will increase productivity, as if by magic, is wrong.
Increasing the number of jobs with the structure to support higher productivity and filling them with suitably skilled people is how productivity rises.
I think we are agreeing. The answer to productivity is not Polish plumbers or Rumanian carpenters or even Taiwanese IT specialists.
They help fill skills gaps in the short term and help output but the productivity of the country as a whole rises when people are lifted out of very basic jobs and given the skills to better themselves fill ,those gaps and force the employer of the low skilled to make better use of his labour by investing in capital machinery. The external specialist will all too often go home taking their skills with them. We need to be able to take up the slack.
Our policies in recent years have been very successful in reducing unemployment by subsidising the cost of labour with in work benefits and improving the elasticity of labour by ready supply from the EU. We need to value human labour more, pay more for it and seek to get the best out of it.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
There is a whole wealth of literature on the reason why Europe, especially Britain, had an industrial revolution and China didn't. The main reason is that Europe had a surplus of land and shortage of labour so capitalists paid for labour-saving devices that improved productivity, which created a positive cycle of capital accumulation to make the next round of investment.
In China, land was in short supply and labour was abundant, so capital owners simply focused on crowding more and more workers onto smaller plots of land. The return to that was quickly used up by further population growth.
This is what still happens with business owners today. If you can't get the staff, you are forced to automate processes that were previously done manually. That means higher productivity of those remaning employees you do have.
The reason for the industrial revolution is still hotly debated. It’s a favourite topic in economic history, perhaps *the* favourite topic.
But in contemporary economics, there is not a substantial school of thought that really questions the positive effect of immigration on economic growth, via greater demand + improved specialisation. There are also the effects of improved demographics given ageing Western societies.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
In the long-run, wages must reflect real productivity.
In the short-term there is a trade-off between capital and labour. Things like trade unionism help protect labour share. As pointed out by another poster, the Tories tend to advantage capital.
Trade unionism is difficult because it both does the positive thing of protecting the labour share of returns and the negative thing of fighting efficiency gains which cause redundancies.
Off topic, I went to the Coop earlier. No mince pies left on the shelves, but I was able to pick up a pack of hot cross buns. Easter eggs also on sale, but I resisted.
The larger Sainsbury's stores tend to sell both items all year round.
Here in County Cork I've still not found myself a Cork Battenburg yet.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
There is a whole wealth of literature on the reason why Europe, especially Britain, had an industrial revolution and China didn't. The main reason is that Europe had a surplus of land and shortage of labour so capitalists paid for labour-saving devices that improved productivity, which created a positive cycle of capital accumulation to make the next round of investment.
In China, land was in short supply and labour was abundant, so capital owners simply focused on crowding more and more workers onto smaller plots of land. The return to that was quickly used up by further population growth.
This is what still happens with business owners today. If you can't get the staff, you are forced to automate processes that were previously done manually. That means higher productivity of those remaning employees you do have.
The government is the largest business owner in the country. They show every sign of trying to do precisely the opposite. It's all protect the Frontline, and don't "waste" money on the very things which enable Frontline services to be delivered. And what if you can't automate at all? Then real wages must rise. Again. This government is attempting the opposite.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
In the long-run, wages must reflect real productivity.
In the short-term there is a trade-off between capital and labour. Things like trade unionism help protect labour share. As pointed out by another poster, the Tories tend to advantage capital.
Trade unionism is difficult because it both does the positive thing of protecting the labour share of returns and the negative thing of fighting efficiency gains which cause redundancies.
That can be applied to a variety of strategies that alter the balance. For example, great inequality reduces economic growth too as it impedes the development of a large middle class.
Let's clear this one up. Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not? Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory. But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
II am in favour of higher wages that are earned, that is paid by an increase in productivity. This is sustainable and in everyone's interests. Higher wages which are not earned will prove illusory because they will generate inflation and the real value will, at best, remain where it was. The problem of the last several years is that our productivity has not been improving materially which makes real increases in wages almost impossible.
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
But. From where is productivity increased? Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite. Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement. So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
In the long-run, wages must reflect real productivity.
In the short-term there is a trade-off between capital and labour. Things like trade unionism help protect labour share. As pointed out by another poster, the Tories tend to advantage capital.
Keynes had an opinion on the long run. I'm talking specifically about wages policy in 2022-3.
Comments
At my age I should really know better than to think 'there must be a good reason why...'.
According to that chart, Gen X voted more Con than average, who would include age range 39-49 (Gen X born between 1965-1980, so age 39-54 in 2019).
year
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/12/30/russia-ukraine-war-latest-news-putin-zelensky-kyiv-drone-attack/
There’s actually plenty of room.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/30/european-new-years-eve-tv-staple-dinner-for-one-prequel
Average house prices in the UK down 2.5% since August anyway
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/house-prices-fall-worst-run-since-2008/
@rcs1000 can explain again the methodology Switzerland uses to make entry into its labour market difficult. Languages, qualifications….
“Xi fell out of a window in the underground nuclear bunker and fell 16 floors to the surface.”
I really think that they should be more imaginative.
“He was trampled by a rhino on the ceiling of his flat. Then eaten by intelligent, giant mutant haddock”.
Swiss attracts highly skilled migration, but hey, so did Britain. Migration was (and presumably still is) higher skilled than the native workforce.
It’s convenient to blame migration on British ills, but I’m afraid it’s the oldest prejudice in the book and not supported by the evidence (quite the reverse).
Terraced housing is actually quite high density. But building that seems to run into religious issues.
There is no such shortage of low/moderate skills.
So lots of immigration holding down low skill wages is great for me. The goods and services are cheaper and I can luxuriate in my tolerance.
Further down the scale, less so.
Have you ever left Wiltshire?
Probably the woman closest to the Indian PM given he never married
https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1608774714151034881?s=20&t=jnX2IVy5g3r9bN2UbqARuw
Just assertion by the last desperate Brexity hold-outs.
EDIT : 1 story only
As opposed to my recent cervical one where I have not yet recovered the use of my hands, let alone legs!
Try finding that in New York, Paris, Tokyo etc etc etc.
1. There will be winners and losers and the losers shout loudest.
2. Because it's a BIG reform it will affect nearly everyone. So everyone pays attention (whereas your little tweak to the 40p rate or whatever is soon forgotten).
3. Because of 1 and 2, the impression gains ground that you're a bit mad and putting everyone at risk. Fellow-Ministers complain that you're dominating the picture, obscuring the splendid work they're doing on new cycle paths or whatever.
You can solve this problem in two ways: have a really extensive consultation first (though you'll still get problem 1, maybe you can gauge where the worst cases are and tweak), or do it when the economy is doing so well that you can give sweeties to everyone. The more popular solution for careerist ministers is not to do it, and settle for modest tweaks.
For the same reason, I expect not to see abolition of the Lords really happen in the next 20 years.
It’s interesting to see how rapidly the “high density” cities fade into suburbs…
As for skill level of migrations, there is plenty of evidence that low skill migration reduces pay and conditions. Just look at the surging pay increases in blue collar jobs in Britain post-Brexit. Even many of the Remainers lobbying corporations predicted this - though they claimed it was a bad thing.
Of course what you ideological supporters of mass immigration do is to use average skill levels, tax contribution and wages of engineers and bankers at the top so they hide the effect of the majority of migrants at the bottom. And that's before we get into the nonsense of the statistics that pretend a degree from Kabul is equivalent to one from LSE.
These points have been raised to you, repeatedly, by several people on here multiple times and you never engage with them. Instead you just throw out the "you're a racist!" line, which is the classic tactic of people who know they have been out argued.
This is quite a depressing thread, overall
Low skilled blue collar workers may be centre to centre left economically but they are more socially conservative than average too and want restricted immigration
But I’m also interested in the data, and I supplement it with my own personal experience as a migrant and as an employer of migrants.
You just throw out “migration is responsible” with pretty much every post, and you don’t add much more than that.
As some one said “I can only hope they were pimping their souls for the money. The alternative is worse.”
EDIT : I’m in favour of immigration. But pretends it only has positive effects and no effort needs to be expended to create those positive effects is bollocks. Like everything involving humans it is a complex system with complex effects.
Are the Tories and their supporters in favour of higher wages or not?
Because they give every impression of being hugely in favour in theory.
But opposed to every "greedy and unaffordable" request for a pay rise in practice.
Edit: I also note and agree with @Malmesbury’s point that it necessitates infrastructure which the UK govt never seemed to bother about.
Here is the bitterly anti-Brexit New York Times:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/business/britain-inflation-labor-shortage.amp.html
Levelling up proposals just sealed the deal for them
Fair enough. I agree. High immigration Britain is a huge experiment, and the lack of proper consent for this experiment is deeply troubling. Indeed, when given the chance (Brexit etc) in recent years Britons have asked for and willed LOWER immigration. Yet it has not happened, to put it mildly
We must pray this dangerous experiment does not go horribly wrong
Of course London restaurants are experiencing shortages of young, enthusiastic Europeans. Some will respond with wage rises, others will just close. The pursuant inflation then simply deflates real wages, and the closed restaurants represent a loss of consumer choice and surplus.
Everyone’s a loser.
They tried it in Australia, got pummelled
https://twitter.com/amy_sargeant_/status/1506836012970164225?t=guocx-ppypPSFlb3efAaSg&s=19
Only 20% of British voters want a Sturgeon style gender recognition bill UK wide
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/one-fifth-of-brits-support-nicola-sturgeons-trans-law-reforms-being-rolled-out-across-whole-of-uk/414425
There is of course the argument that the cake should be cut differently rather than focusing on the size of the cake. Unfortunately that seems to be the primary focus of our politics at the moment. It is, to revive an earlier theme on this thread, divisive.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11570689/Labour-war-Scotlands-new-law-changing-gender.html
So how do you increase productivity?
Well, one lever is migration…
Chronic, long-term failure to invest in the means to higher productivity is not the fault of the low paid. Quite the opposite.
Pay is fundamentally a function of the equilibrium supply of labour vs the demand for it. Productivity has nowt to do with it, however much you may wish it to be so. Even disregarding all problems of measurement.
So. Some seem to be simultaneously arguing that low pay is the fault of immigration increasing the labour supply. And then furiously resisting higher pay in sectors with huge numbers of vacancies also.
Not a triumphant return to football betting so far, but we shall see how things progress. Here's one for the EPL (Bournemouth home win) and one for Ligue 1 (Troyes away win): https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2022/12/epl-and-ligue-1-thoughts-30-december.html
You might be asked to leave if you did so, but that would be up to the establishment in question.
(Happy be to corrected on this if I’m wrong!)
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1608805974030299136?s=20&t=jnX2IVy5g3r9bN2UbqARuw
Of course this is not the same thing as saying every migrant was above average. Perhaps you had a bad experience with an Albanian taxi driver.
Increasing the number of jobs with the structure to support higher productivity and filling them with suitably skilled people is how productivity rises.
In China, land was in short supply and labour was abundant, so capital owners simply focused on crowding more and more workers onto smaller plots of land. The return to that was quickly used up by further population growth.
This is what still happens with business owners today. If you can't get the staff, you are forced to automate processes that were previously done manually. That means higher productivity of those remaning employees you do have.
In the short-term there is a trade-off between capital and labour. Things like trade unionism help protect labour share. As pointed out by another poster, the Tories tend to advantage capital.
It cannot legally ask a former man who has legally self declared to be a woman to leave however
I assume one factor is that the City of Edinburgh council area extends quite far out to the rural west, beyond the bypass, but still.
After laying off 208 workers in Washington, Twitter is now facing eviction and will close its downtown Seattle office, according to reports Thursday by The New York Times and tech news publication Platformer.
Since 2014, the social media company’s Seattle office has been at Century Square tower downtown in a space that can accommodate 200 workers. According to The New York Times, janitorial and security services at Twitter’s Seattle office have now been cut, and in some cases the remaining employees have resorted to bringing their own toilet paper.
Landlord Unico Properties did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Seattle Times. Court records do not show any eviction lawsuits pending against Twitter.
In November, 208 workers at the Seattle office were cut among the 3,700 companywide a week after Tesla founder Elon Musk completed his $44 billion Twitter acquisition. Twitter had a 7,500-person workforce.
Platformer reported Thursday evening that Twitter’s remaining Seattle-based workers have been directed to work from home.
Office closures are the latest step taken by Musk to cut costs at Twitter. This month, on a live forum on Twitter, he said the company was on track to have a “negative cash flow situation” of $3 billion next year due to a lack of advertising revenue and increased costs, such as debt payments.
SSI - ". . . Twitter’s remaining Seattle-based workers have been directed to work from home." - updating their resumes!
They help fill skills gaps in the short term and help output but the productivity of the country as a whole rises when people are lifted out of very basic jobs and given the skills to better themselves fill ,those gaps and force the employer of the low skilled to make better use of his labour by investing in capital machinery. The external specialist will all too often go home taking their skills with them. We need to be able to take up the slack.
Our policies in recent years have been very successful in reducing unemployment by subsidising the cost of labour with in work benefits and improving the elasticity of labour by ready supply from the EU. We need to value human labour more, pay more for it and seek to get the best out of it.
But in contemporary economics, there is not a substantial school of thought that really questions the positive effect of immigration on economic growth, via greater demand + improved specialisation. There are also the effects of improved demographics given ageing Western societies.
Here in County Cork I've still not found myself a Cork Battenburg yet.
Then real wages must rise. Again. This government is attempting the opposite.