The biggest change to the nature of work is all these doctors, lawyers and high powered business folk able to spend time during the working day commenting on political websites.
#obviousjokes
Depends what time, on breaks yes in the middle of a surgery or contract negotiation may be a bit more difficult
I can multi task.
I once wrote a PB thread during a mediation hearing.
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
Plus, Starmer saying he wanted to make a go of Leaving would be as nonsensical (and politically damaging) as he, and Labour acknowledging that on balance the public voted for the Conservatives at the last GE and it is up to Lab to try to make the Cons government a success.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Sorry but you problem is more the gutting of the entire IT sector by outsourcing rather than anything else. As I look around at my colleagues there are remarkable few who are British born instead they are usually time served Indians who have eventually received the right to remain and then British Citizenship... The outsource of IT that stated in earnest in 2005 now means there are fewer people with the 10-15 years of experience who have remained IT focused.
Mind you the job shortages in my particular area are Europe wide. Only yesterday I had a large Microsoft partner complaining that they couldn't find anyone in Germany or Denmark...
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
Some might see that as an argument for remaining inside the customs union with the EU. It means frictionless trade inside the customs union which is what enables the car makers, for instance, to operate just-in-time manufacturing with international supply chains because, crucially, there is no need for customs checks at each border. A free trade agreement does not confer the same benefit.
It makes you rich at the expense of making people in developing countries poorer.
I think that’s immoral
It may be immoral, if that is what it does. However my point in urging RCS to make a video is the number of politicians (and even pbers) who talk about CUs and FTAs as if they were interchangeable; they are not.
Indeed so. FTAs lower barriers to trade between countries, whereas CUs favour those inside the Union and actively discriminate against those outside.
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
That is not an inherent characteristic of a customs union. It entirely depends what policies it has on external trade.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
A good post, except she's in chip design, which is most certainly not IT.
I also doubt that Brexit has much to do with it, in her arena at least. The sector is too small and specialist, but there is a massive amount of demand for new products. The Internet of Tat Things is just one booming area which investors are willing to throw money at.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Problems recruiting programmers might be due to Brexit, although we should not forget that devaluation of sterling against the Euro might be a factor here as it means a de facto pay cut (itself a secondary impact from Brexit). Against that, there are more visas available for programmers from outside the EU (as a side effect of exempting health workers).
It does raise the question, as with doctors, nurses and curry chefs, of why we cannot train programmers in this country. And imagine if we let girls have a go as well.
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
The EU have strict rules on nationalisation and state aid. There is no doubt at all from live interviews with McDonnell that he does not want remain as an option
Correct my Maths but does not that show 33% ie 19%+14% prefer Boris ie more than the 31% ie 21%+10% who prefer Corbyn?
Prefer but more would be happy with Corbyn. I agree that prefer is probably more important, but it would be interesting to see this analysis with a range of Tories.
The biggest change to the nature of work is all these doctors, lawyers and high powered business folk able to spend time during the working day commenting on political websites.
#obviousjokes
Depends what time, on breaks yes in the middle of a surgery or contract negotiation may be a bit more difficult
I can multi task.
I once wrote a PB thread during a mediation hearing.
I’ve been to meetings like that; apparently attendance was required but others did all the contributing. All one had to do was nod or vote at the appropriate time.
I once had to chair a quarterly meeting with a major client, who gradually built up the attendee list over time, for reasons known only to them. By the time I left that job, there was up to 15 people gathered around the table, 12-13 of whom remained entirely mute for the two hour duration.
On one occasion I was given a project to win a major contract - the issue was we only had two weeks in which to get it. I had a multidisciplinary team, and I decided to have two meetings every day so people would know what was going on - one in the morning, and one in the late afternoon. Each was a maximum of five minutes long, enough time to check everyone was focused on what they should be doing (managing engineers is a bit like herding cats).
Its amazing what you can achieve in just five minutes with over fifteen people in the room.
IMO it worked really well. Especially as Mrs J was one of the engineers.
Yes, meetings like that don’t need to take long. Ensuring, in a meeting like that, that everyone’s focused is a very sensible way of managing. No-one wants to look as though they’re off target.
I take it you won the contract?
Yep. I'm probably unjustly quite proud of that.
I did not write, or even look, at a single line of code for the project. I spent my entire time running around checking on people and oiling the wheels; I could be using a signal analyser one moment, fetching someone a cup of tea or doing a run to the shop the next. I tried to ensure I was the first of the team in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night.
It was exhausting but fun. It also is probably only achievable for short-term, tightly-focused projects.
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
Some might see that as an argument for remaining inside the customs union with the EU. It means frictionless trade inside the customs union which is what enables the car makers, for instance, to operate just-in-time manufacturing with international supply chains because, crucially, there is no need for customs checks at each border. A free trade agreement does not confer the same benefit.
It makes you rich at the expense of making people in developing countries poorer.
I think that’s immoral
It may be immoral, if that is what it does. However my point in urging RCS to make a video is the number of politicians (and even pbers) who talk about CUs and FTAs as if they were interchangeable; they are not.
Indeed so. FTAs lower barriers to trade between countries, whereas CUs favour those inside the Union and actively discriminate against those outside.
CUs lower barriers to trade between countries further than FTAs do. They don't discriminate against those outside any more than an FTA discriminates against those outside the FTA.
The biggest change to the nature of work is all these doctors, lawyers and high powered business folk able to spend time during the working day commenting on political websites.
#obviousjokes
Depends what time, on breaks yes in the middle of a surgery or contract negotiation may be a bit more difficult
I can multi task.
I once wrote a PB thread during a mediation hearing.
You remind me of a story I was told by an eminent QC. He'd spent two hours on his feet making a very complicated argument in the Court of Appeal. When he sat down his junior whispered "I've just won a million quid!". All the time he'd been playing roulette on his laptop.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Problems recruiting programmers might be due to Brexit, although we should not forget that devaluation of sterling against the Euro might be a factor here as it means a de facto pay cut (itself a secondary impact from Brexit). Against that, there are more visas available for programmers from outside the EU (as a side effect of exempting health workers).
It does raise the question, as with doctors, nurses and curry chefs, of why we cannot train programmers in this country. And imagine if we let girls have a go as well.
Uncertainty and a perceived hostile environment are not helpful. There is clearly a training issue and encouraging more women into IT is a no-brainer, but those are longer-term solutions. Businesses looking to expand and develop new products cannot wait.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
A good post, except she's in chip design, which is most certainly not IT.
I also doubt that Brexit has much to do with it, in her arena at least. The sector is too small and specialist, but there is a massive amount of demand for new products. The Internet of Tat Things is just one booming area which investors are willing to throw money at.
Fair enough. But the more specialist the field, the wider the pool of talent needed to find the right person. And you need that person now.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Sorry but you problem is more the gutting of the entire IT sector by outsourcing rather than anything else. As I look around at my colleagues there are remarkable few who are British born instead they are usually time served Indians who have eventually received the right to remain and then British Citizenship... The outsource of IT that stated in earnest in 2005 now means there are fewer people with the 10-15 years of experience who have remained IT focused.
Mind you the job shortages in my particular area are Europe wide. Only yesterday I had a large Microsoft partner complaining that they couldn't find anyone in Germany or Denmark...
The only outsourcing we do is to a company in Salisbury. They have been helping us with our replatforming.
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
I think Corbyn and McDonnell are bothered. They know that Brexit as the current issue dominating UK politics is also the one issue where they are vastly out of line with the views of the Europhile Labour membership as well as some of their closest political allies, and will appreciate the political risks of that in terms of internal Labour politics as Brexit comes to a head. They are bothered because despite appreciating this risk they have so far fought tooth and nail to avoid making any compromise sufficient to tie their hands. Despite the best efforts of the Remainers, Corbyn has not had his hand forced to commit Labour to a second referendum, nor to the current customs union (as opposed to a meaningless commitment to some undefined future alternative trading arrangement), nor to voting down a future Brexit deal (as opposed to the current one which as it is dead already in its present form is irrelevant).
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Sorry but you problem is more the gutting of the entire IT sector by outsourcing rather than anything else. As I look around at my colleagues there are remarkable few who are British born instead they are usually time served Indians who have eventually received the right to remain and then British Citizenship... The outsource of IT that stated in earnest in 2005 now means there are fewer people with the 10-15 years of experience who have remained IT focused.
Mind you the job shortages in my particular area are Europe wide. Only yesterday I had a large Microsoft partner complaining that they couldn't find anyone in Germany or Denmark...
The only outsourcing we do is to a company in Salisbury. They have been helping us with our replatforming.
Does the 'replatforming' in Salisbury involve perfume bottles?
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
I think Corbyn and McDonnell are bothered. They know that Brexit as the current issue dominating UK politics is also the one issue where they are vastly out of line with the views of the Europhile Labour membership as well as some of their closest political allies, and will appreciate the political risks of that in terms of internal Labour politics as Brexit comes to a head. They are bothered because despite appreciating this risk they have so far fought tooth and nail to avoid making any compromise sufficient to tie their hands. Despite the best efforts of the Remainers, Corbyn has not had his hand forced to commit Labour to a second referendum, nor to the current customs union (as opposed to a meaningless commitment to some undefined future alternative trading arrangement), nor to voting down a future Brexit deal (as opposed to the current one which as it is dead already in its present form is irrelevant).
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
Correct my Maths but does not that show 33% ie 19%+14% prefer Boris ie more than the 31% ie 21%+10% who prefer Corbyn?
No - Boris is toxic
It’s striking how Labour voters are much keener on the idea of Corbyn as PM, than Conservative of Boris - and Conservative voters are in general more supportive of their Leader than Labour (currently in any case...)
Fair enough. But the more specialist the field, the wider the pool of talent needed to find the right person. And you need that person now.
It's actually a little more complex than that. Designing a chip can cost many millions (a mask for a chip alone, even at a 'large' process, can cost a million dollars). A 'seat' for the design software can be hundreds of thousands per year. It can also take a couple of years to design and six months or more to fabricate the design (though it can be faster and cheaper on multi-project wafers, although they are very limiting).
Therefore a company designs a chip and gets it made. They then have a choice: do they keep the team on at high cost to develop the successor at high cost, or market what they have and hope it sells for a few years? Often they go for the latter, which means the entire team gets the chop.
Being such an obscure area, it's common for entire teams to be 'bought' by another company who want to design a chip. In fact, it's been known for companies to sell teams to save redundancy payments and to pass on liabilities for building rents. It's not unheard of for individuals or teams to swap back to a company they were made redundant from a few years before as the cycle continues.
The real problem is that there are not enough people graduating in this sort of thing in the UK. It is expensive for universities to teach, and relatively unsexy compared to things like game design. Yet as a country we excel at it.
Correct my Maths but does not that show 33% ie 19%+14% prefer Boris ie more than the 31% ie 21%+10% who prefer Corbyn?
No - Boris is toxic
It’s striking how Labour voters are much keener on the idea of Corbyn as PM, than Conservative of Boris - and Conservative voters are in general more supportive of their Leader than Labour (currently in any case...)
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
I think Corbyn and McDonnell are bothered. They know that Brexit as the current issue dominating UK politics is also the one issue where they are vastly out of line with the views of the Europhile Labour membership as well as some of their closest political allies, and will appreciate the political risks of that in terms of internal Labour politics as Brexit comes to a head. They are bothered because despite appreciating this risk they have so far fought tooth and nail to avoid making any compromise sufficient to tie their hands. Despite the best efforts of the Remainers, Corbyn has not had his hand forced to commit Labour to a second referendum, nor to the current customs union (as opposed to a meaningless commitment to some undefined future alternative trading arrangement), nor to voting down a future Brexit deal (as opposed to the current one which as it is dead already in its present form is irrelevant).
I’ve been impressed how Corbyn/McDonnell have managed to string out this “dance of the seven veils” - I thought the Conference might see the final one drop, but they appear to be keeping the show on the road!
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
On 5 live this morning some expert ( yes I know) suggested any second referendum would require as a minimum
Norway Canada TM deal No deal Remain
Well that is utter chaos as indeed would be any second referendum.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
The outcome that best suits the Conservative party is No Brexit that they don't own. Therefore a second referendum with a Remain option that they somehow conspire to be forced into is very much in their interests. The same logic that led to Cameron going down the route of a referendum to aim to use the popular will to impose a view on the Conservative party applies more than ever today.
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
On 5 live this morning some expert ( yes I know) suggested any second referendum would require as a minimum
Norway Canada TM deal No deal Remain
Well that is utter chaos as indeed would be any second referendum.
Nah, it’ll produce the fairest result if it was conducted under the alternative vote.
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
I think Corbyn and McDonnell are bothered. They know that Brexit as the current issue dominating UK politics is also the one issue where they are vastly out of line with the views of the Europhile Labour membership as well as some of their closest political allies, and will appreciate the political risks of that in terms of internal Labour politics as Brexit comes to a head. They are bothered because despite appreciating this risk they have so far fought tooth and nail to avoid making any compromise sufficient to tie their hands. Despite the best efforts of the Remainers, Corbyn has not had his hand forced to commit Labour to a second referendum, nor to the current customs union (as opposed to a meaningless commitment to some undefined future alternative trading arrangement), nor to voting down a future Brexit deal (as opposed to the current one which as it is dead already in its present form is irrelevant).
I’ve been impressed how Corbyn/McDonnell have managed to string out this “dance of the seven veils” - I thought the Conference might see the final one drop, but they appear to be keeping the show on the road!
It's one area they have been very competent, if unprincipled and employing the same old tactics I bet they used to decry from Blair and co.
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Missed that aspect. I suspect the 'group' will turn out to be the unions.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
Yes, this is a correct analysis IMO. Corbyn and McDonnell are not dyed in the wool Brexiteers and although they are not very keen on the EU they do not see it as a talismanic issue, unlike Tory Brexiteers. It is widespread misconception amongst Tories on here, and elsewhere, that Labour Party members are as passionate in their positions on the EU as Tories, before the referendum most were not really bothered either way, and that includes Corbyn. The depth of support for remain, and trying to overturn the referendum, is a recent development for which David Cameron should get the credit or blame depending on which side you are on.
McDonnells statements yesterday are tactical, he knows very well that it is preposterous to suggest that a new referendum could be held without a remain option. However he does not want to be seen to alienate leave supporters and he probably thinks, correctly in my view, that it is too early to be sure what question any new referendum should ask because we do not know what, if any, deal May will get and he wants to keep up the pressure for a general election, even though the chances of success on that seem remote at the moment.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
The outcome that best suits the Conservative party is No Brexit that they don't own. Therefore a second referendum with a Remain option that they somehow conspire to be forced into is very much in their interests. The same logic that led to Cameron going down the route of a referendum to aim to use the popular will to impose a view on the Conservative party applies more than ever today.
Sorry, but you’re letting your personal desires cloud your thinking. A party which has 70-80% of its support base in favour of Brexit would not benefit if it contrived to have the process halted. May cannot be forced into conceding a referendum; it would only happen if Corbyn gets into No 10 without an election. That is not acceptable, even to Soubry and Clarke.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
On 5 live this morning some expert ( yes I know) suggested any second referendum would require as a minimum
Norway Canada TM deal No deal Remain
Well that is utter chaos as indeed would be any second referendum.
Nah, it’ll produce the fairest result if it was conducted under the alternative vote.
I actually agree with that. Would you like to guess the result as I have no idea
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Indeed. And in the above example, the ‘representatives’ of the workers don’t give a monkeys if the company loses 3/4 of its profits, they still get the same £500.
Listening to Keir Starmer on 5 live this morning he said he voted remain, does not want to leave, and would vote remain again. The conclusion of that is that labour's brexit secretary is a fully paid up member of the second referendum (not the dishonest peoples vote) and is not attempting to be constructive on actually leaving.
I believe there is another agenda working out in labour and almost certainly accounts why labour have not split yet because it is so obvious that if they can stop brexit they stop Corbyn and McDonnells mad cap policies.
At a stroke McDonnell's speech yesterday hits the buffers. Indeed that is why McDonnell and McCluskey will fight against remain on the ballot.
And of course he will have lost tons of labour votes in the leave area
I think you have got this wrong Big_G. I am not convinced by any arguments I have heard so far that Remaining would seriously dent Corbyn's agenda. He just sees the EU as a capitalist club and would prefer on balance to be out. But I don't think he or McDonnell are that bothered. Starmer on the other hand really wants to stay (as does a good proportion of Labour's support, particularly its young support).
Yes, this is a correct analysis IMO. Corbyn and McDonnell are not dyed in the wool Brexiteers and although they are not very keen on the EU they do not see it as a talismanic issue, unlike Tory Brexiteers. It is widespread misconception amongst Tories on here, and elsewhere, that Labour Party members are as passionate in their positions on the EU as Tories, before the referendum most were not really bothered either way, and that includes Corbyn. The depth of support for remain, and trying to overturn the referendum, is a recent development for which David Cameron should get the credit or blame depending on which side you are on.
McDonnells statements yesterday are tactical, he knows very well that it is preposterous to suggest that a new referendum could be held without a remain option. However he does not want to be seen to alienate leave supporters and he probably thinks, correctly in my view, that it is too early to be sure what question any new referendum should ask because we do not know what, if any, deal May will get and he wants to keep up the pressure for a general election, even though the chances of success on that seem remote at the moment.
Corbyn has voted against all measures of European integration in Parliament since he was first elected. He voted Leave in 1975. He conspired to frustrate the BSE campaign.
These are not the actions of someone ambivalent on the subject.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
On 5 live this morning some expert ( yes I know) suggested any second referendum would require as a minimum
Norway Canada TM deal No deal Remain
Well that is utter chaos as indeed would be any second referendum.
Nah, it’ll produce the fairest result if it was conducted under the alternative vote.
I actually agree with that. Would you like to guess the result as I have no idea
What method of alternative vote counting would be used? As an example I saw one poll which went something like:-
43% no deal 23% Canada 34% Remain
Which leaves you in a position where the middle ground option(s) disappear in the first round of voting....
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Missed that aspect. I suspect the 'group' will turn out to be the unions.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
Not only do employees not get the full dividend nor any voting rights but they don’t own the shares either. They can’t sell them, can’t build any sort of nest egg. So the employees get shafted - that £500 dividend payment will come out of the pot for salaries, the company gets taxed more, other shareholders ie our pension funds get diluted and lose out and the only ones to benefit are the union representatives.
I am all in favour of extending share ownership schemes to employees. I have benefited from some myself. And I don’t object either to the principle of having directors on boards representing the interests of employees. But this scheme is a scam which does little for employees. It is a pay off to unions. About the only people who will benefit will be the lawyers and accountants merrily finding a way round it.
Some better news: I was sent a document with the bet IDs for the other unsettled bets. I was able, previously, to get the last three myself and they seem to tally with the ones I was sent, so hopefully any future missing bets I'll be able to get traced after all.
Corbyn has voted against all measures of European integration in Parliament since he was first elected. He voted Leave in 1975. He conspired to frustrate the BSE campaign.
These are not the actions of someone ambivalent on the subject.
But he campaigned for remain in 2016 (admittedly not very hard) and has said on several occasions since that he would still vote remain if a new referendum were held.
The weight of opinion amongst party members and MPs is such that he could not block another referendum even if he wanted to. And surely he doesn't really want to be tasked with trying to implement Brexit having seen what it has done to the Tories.
Some better news: I was sent a document with the bet IDs for the other unsettled bets. I was able, previously, to get the last three myself and they seem to tally with the ones I was sent, so hopefully any future missing bets I'll be able to get traced after all.
You might want to contact the Gambling Commission either directly or via a front organisation such as your MP, and suggest it be made a requirement that all bets are easily visible online and not just those made in the last few months.
To be fair to Ladbrokes, at least the ones you can search (the last six months iirc) can be exported to csv by pressing a button.
Some better news: I was sent a document with the bet IDs for the other unsettled bets. I was able, previously, to get the last three myself and they seem to tally with the ones I was sent, so hopefully any future missing bets I'll be able to get traced after all.
Good luck, sounds like a crap situation to be in. Any early thoughts on the Russian GP? Bottas won last year after getting pole-sitter Vettel off the line, and there was little overtaking in the one stop race after a lap 1 safety car. Betfair has Seb 2.38 and Lewis 2.54. I’ll start with half a stake on the Brit.
The biggest change to the nature of work is all these doctors, lawyers and high powered business folk able to spend time during the working day commenting on political websites.
#obviousjokes
Depends what time, on breaks yes in the middle of a surgery or contract negotiation may be a bit more difficult
I can multi task.
I once wrote a PB thread during a mediation hearing.
I’ve been to meetings like that; apparently attendance was required but others did all the contributing. All one had to do was nod or vote at the appropriate time.
I once had to chair a quarterly meeting with a major client, who gradually built up the attendee list over time, for reasons known only to them. By the time I left that job, there was up to 15 people gathered around the table, 12-13 of whom remained entirely mute for the two hour duration.
Its amazing what you can achieve in just five minutes with over fifteen people in the room.
IMO it worked really well. Especially as Mrs J was one of the engineers.
Yes, meetings like that don’t need to take long. Ensuring, in a meeting like that, that everyone’s focused is a very sensible way of managing. No-one wants to look as though they’re off target.
I take it you won the contract?
Yep. I'm probably unjustly quite proud of that.
I did not write, or even look, at a single line of code for the project. I spent my entire time running around checking on people and oiling the wheels; I could be using a signal analyser one moment, fetching someone a cup of tea or doing a run to the shop the next. I tried to ensure I was the first of the team in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night.
It was exhausting but fun. It also is probably only achievable for short-term, tightly-focused projects.
I hate meetings (tm).
Congratulations; an example of how to run a project team.
On one of the few (possibly only) useful ‘management techniques’ courses I attended I was told that a team needed a Chairman (to keep the thing running), an Engineer (to do the work), an Accountant, (to discuss practicality) a Critic (to point out what was/could go wrong and a Joker (to suggest the impossible). It wasn’t there, but other useful advice I was given was that 'it’s amazing what can be achieved if no-one’s worried about who gets the credit!'
Corbyn has voted against all measures of European integration in Parliament since he was first elected. He voted Leave in 1975. He conspired to frustrate the BSE campaign.
These are not the actions of someone ambivalent on the subject.
But he campaigned for remain in 2016 (admittedly not very hard) and has said on several occasions since that he would still vote remain if a new referendum were held.
The weight of opinion amongst party members and MPs is such that he could not block another referendum even if he wanted to. And surely he doesn't really want to be tasked with trying to implement Brexit having seen what it has done to the Tories.
The interesting detail this morning is that 71% do not consider Corbyn competent to negotiate brexit and 68% do not consider labour competent (Sky data poll)
An excellent opportunity for your glw (downthread) to develop an IoT bike-riding monitor to record actual cycling behaviour -- speed, slaloming in and out of white lines and so on. We can look out for her on Dragons Den.
On changing regulations etc: whilst PB knows and trembles at the name "Morris Dancer" I suspect pb.com and Mr. Smithson might have a rather better chance at effecting such a change.
Mr. Sandpit, it could be a lot worse. I'm glad I was made aware of the possibility when the only cost was potentially a couple of small stakes winning bets.
I only glanced at the Russian market. I think 8.5 on Bottas each way (green if top 2) worth considering, perhaps, and the 71 on someone in the crowd wearing "I went to Salisbury and all I get was this lousy perfume" t-shirt*.
Corbyn has voted against all measures of European integration in Parliament since he was first elected. He voted Leave in 1975. He conspired to frustrate the BSE campaign.
These are not the actions of someone ambivalent on the subject.
But he campaigned for remain in 2016 (admittedly not very hard) and has said on several occasions since that he would still vote remain if a new referendum were held.
The weight of opinion amongst party members and MPs is such that he could not block another referendum even if he wanted to. And surely he doesn't really want to be tasked with trying to implement Brexit having seen what it has done to the Tories.
The interesting detail this morning is that 71% do not consider Corbyn competent to negotiate brexit and 68% do not consider labour competent (Sky data poll)
Labour are all over the place
No party is competent to negotiate the Brexit that was promised at the referendum since it is not achievable.
And the Tories are hardly in a position to criticise disunity in other parties....
If not already covered what happens re J McD share plan if you work for a subsidiary of an overseas owned organisation which will have nominal shareholdings 100% owned by the overseas company
Congratulations; an example of how to run a project team.
On one of the few (possibly only) useful ‘management techniques’ courses I attended I was told that a team needed a Chairman (to keep the thing running), an Engineer (to do the work), an Accountant, (to discuss practicality) a Critic (to point out what was/could go wrong and a Joker (to suggest the impossible). It wasn’t there, but other useful advice I was given was that 'it’s amazing what can be achieved if no-one’s worried about who gets the credit!'
Indeed (although I am rather proud of it).
Much of the team was actually motivated by embarrassment: they had designed a chip with certain performance specifications, but when they got samples back they were well below the required performance level in one area. Unfortunately a massive customer wanted us to meet that level, even though IMO it was frankly an unimportant one and would not effect end-users.
The team had only had the samples back a few weeks, but it was clear that the design was borken and they didn't know why. However the chief architect thought he knew how it could be 'fixed' in software, so I was put in charge of a team to do it. The designers were all rather embarrassed. I decided not to look at *why* it had failed, as any fix would require an expensive and time-consuming respin of the chip, but to focus only on the work-around.
The CEO told the customer we could get them working samples that met the spec in two weeks - either an act of faith in us or a dangerous act of bragado! The customer was annoyed, but agreed.
So we spent time getting the data that would allow us to design the software work-around, and then implemented it. Although they later found the design problem and developed a fix, that version of the chip remained in production for years for other customers and sold many millions. It was a success.
An excellent opportunity for your glw (downthread) to develop an IoT bike-riding monitor to record actual cycling behaviour -- speed, slaloming in and out of white lines and so on. We can look out for her on Dragons Den.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
The outcome that best suits the Conservative party is No Brexit that they don't own. Therefore a second referendum with a Remain option that they somehow conspire to be forced into is very much in their interests. The same logic that led to Cameron going down the route of a referendum to aim to use the popular will to impose a view on the Conservative party applies more than ever today.
Sorry, but you’re letting your personal desires cloud your thinking. A party which has 70-80% of its support base in favour of Brexit would not benefit if it contrived to have the process halted. May cannot be forced into conceding a referendum; it would only happen if Corbyn gets into No 10 without an election. That is not acceptable, even to Soubry and Clarke.
Brexit being halted without it being the Tories’ fault is their ideal outcome. They can retreat to their default position of blaming Europe for all ills and blaming the people who frustrated Brexit, which is likely to be a reasonably strong electoral position for them in future. They could promise a new in-out referendum and everything, and insist that this time they wouldn’t let ‘enemies of the people’ (etc) thwart it.
Conversely, Brexit proceeding is probably good for Labour unless it goes well, which isn’t appearing that likely. They can get a couple of full terms out of a ‘fixing the mess the Tories made by mismanaging’ Brexit narrative. They don’t even have to ever make the argument that Brexit was a bad idea, they can just say that the people in charge screwed it up.
Provided that the Tories do just enough to look like they tried, and Labour do just enough to look like they tried to stop, neither will alienate their base by facilitating an outcome which their supporters broadly oppose.
Mr. Polruan, if we assume you're correct, how can you see the Conservatives 'getting out of' leaving the EU without incurring the blame?
They're the government. And the largest party. And trying to negotiate a deal. Any revocation of Article 50 and/or second referendum requires at least a huge rebellion if not overt Conservative approval.
An excellent opportunity for your glw (downthread) to develop an IoT bike-riding monitor to record actual cycling behaviour -- speed, slaloming in and out of white lines and so on. We can look out for her on Dragons Den.
Heh. Neither she nor I are entrepreneurs. Sadly.
There's actually an issue here. For a year now I've walked my son to pre-school, and now reception. This is along quiet roads and foot/cyclepaths. There is a secondary school on the same site, and many of the kids using scooters or bikes don't pay enough attention to three or four year olds they encounter. He was knocked over twice last year, once by a boy on a scooter and another time by a girl on a bike - in the former case despite him being directly in front of me!
He was unhurt, but he's not keen to use his scooter or bike, and I wonder if it's as a result of that.
I do wish the cycling lobby would start acknowledging that there are very poor cyclists on the roads, and that that accidents are not always the fault of other road users ...
We had these at my school in Brussels in the late 70s! It didn't stop us riding like twats, hanging on to trams, etc. To add insult to injury we had to pay for them. I pocketed the 50 (I think) francs I got off my parents for the purpose and nicked one off a girl's bike.
Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell want us to leave the EU. A chaotic no deal Brexit makes it likelier that they will win the next election, after which they would be able to operate without the constraints of EU membership.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
The outcome that best suits the Conservative party is No Brexit that they don't own. Therefore a second referendum with a Remain option that they somehow conspire to be forced into is very much in their interests. The same logic that led to Cameron going down the route of a referendum to aim to use the popular will to impose a view on the Conservative party applies more than ever today.
Sorry, but you’re letting your personal desires cloud your thinking. A party which has 70-80% of its support base in favour of Brexit would not benefit if it contrived to have the process halted. May cannot be forced into conceding a referendum; it would only happen if Corbyn gets into No 10 without an election. That is not acceptable, even to Soubry and Clarke.
Brexit being halted without it being the Tories’ fault is their ideal outcome. They can retreat to their default position of blaming Europe for all ills and blaming the people who frustrated Brexit, which is likely to be a reasonably strong electoral position for them in future. They could promise a new in-out referendum and everything, and insist that this time they wouldn’t let ‘enemies of the people’ (etc) thwart it.
I don't see any reason the EU27 would accept an article 50 revocation without it having broad cross party support in the UK. EU membership would need 70% support, the issue put to bed.
It's clearly not in their interest to have a UK that could bolt at anytime depending on election cycles, always resisting, always asking for more concessions. Much better a UK that can be held up as an example of the folly of quitting.
Brexit will not be halted because it's in no ones political interest to do so.
If not already covered what happens re J McD share plan if you work for a subsidiary of an overseas owned organisation which will have nominal shareholdings 100% owned by the overseas company
I would assume they would be 'forced' to divest 10% of their holdings.
Of course, it would provide incentives for companies to break up their structure so every UK company was under the 'large company' limits, so their would have to be rules about groups etc....
If not already covered what happens re J McD share plan if you work for a subsidiary of an overseas owned organisation which will have nominal shareholdings 100% owned by the overseas company
I would assume they would be 'forced' to divest 10% of their holdings.
Of course, it would provide incentives for companies to break up their structure so every UK company was under the 'large company' limits, so their would have to be rules about groups etc....
Or take the Starbucks approach and make vigorous use of things like transfer pricing. UK company minimal assets, minimal profit.
As is quickly becoming very clear, this is as much about a sneaky tax rise on businesses as much as anything else.
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
Some might see that as an argument for remaining inside the customs union with the EU. It means frictionless trade inside the customs union which is what enables the car makers, for instance, to operate just-in-time manufacturing with international supply chains because, crucially, there is no need for customs checks at each border. A free trade agreement does not confer the same benefit.
It makes you rich at the expense of making people in developing countries poorer.
I think that’s immoral
How does giving trade access to a market of over 400 million consumers make people in the developing world poorer?
It’s only access for basic commodities. If they dare to try to add value to the product they are hammered
Corbyn has voted against all measures of European integration in Parliament since he was first elected. He voted Leave in 1975. He conspired to frustrate the BSE campaign.
These are not the actions of someone ambivalent on the subject.
But he campaigned for remain in 2016 (admittedly not very hard) and has said on several occasions since that he would still vote remain if a new referendum were held.
The weight of opinion amongst party members and MPs is such that he could not block another referendum even if he wanted to. And surely he doesn't really want to be tasked with trying to implement Brexit having seen what it has done to the Tories.
The interesting detail this morning is that 71% do not consider Corbyn competent to negotiate brexit and 68% do not consider labour competent (Sky data poll)
Labour are all over the place
No party is competent to negotiate the Brexit that was promised at the referendum since it is not achievable.
And the Tories are hardly in a position to criticise disunity in other parties....
So labour attack the conservatives all the time but the conservatives cannot attack them for their disunity
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
Some might see that as an argument for remaining inside the customs union with the EU. It means frictionless trade inside the customs union which is what enables the car makers, for instance, to operate just-in-time manufacturing with international supply chains because, crucially, there is no need for customs checks at each border. A free trade agreement does not confer the same benefit.
It makes you rich at the expense of making people in developing countries poorer.
I think that’s immoral
How does giving trade access to a market of over 400 million consumers make people in the developing world poorer?
It’s only access for basic commodities. If they dare to try to add value to the product they are hammered
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
That is not an inherent characteristic of a customs union. It entirely depends what policies it has on external trade.
Well yes, to the extent that a metal bar with a rounded handle and a sharpened edge is probably a knife.
A customs union that has a FT focused external policy isn’t a customs union. They only work by excluding others
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Problems recruiting programmers might be due to Brexit, although we should not forget that devaluation of sterling against the Euro might be a factor here as it means a de facto pay cut (itself a secondary impact from Brexit). Against that, there are more visas available for programmers from outside the EU (as a side effect of exempting health workers).
It does raise the question, as with doctors, nurses and curry chefs, of why we cannot train programmers in this country. And imagine if we let girls have a go as well.
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
Some might see that as an argument for remaining inside the customs union with the EU. It means frictionless trade inside the customs union which is what enables the car makers, for instance, to operate just-in-time manufacturing with international supply chains because, crucially, there is no need for customs checks at each border. A free trade agreement does not confer the same benefit.
It makes you rich at the expense of making people in developing countries poorer.
I think that’s immoral
How does giving trade access to a market of over 400 million consumers make people in the developing world poorer?
It’s only access for basic commodities. If they dare to try to add value to the product they are hammered
It's easy to be moralistic and philanthropic if you are wealthy.
The Customs Union benefits millions of poor Europeans, as well as the better off.
The video's a bit ... thought provoking. Or it would be if it weren't 5 to 4 in the morning.
Not doing myself down, or anything, but I think I should have edited the script down another 20% and tightened it up a bit. The content is good, but I'm a bit long-winded this time around. Probably because I've been simultaneously working on the very data heavy Demographics II.
A couple of suggestions for future videos: 1) Brexit-relevant -- why CUs are lovelier than FTAs because of frictions, and the gravitational model of international trade and Europe being closer than America and all that. 2) changes in the way capitalism works a) branding means goods that ought to be fungible now aren't b) the return of conglomerates eg Amazon -- as opposed to the 30-year fashion for breaking them up c) company success (Amazon again) now depending on share prices rising (and hence market cap) rather than actual profits
CUs benefit those inside at the expense of those outside. They are not free trade - they are tools for wealth diversion not maximisation
That is not an inherent characteristic of a customs union. It entirely depends what policies it has on external trade.
Well yes, to the extent that a metal bar with a rounded handle and a sharpened edge is probably a knife.
A customs union that has a FT focused external policy isn’t a customs union. They only work by excluding others
Absolute nonsense. Do you think that the customs union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is inherently protectionist or is it just a demarcation of political boundaries?
If not already covered what happens re J McD share plan if you work for a subsidiary of an overseas owned organisation which will have nominal shareholdings 100% owned by the overseas company
I would assume they would be 'forced' to divest 10% of their holdings.
Of course, it would provide incentives for companies to break up their structure so every UK company was under the 'large company' limits, so their would have to be rules about groups etc....
But that doesn't make any sense for most of these organisations. They probably only have 2 shares owned by the overseas company or nominees and restrictions on the issuing and transferring of shares. If they have dividends at all it would only be for the purpose of transferring funds and you can't force an overseas company to issue its shares to its employees here.
If not already covered what happens re J McD share plan if you work for a subsidiary of an overseas owned organisation which will have nominal shareholdings 100% owned by the overseas company
I would assume they would be 'forced' to divest 10% of their holdings.
Of course, it would provide incentives for companies to break up their structure so every UK company was under the 'large company' limits, so their would have to be rules about groups etc....
Or take the Starbucks approach and make vigorous use of things like transfer pricing. UK company minimal assets, minimal profit.
As is quickly becoming very clear, this is as much about a sneaky tax rise on businesses as much as anything else.
Also, it pushes companies to want workers to operate 'off the books' as subcontractors, rather than employees.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
What's more, she's working with some old friends in her new job.
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
I'd say it's almost totally down to Brexit. We are finding it very hard to find programmers and developers because the supply has been significantly reduced. This is almost certainly down to less of these highly-skilled people coming over from other parts of the EU. It is very good news indeed for people like your wife, and good luck to her, but not so good for businesses that need IT skills in order to expand and develop the products that will lead to them creating more jobs and taxable income. It takes us back to this pre-referendum thread:
Problems recruiting programmers might be due to Brexit, although we should not forget that devaluation of sterling against the Euro might be a factor here as it means a de facto pay cut (itself a secondary impact from Brexit). Against that, there are more visas available for programmers from outside the EU (as a side effect of exempting health workers).
It does raise the question, as with doctors, nurses and curry chefs, of why we cannot train programmers in this country. And imagine if we let girls have a go as well.
Although she was trained in Turkey, which despite being rather more of a misanthropic society manages to train more girls in STEM subjects than we do (leastways from the last figures I saw). The reasons for this might be very interesting to consider.
If not already covered what happens re J McD share plan if you work for a subsidiary of an overseas owned organisation which will have nominal shareholdings 100% owned by the overseas company
I would assume they would be 'forced' to divest 10% of their holdings.
Of course, it would provide incentives for companies to break up their structure so every UK company was under the 'large company' limits, so their would have to be rules about groups etc....
But that doesn't make any sense for most of these organisations. They probably only have 2 shares owned by the overseas company or nominees and restrictions on the issuing and transferring of shares. If they have dividends at all it would only be for the purpose of transferring funds and you can't force an overseas company to issue its shares to its employees here.
Most large organisations are groups with lots of subsidiaries. Those subsidiaries will have nominal shares owned by the holding company or a company higher in the chain. Presumably the plan would be to give employees shares in the holding company, but what would be the plan where it isn't a 100% subsidiary, is an associated companies, is a joint ventures, etc?
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Missed that aspect. I suspect the 'group' will turn out to be the unions.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
Not only do employees not get the full dividend nor any voting rights but they don’t own the shares either. They can’t sell them, can’t build any sort of nest egg. So the employees get shafted - that £500 dividend payment will come out of the pot for salaries, the company gets taxed more, other shareholders ie our pension funds get diluted and lose out and the only ones to benefit are the union representatives.
I am all in favour of extending share ownership schemes to employees. I have benefited from some myself. And I don’t object either to the principle of having directors on boards representing the interests of employees. But this scheme is a scam which does little for employees. It is a pay off to unions. About the only people who will benefit will be the lawyers and accountants merrily finding a way round it.
How would it work for companies that are currently 100% owned by employees?
For those of you in the know what does this mean for Sweden and the EU
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven lost a mandatory confidence vote in parliament today meaning he will step down, but with neither major political bloc holding a majority it remained unclear who will form the next government
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Missed that aspect. I suspect the 'group' will turn out to be the unions.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
Not only do employees not get the full dividend nor any voting rights but they don’t own the shares either. They can’t sell them, can’t build any sort of nest egg. So the employees get shafted - that £500 dividend payment will come out of the pot for salaries, the company gets taxed more, other shareholders ie our pension funds get diluted and lose out and the only ones to benefit are the union representatives.
I am all in favour of extending share ownership schemes to employees. I have benefited from some myself. And I don’t object either to the principle of having directors on boards representing the interests of employees. But this scheme is a scam which does little for employees. It is a pay off to unions. About the only people who will benefit will be the lawyers and accountants merrily finding a way round it.
How would it work for companies that are currently 100% owned by employees?
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Missed that aspect. I suspect the 'group' will turn out to be the unions.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
Not only do employees not get the full dividend nor any voting rights but they don’t own the shares either. They can’t sell them, can’t build any sort of nest egg. So the employees get shafted - that £500 dividend payment will come out of the pot for salaries, the company gets taxed more, other shareholders ie our pension funds get diluted and lose out and the only ones to benefit are the union representatives.
I am all in favour of extending share ownership schemes to employees. I have benefited from some myself. And I don’t object either to the principle of having directors on boards representing the interests of employees. But this scheme is a scam which does little for employees. It is a pay off to unions. About the only people who will benefit will be the lawyers and accountants merrily finding a way round it.
Just done some quick numbers on McD's 10% share plan. Looking at BT:
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker. That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
What gets my goat is the fact (at least, I think it's right) that although they are voting shares, the individual employees don't get individual voting rights. Instead, a 'group' gets the votes.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
Missed that aspect. I suspect the 'group' will turn out to be the unions.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
Not only do employees not get the full dividend nor any voting rights but they don’t own the shares either. They can’t sell them, can’t build any sort of nest egg. So the employees get shafted - that £500 dividend payment will come out of the pot for salaries, the company gets taxed more, other shareholders ie our pension funds get diluted and lose out and the only ones to benefit are the union representatives.
I am all in favour of extending share ownership schemes to employees. I have benefited from some myself. And I don’t object either to the principle of having directors on boards representing the interests of employees. But this scheme is a scam which does little for employees. It is a pay off to unions. About the only people who will benefit will be the lawyers and accountants merrily finding a way round it.
How would it work for companies that are currently 100% owned by employees?
Are they owned by 'all' employess though. I presume if you had workers which didn't own shares then they would be entitled to the 10%.
I've deliberately not mentioned it on here, but I think I can now things have settled down.
The jobs market in tech - or at least certain areas of it - appears to be booming. Mrs J got made redundant along with some colleagues in the early summer. She did not immediately look for a job, but word got around and before her last day five companies had been in contact with her, and within a week of finishing she had three firm offers, one without an interview. She chose one with a large pay increase and negotiated the summer off, so she could have a break after her old, rather exhausting, job.
Snip
I cannot say if this is true for the whole tech sector, but her area is booming.
Despite Brexit.
(Please forgive this rather smug post. I am very happy for her.)
It should also be noted that hers is very much a 'new economy' job. She's been made redundant three or four times, always with her team, but has always got another job pretty much immediately. There's relatively little job security, but lots of demand.
Problems recruiting programmers might be due to Brexit, although we should not forget that devaluation of sterling against the Euro might be a factor here as it means a de facto pay cut (itself a secondary impact from Brexit). Against that, there are more visas available for programmers from outside the EU (as a side effect of exempting health workers).
It does raise the question, as with doctors, nurses and curry chefs, of why we cannot train programmers in this country. And imagine if we let girls have a go as well.
Although she was trained in Turkey, which despite being rather more of a misanthropic society manages to train more girls in STEM subjects than we do (leastways from the last figures I saw). The reasons for this might be very interesting to consider.
Oh, and she isn't a programmer.
Turkey had their first female fighter pilot in 1937. The RAF didn’t have their first female pilot until 1991.
If this share scheme was all about the werkers, there wouldn't be £500 cap, employees would actually get the shares themselves not just a partial dividend kickback, there wouldn't be the government scraping off everything over £500 as a tax...
One should ask why such a convoluted scheme, and who trusts McDonnell to stick at 10%, why not 20%.....
Re McDonnells 10% share proposition it is for Hammond to counter it and introduce a scheme where employees can buy shares in their company with full tax relief and no capital gains on the future sale. That would shoot labours fox as the shares would be wholly owned by the employee, they would receive all the dividends, and they could trade them tax free
If this share scheme was all about the werkers, there wouldn't be £500 cap, employees would actually get the shares themselves not just a partial dividend kickback, there wouldn't be the government scraping off everything over £500 as a tax...
One should ask why such a convoluted scheme, and who trusts McDonnell to stick at 10%, why not 20%.....
I trust McDonnell to stick to 10%. 10% left in private hands, that is.
Re McDonnells 10% share proposition it is for Hammond to counter it and introduce a scheme where employees can buy shares in their company with full tax relief and no capital gains on the future sale. That would shoot labours fox as the shares would be wholly owned buy the employee, they would receive all the dividends, and they could trade them tax free
In the CapX article yesterday it was pointed out that it is already advantageous for employers and employees to receive compensation in the form of shares, but there are a number of issues with it depending on the business.
On lady programmers, who was the first female software engineer? (Using broad terms, so it was some time ago).
Ada Lovelace?
Yes - she is generally accredited as the first, although the one who arguably had the most impact on the world would be Grace Hopper. Sophie Wilson, the woman who designed many of Acorn Computers and BBC Basic, could also be argued to have had a large influence on the UK computing scene.
Comments
https://twitter.com/OvePM/status/1044480094905995264
Mind you the job shortages in my particular area are Europe wide. Only yesterday I had a large Microsoft partner complaining that they couldn't find anyone in Germany or Denmark...
I also doubt that Brexit has much to do with it, in her arena at least. The sector is too small and specialist, but there is a massive amount of demand for new products. The Internet of Tat Things is just one booming area which investors are willing to throw money at.
It does raise the question, as with doctors, nurses and curry chefs, of why we cannot train programmers in this country. And imagine if we let girls have a go as well.
We saw similar with Ed Miliband, those voters didn’t turn out, so that’s why YouGov are focussing on the 19% v 21%.
I did not write, or even look, at a single line of code for the project. I spent my entire time running around checking on people and oiling the wheels; I could be using a signal analyser one moment, fetching someone a cup of tea or doing a run to the shop the next. I tried to ensure I was the first of the team in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night.
It was exhausting but fun. It also is probably only achievable for short-term, tightly-focused projects.
I hate meetings (tm).
There are approx ≈ 10 billion shares in issue.
That means the 10% plan would create 1 billion new shares.
There are approx 72,000 UK employees.
So each employee will get approx 13,800 shares each.
Latest div per share figures are about 15p.
So workers would get ≈ £2000 a year in div.
This would be capped at £500, so UK government gets extra tax of ≈ £1500 per worker.
That's around £100 million.
All very rough, and of course the div per share figure would probably drop as 10% more shares in issue, but unless I have missed something (and I may have - I'm no finance guru), two things strike me:
a) How long before workers and unions are saying hang on a minute - I could be getting £2K extra a year, but it is capped at £500?
b) This is a massive tax take from corporate sector, disguised as a share employee scheme.
We are not going to have a second referendum with Remain as an option. It is not in the interest of the Conservative Party or the Labour leadership.
Therefore a company designs a chip and gets it made. They then have a choice: do they keep the team on at high cost to develop the successor at high cost, or market what they have and hope it sells for a few years? Often they go for the latter, which means the entire team gets the chop.
Being such an obscure area, it's common for entire teams to be 'bought' by another company who want to design a chip. In fact, it's been known for companies to sell teams to save redundancy payments and to pass on liabilities for building rents. It's not unheard of for individuals or teams to swap back to a company they were made redundant from a few years before as the cycle continues.
The real problem is that there are not enough people graduating in this sort of thing in the UK. It is expensive for universities to teach, and relatively unsexy compared to things like game design. Yet as a country we excel at it.
Norway
Canada
TM deal
No deal
Remain
Well that is utter chaos as indeed would be any second referendum.
I'm intelligent enough to make my own mind up how I would vote, thank you very much.
That is until Momentum finally fall out with unions, as they are virtually Tories, and the 'group' becomes Jon Lansman.
McDonnells statements yesterday are tactical, he knows very well that it is preposterous to suggest that a new referendum could be held without a remain option. However he does not want to be seen to alienate leave supporters and he probably thinks, correctly in my view, that it is too early to be sure what question any new referendum should ask because we do not know what, if any, deal May will get and he wants to keep up the pressure for a general election, even though the chances of success on that seem remote at the moment.
These are not the actions of someone ambivalent on the subject.
68% do not think labour is competent to negotiate Brexit
Sky data poll
Adam Boulton comments bad news for labour
43% no deal
23% Canada
34% Remain
Which leaves you in a position where the middle ground option(s) disappear in the first round of voting....
I am all in favour of extending share ownership schemes to employees. I have benefited from some myself. And I don’t object either to the principle of having directors on boards representing the interests of employees. But this scheme is a scam which does little for employees. It is a pay off to unions. About the only people who will benefit will be the lawyers and accountants merrily finding a way round it.
I was sent a document with the bet IDs for the other unsettled bets. I was able, previously, to get the last three myself and they seem to tally with the ones I was sent, so hopefully any future missing bets I'll be able to get traced after all.
The weight of opinion amongst party members and MPs is such that he could not block another referendum even if he wanted to. And surely he doesn't really want to be tasked with trying to implement Brexit having seen what it has done to the Tories.
To be fair to Ladbrokes, at least the ones you can search (the last six months iirc) can be exported to csv by pressing a button.
An interesting approach to cycling by a school:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45636870
Any early thoughts on the Russian GP? Bottas won last year after getting pole-sitter Vettel off the line, and there was little overtaking in the one stop race after a lap 1 safety car. Betfair has Seb 2.38 and Lewis 2.54. I’ll start with half a stake on the Brit.
On one of the few (possibly only) useful ‘management techniques’ courses I attended I was told that a team needed a Chairman (to keep the thing running), an Engineer (to do the work), an Accountant, (to discuss practicality) a Critic (to point out what was/could go wrong and a Joker (to suggest the impossible).
It wasn’t there, but other useful advice I was given was that 'it’s amazing what can be achieved if no-one’s worried about who gets the credit!'
Labour are all over the place
On changing regulations etc: whilst PB knows and trembles at the name "Morris Dancer" I suspect pb.com and Mr. Smithson might have a rather better chance at effecting such a change.
Mr. Sandpit, it could be a lot worse. I'm glad I was made aware of the possibility when the only cost was potentially a couple of small stakes winning bets.
I only glanced at the Russian market. I think 8.5 on Bottas each way (green if top 2) worth considering, perhaps, and the 71 on someone in the crowd wearing "I went to Salisbury and all I get was this lousy perfume" t-shirt*.
*Fictional market.
And the Tories are hardly in a position to criticise disunity in other parties....
Much of the team was actually motivated by embarrassment: they had designed a chip with certain performance specifications, but when they got samples back they were well below the required performance level in one area. Unfortunately a massive customer wanted us to meet that level, even though IMO it was frankly an unimportant one and would not effect end-users.
The team had only had the samples back a few weeks, but it was clear that the design was borken and they didn't know why. However the chief architect thought he knew how it could be 'fixed' in software, so I was put in charge of a team to do it. The designers were all rather embarrassed. I decided not to look at *why* it had failed, as any fix would require an expensive and time-consuming respin of the chip, but to focus only on the work-around.
The CEO told the customer we could get them working samples that met the spec in two weeks - either an act of faith in us or a dangerous act of bragado! The customer was annoyed, but agreed.
So we spent time getting the data that would allow us to design the software work-around, and then implemented it. Although they later found the design problem and developed a fix, that version of the chip remained in production for years for other customers and sold many millions. It was a success.
They then made the design team redundant ...
But that's perhaps enough of this...
Conversely, Brexit proceeding is probably good for Labour unless it goes well, which isn’t appearing that likely. They can get a couple of full terms out of a ‘fixing the mess the Tories made by mismanaging’ Brexit narrative. They don’t even have to ever make the argument that Brexit was a bad idea, they can just say that the people in charge screwed it up.
Provided that the Tories do just enough to look like they tried, and Labour do just enough to look like they tried to stop, neither will alienate their base by facilitating an outcome which their supporters broadly oppose.
They're the government. And the largest party. And trying to negotiate a deal. Any revocation of Article 50 and/or second referendum requires at least a huge rebellion if not overt Conservative approval.
There's actually an issue here. For a year now I've walked my son to pre-school, and now reception. This is along quiet roads and foot/cyclepaths. There is a secondary school on the same site, and many of the kids using scooters or bikes don't pay enough attention to three or four year olds they encounter. He was knocked over twice last year, once by a boy on a scooter and another time by a girl on a bike - in the former case despite him being directly in front of me!
He was unhurt, but he's not keen to use his scooter or bike, and I wonder if it's as a result of that.
I do wish the cycling lobby would start acknowledging that there are very poor cyclists on the roads, and that that accidents are not always the fault of other road users ...
It's clearly not in their interest to have a UK that could bolt at anytime depending on election cycles, always resisting, always asking for more concessions. Much better a UK that can be held up as an example of the folly of quitting.
Brexit will not be halted because it's in no ones political interest to do so.
Of course, it would provide incentives for companies to break up their structure so every UK company was under the 'large company' limits, so their would have to be rules about groups etc....
As is quickly becoming very clear, this is as much about a sneaky tax rise on businesses as much as anything else.
Although, sadly, both are believable.
A customs union that has a FT focused external policy isn’t a customs union. They only work by excluding others
The Customs Union benefits millions of poor Europeans, as well as the better off.
Not sure thats a great thing.
Although she was trained in Turkey, which despite being rather more of a misanthropic society manages to train more girls in STEM subjects than we do (leastways from the last figures I saw). The reasons for this might be very interesting to consider.
Oh, and she isn't a programmer.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven lost a mandatory confidence vote in parliament today meaning he will step down, but with neither major political bloc holding a majority it remained unclear who will form the next government
One should ask why such a convoluted scheme, and who trusts McDonnell to stick at 10%, why not 20%.....
10% left in private hands, that is.
Grace Hopper invented 'bug'
http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-the-origin-2/
Although I'd want to give am honourable mention to rear-admiral Grace Hopper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
Bah. Beaten to it!