And the solution is to increase wages, presumably from the Government coffers, so that 20% of so can be dragged back in tax and a little more in NI.
If I understood the living wage thing correctly the idea is to somehow prod the private sector into increasing wages to a general floor of the minimum wage + X. Obviously the government employs a lot of people so presumably some of this gets passed onto the government, and I think companies working for the government get a particularly assertive prodding, but not all of it.
From what I've seen the main question is how he's actually going to make private companies do this, except to the extent that they're working for the government and passing on the costs (which has the problem you mention).
TBF over here Abe seems to have had a bit of success bullying employers into raising wages, only in his case it's with the goal of taking the money companies add to people's pay packets away again via inflation. But obviously Japan is different, and slightly weird when it comes to the relationship between big employers and the government.
Mr. Booth, a boorish, snide animal killer? The meat on supermarket shelves doesn't fall from the sky (unless it's been shot, obviously). Nothing wrong with killing animals to eat them.
You just don't get it do you? Perhaps I need to explain myself better. Firstly on the issue of meat in supermarkets, I'd agree there is an element of hypocrisy. However it's an entirely separate issue. Cameron isn't simply killing animals so he can eat them, he enjoys the killing process (according to Cochrane). A lot of people aren't comfortable with that. On the issue of privacy, as I made clear, he has a choice. Either he opens himself up entirely or he keeps it private. Instead he lets people in, but only to see a particular image of himself which might not be very authentic. The public deserves better.
If you enjoy eating meat (as most of us do), you are morally ok with getting pleasure from the death of an animal. If you enjoy hunting, you are also morally ok withright to live a slightly longer life is something that should be prioritised over human enjoyment, or you don't.
I'm not making a point of moral superiority. It's a question of psychology. A lot of people feel that to enjoy killing or causing harm requires a sadistic tendency. This is a side of Cameron's personality that his opponents should be exploiting.
Give me a break. People that enjoy hunting are enjoying the tracking of an animal and making difficult shots. It's not like they savour the death itself and string it out.
Yea, there's not a lot of difference, morally, between enjoying eating meat, enjoying hunting, enjoying shooting, and enjoying fishing.
The sadist would be someone who, having caught an animal, then spent hours torturing it to death.
Torturing animals is a very common childhood trait in future serial killers. If only we'd recognised the signs, etc, etc...
What has that got to do with an adult shooting pigeons?
Silly little man.
Nothing. Just an interesting factoid I thought I'd share. It followed Sean's comment which clearly, and correctly, differentiated hunting from torture.
I'd legalise fox hunting, personnally. Neither that, nor shooting game birds, nor fishing constitutes animal torture in my book. Badger baiting and dog fighting are clearly over the line.
So you've the wrong end of the stick, there, old bean.
Factoid already known by anyone who has ever read a bad thriller. And still rather irrelevant.
Is that inflation to do to do with the 'multiplier' thingy an economics student explained to me nearly fifty years ago. I think my response then still holds now. "That's bollocks, that is."
Labour's economic mess 5/1 another good one to back
Hmm, I don't think so. In fact I don't see much value in the market. 'Long term economic plan' at 1.10 is too short - he'll certainly say something along those lines, but it might be just 'long-term plan'. Ditto 'hard choices' and 'tough decisions' - they might be value at 4.0 and 3.0 but he might say 'hard decisions' or 'tough choices'!
I reckon the best value is 'Stonehenge' at Evens, and (it pains me to say) 'hard-working families' at 4.0.
Small stakes only (anyway Shadsy won't allow much on this market, reasonably enough since advance copies might have been seen by someone).
Mr. Booth, a boorish, snide animal killer? The meat on supermarket shelves doesn't fall from the sky (unless it's been shot, obviously). Nothing wrong with killing animals to eat them.
You just do comfortable with that. On the issue of privacy, as I made clear, he has a choice. Either he opens himself up entirely or he keeps it private. Instead he lets people in, but only to see a particular image of himself which might not be very authentic. The public deserves better.
If you enjoy hunting, you are also morally ok withright to live a slightly longer life is something that should be prioritised over human enjoyment, or you don't.
This is a side of Cameron's personality that his opponents should be exploiting.
Give me a break. People that enjoy hunting are enjoying the tracking of an animal and making difficult shots. It's not like they savour the death itself and string it out.
Yea, there's not a lot of difference, morally, between enjoying eating meat, enjoying hunting, enjoying shooting, and enjoying fishing.
The sadist would be someone who, having caught an animal, then spent hours torturing it to death.
Torturing animals is a very common childhood trait in future serial killers. If only we'd recognised the signs, etc, etc...
What has that got to do with an adult shooting pigeons?
Silly little man.
Nothing. Just an interesting factoid I thought I'd share. It followed Sean's comment which clearly, and correctly, differentiated hunting from torture.
I'd legalise fox hunting, personnally. Neither that, nor shooting game birds, nor fishing constitutes animal torture in my book. Badger baiting and dog fighting are clearly over the line.
So you've the wrong end of the stick, there, old bean.
Factoid already known by anyone who has ever read a bad thriller. And still rather irrelevant.
Well a big round of applause for Ishmael and his enormous cerebrum.
Very sorry I responded to another poster with something your titantic intellect was already aware off. Perhaps I should seek permission from you before posting anything else, lest I uninentionally offend your magnificent and awe-inspiring genius.
Mr. Oz, Adrian Tchaikovsky (who's written the Shadows of the Apt series) changed his name to that, because the actual spelling of his surname (pronounced the same way) confounded people. Reminds me, I should see about buying book 3 at some point.
Mr. Floater, I'd prefer to see Balls lose his seat.
When it comes to economics, I'm a beginner like many others but reading Ed's speech, I feel a little patronised. Correct me if I'm wrong but ..
Because wages are lower, tax receipts are lower, as are NI contributions - check
In work benefits are also higher - OK, but some of that is paid out to low-waged immigrants brought in by Labour, and the in-work benefits were increased by Labour.
And the solution is to increase wages, presumably from the Government coffers, so that 20% of so can be dragged back in tax and a little more in NI.
Do you not see my conundrum? And it's one that will be shared by most people.
And increases in GDP reflect spending power, so we'd import more tat.
So all that will decrease the deficit? I may not be able to do economics but I can do add-ups and subtracts.
Have I missed anything? And has Ed? Apart from common sense.
I assume the argument goes that if the Government increases wages to the public sector = labour voters then they will have more money, spend it, which will boost the economy (GDP) and the Government will get it all back again in taxes anyway. (In a closed economy this is the truth - although it takes a very long period to do so.)
However we do not operate in a closed economy. Joe Bloggs will spend that money on a nice TV from China - and the money then leaves the country - so the Government do NOT get it back. This reduces the money supply and hence generally the GDP.
If we assume that Ed is not economically illiterate (a rash assumption IMHO) then we have to assume that this is purely a political speech to get the public sector back on board.
Nice to see in Alan Cochrane's diary he mentions how much Cameron enjoys shooting/killing things. Why can't Labour get this image of Cameron out there to the public? It would be too crude for Miliband to do it himself, but Cameron sells a fake image of himself to the public. He should be called out on it. He portrays himself as the sensitive modern man whereas in reality he's a boorish, snide animal killer. Eton's answer to Jeremy Clarkson you might say. Nothing wrong with that you could argue, but he's not being authentic. Either you keep your private life private or you tell people who you REALLY are. Cameron is fake.
You a vegetarian ?
Nope and neither would I look down on people who worked in abbatoirs, but like a lot of voters I'm uncomfortable with people who actually ENJOY killing animals.
You wouldn't "look down" on them - how very big of you - would you by virtue of your leftist instincts "tolerate" them ?
Labour's economic mess 5/1 another good one to back
Hmm, I don't think so. In fact I don't see much value in the market. 'Long term economic plan' at 1.10 is too short - he'll certainly say something along those lines, but it might be just 'long-term plan'. Ditto 'hard choices' and 'tough decisions' - they might be value at 4.0 and 3.0 but he might say 'hard decisions' or 'tough choices'!
I reckon the best value is 'Stonehenge' at Evens, and (it pains me to say) 'hard-working families' at 4.0.
Small stakes only (anyway Shadsy won't allow much on this market, reasonably enough since advance copies might have been seen by someone).
Is that inflation to do to do with the 'multiplier' thingy an economics student explained to me nearly fifty years ago. I think my response then still holds now. "That's bollocks, that is."
The inflation thing is that Japan has had basically zero interest rates and mild deflation for donkey's years. The thought is that if you had a bit of inflation, people would see that their money is becoming less valuable, they'll think, "Hell, better go out and spend it", which is supposed to create jobs, grow the economy and feed back into higher wages.
So the government is getting the central bank to print money, while trying to shame employers into raising wages, in a weird pincer movement between the right-wing government and the unions. The effect so far has been to reduce the value of the yen and boost the stock market a lot. It's doing something for wages (as denominated in yen) but not as much.
What hasn't been happening is growing the economy. My (non-economist's) theory is that since the population is getting older and everybody's scared the government won't be able to pay their pensions, devaluing their savings just makes them even more scared for the future, and they avoid spending the devalued money they've got left.
I thought Balls had signed up to public sector wage restraint.
Yes, he has. They STILL don't seem to have realised they can't simultaneously attack the government for their failures AND promise to continue with almost all of their policies at the same time.
So if you pay out more without producing more, you get inflation - check.
But is inflation and house price inflation good now in Ed World?
I can't speak for him but I guess the idea is that if you have a raise for a relatively small number of people and the burden spread across the whole economy, you can make those people quite a lot better off (and reduce their welfare payments) without making a big difference to the inflation rate. IIUC this seems to be how it worked when they introduced the minimum wage.
In that respect it's different to Abe's policy, which is intended to increase wages for _everybody_. (And consequently nobody, since the cost goes straight into their shopping bill...)
@YouGov: Peter Kellner: "Uniform swing is now worse than useless – it is positively misleading" http://t.co/NgzoMQHirI
Very bad news. Some of us have been saying for ages that the idea Labour could win a majority with a 1% lead with say 32% to 31% is very unlikely despite what uniform swing might indicate.
Think of the falling fuel tax receipts - this is a gift to Ukip, Farage rubbing his hands etc etc.
Fuel duty is a lumps sum isnt it? Anyway cheaper fuel more money in pocket (and/or more journeys) and more to spend on other stuff that is also vatable at 20%.
Plus less distress at the pumps and Cameron rubbing his hands in glee.
Presumably this is the point where a spontaneous uprising emerges in provinces that have absolutely no history of uprising, and, despite being weak and impoverished, they somehow manage to get large numbers of tanks.
False flag will also turn up to blame it all on the West.
@YouGov: Peter Kellner: "Uniform swing is now worse than useless – it is positively misleading" http://t.co/NgzoMQHirI
Very bad news. Some of us have been saying for ages that the idea Labour could win a majority with a 1% lead with say 32% to 31% is very unlikely despite what uniform swing might indicate.
Why do you assume it is bad news for Labour , it may equally be bad news for the Conservatives in that Labour can win a majority with a 1% deficit .
Comments
From what I've seen the main question is how he's actually going to make private companies do this, except to the extent that they're working for the government and passing on the costs (which has the problem you mention).
TBF over here Abe seems to have had a bit of success bullying employers into raising wages, only in his case it's with the goal of taking the money companies add to people's pay packets away again via inflation. But obviously Japan is different, and slightly weird when it comes to the relationship between big employers and the government.
@YouGov: Peter Kellner: "Uniform swing is now worse than useless – it is positively misleading" http://t.co/NgzoMQHirI
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30273322
Thanks.
Is that inflation to do to do with the 'multiplier' thingy an economics student explained to me nearly fifty years ago. I think my response then still holds now. "That's bollocks, that is."
I reckon the best value is 'Stonehenge' at Evens, and (it pains me to say) 'hard-working families' at 4.0.
Small stakes only (anyway Shadsy won't allow much on this market, reasonably enough since advance copies might have been seen by someone).
Very sorry I responded to another poster with something your titantic intellect was already aware off. Perhaps I should seek permission from you before posting anything else, lest I uninentionally offend your magnificent and awe-inspiring genius.
Silly little man.
However we do not operate in a closed economy. Joe Bloggs will spend that money on a nice TV from China - and the money then leaves the country - so the Government do NOT get it back. This reduces the money supply and hence generally the GDP.
If we assume that Ed is not economically illiterate (a rash assumption IMHO) then we have to assume that this is purely a political speech to get the public sector back on board.
So if you pay out more without producing more, you get inflation - check.
But is inflation and house price inflation good now in Ed World?
So the government is getting the central bank to print money, while trying to shame employers into raising wages, in a weird pincer movement between the right-wing government and the unions. The effect so far has been to reduce the value of the yen and boost the stock market a lot. It's doing something for wages (as denominated in yen) but not as much.
What hasn't been happening is growing the economy. My (non-economist's) theory is that since the population is getting older and everybody's scared the government won't be able to pay their pensions, devaluing their savings just makes them even more scared for the future, and they avoid spending the devalued money they've got left.
So he is talking bollocks then?
Why don't they stop teaching PPE degrees and replace them with something more scientific like theatre studies or hospitality services.
In that respect it's different to Abe's policy, which is intended to increase wages for _everybody_. (And consequently nobody, since the cost goes straight into their shopping bill...)
'Bad news for the PB Baxterists?
@YouGov: Peter Kellner: "Uniform swing is now worse than useless – it is positively misleading" http://t.co/NgzoMQHirI'
That's 90% of BigJohnOwls posts out the window.
Plus less distress at the pumps and Cameron rubbing his hands in glee.