Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
An excuse always used for supporting exploitation.
And you're wrong, housing will be far more valuable than pigs both for the country and especially for the farmer.
So why isn't housing replacing pig production now, how does it make people wealthier, particularly those involved in pig production, why do we need shortages of abattoir workers?
Seems a red herring.
Various regulations.
It lowers housing costs.
Land for housing is worth more than agricultural land.
And by lower housing costs it increases economic mobility and so allows workers to move to where the jobs are.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Burnham has learnt how to win since 2015.
Anyone who doesnt want him to replace the current useless nonentity does not care about winning and are only interested in factional shite.
Get him a seat quick
If it shortens Johnson's tenure I would give it a whirl. I am not sure it does.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Course the pigs get the worst end of the deal as ever.
As the Chinese saying goes, even a chicken has to work for its living.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
An excuse always used for supporting exploitation.
And you're wrong, housing will be far more valuable than pigs both for the country and especially for the farmer.
So why isn't housing replacing pig production now, how does it make people wealthier, particularly those involved in pig production, why do we need shortages of abattoir workers?
Seems a red herring.
Various regulations.
It lowers housing costs.
Land for housing is worth more than agricultural land.
And by lower housing costs it increases economic mobility and so allows workers to move to where the jobs are.
The fundamental issue is do we want the UK to be a productive economy where income comes from work or do we want a rentier economy where income comes from ownership.
I expected much more disruption than we've had so far.
So you voted for disruption?, without warning the people at the time?
Yes I voted for disruption, change always takes disruption.
I said at the time I expected disruption. I was a Remainer on this site until a few weeks before the Referendum where I became convinced that Brexit was the right thing to do despite the expected disruption.
Claiming that Brexit is the wrong thing to do because it has some disruption is like claiming getting fit is the wrong thing to do because exercise is tough.
The UK is the fat lazy slob that has been asked to get fit to run a marathon in 5 years but was so lazy it didn't bother training for 4 years and now with less than a year to go has realised, "fuck I've got this marathon to run in a few months". That goes for the state and private sector, especially so for the haulage sector who knew this was coming for 4 years (as some PBers have been gleefully pointing out).
It depends on how the economy reacts. It's possible that the problems we've ignored for so long will now be fixed under the pressure of a Brexit economic shock. It's also possible that the economy will shrink to fit within the constraints created by those problems, and we'll be permanently impoverished as a result.
I tend to believe that government has a role to play in creating the conditions for the former outcome rather than the latter. I am not encouraged by the evidence of their performance to date.
I always said that, in terms of British economic performance, what mattered more than whether we were in the EU, or out, was how well the country was run. Brexit creates a crisis, a sink or swim moment. We might swim, but we might well sink.
I recall that shock therapy wasn't all that good for the post-Soviet Russian economy.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
An excuse always used for supporting exploitation.
And you're wrong, housing will be far more valuable than pigs both for the country and especially for the farmer.
So why isn't housing replacing pig production now, how does it make people wealthier, particularly those involved in pig production, why do we need shortages of abattoir workers?
Seems a red herring.
Various regulations.
It lowers housing costs.
Land for housing is worth more than agricultural land.
And by lower housing costs it increases economic mobility and so allows workers to move to where the jobs are.
Uh, you are going to need to show your working on that one. Look at where pig farming takes place and come back to us.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Course the pigs get the worst end of the deal as ever.
'I'll give you the good news first, you're not going to be eaten.'
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Or best !!!!!
I'm happy to believe that Johnson is currently doing his best.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
We're not talking about tariffs and subsidies The UK is adding barriers to trade, ie the opposite to the NZ move, and keeping subsidies.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Burnham has learnt how to win since 2015.
Anyone who doesnt want him to replace the current useless nonentity does not care about winning and are only interested in factional shite.
Get him a seat quick
If it shortens Johnson's tenure I would give it a whirl. I am not sure it does.
Burnham seems a radically different proposition to the mediocre minister from the final days of new labour.
He seems far more serious, far less there just to trot out meaningless party lines.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
An excuse always used for supporting exploitation.
And you're wrong, housing will be far more valuable than pigs both for the country and especially for the farmer.
You can't eat houses as far as I am aware.
I thought one of the key benefits of Brexit was to be our food production self sufficiency.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
We're not talking about tariffs and subsidies The UK is adding barriers to trade, ie the opposite to the NZ move, and keeping subsidies.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
What barriers to trade? A little bit of customs paperwork? Big frigging deal, NZ deals with far, far, far more than that and thrives.
Cutting off virtually-infinite minimum wage labour isn't a barrier to trade.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
An excuse always used for supporting exploitation.
And you're wrong, housing will be far more valuable than pigs both for the country and especially for the farmer.
You can't eat houses as far as I am aware.
I thought one of the key benefits of Brexit was to be our food production self sufficiency.
Its not what I voted for. I don't recall that being one of the promises nor is it an issue I care about. Having control of our laws etc isn't self-sufficiency and self-sufficiency isn't something we should even be striving for.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Adding trade friction means higher inflation, lower productivity, lower growth, and lower real wages.
None of this is even particularly controversial.
The idea though is that Brexit would *allow* us to deregulate those costs away and perhaps thereby find new markets.
Brexiters seem to have given up looking for those deregulation opportunities are just going with higher prices as the supposed “Brexit dividend”.
First cousin marriage certainly does count as consanguinity in the real world of genetic defects - AIUI it roughly doubles the incidence over unrelated couples.
And this also relies on the assumption that there is no adultery. As we all know British aristos never commit adultery. Oh no, perish the thought. Doesn't matter if it is exogamous - but if it is within the family ...
Incest is the sort of secret you should keep in the family
Surely it has to be kept in the family, or it’s not incest?
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
If the climate change activists have their way pig production for meat consumptions will be banned
If God didn’t want us to eat pigs, why did He make them out of bacon?
It has so many nitrates and nitrites in it that it's basically poison. Group 1 carcinogen. You might as well smerk tabs.
Finding bacon, chorizo, etc that isn't full of chemicals is a challenge.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Importing cheap labour to do low value jobs imposed costs on society. I don’t believe that someone earning £9.12 (?) an hour is contributing more on tax than they are costing
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
There does seem to be a mindset that the disruption covid has brought should only benefit nice, educated middle class people who can now wfh etc whereas the low paid should keep on doing the same old jobs in the same old way for the same old pay and not be allowed to take advantage of the changes covid has brought.
What we are getting at the moment is incessant media coverage of every small and not so small issue that arises blaming these bumps in the road on Brexit. The fact that other countries are also suffering dislocations and disruptions as a result of the chaos called by Covid is ignored: it must be the fault of Brexit.
In many, probably most, cases this is just nonsense. So, for example, we have the problem of high gas prices. This is an international phenomenon which the UK is more than usually vulnerable to because successive governments failed to create enough storage. Do I claim that this was a misplaced reliance on the SM? Of course not, it was pure incompetence.
In other cases Brexit plays a small part. So we are by far from being alone in finding we do not have enough HGV drivers as deliveries and economic activity pick up again but the assumption that we could just import all the cheap labour we needed is no longer valid and so there is an extra piquancy to our problems as a result of the fact we are weaning ourselves off cheap labour.
In respect of food there is almost nothing to this at all because we have chosen not to impose the conditions on our imports that the EU is imposing on our exports, at least not yet. But every day we see stories about some supermarket somewhere being short of this or that.
The reality, as I have expressed before is that trying to measure the pluses and minuses of Brexit (and I accept there are both) at this stage is like trying to measure the ripples caused by a stone thrown into a raging tempest. The world economy and ours have gone through something truly incredible as a result of the pandemic. The consequences are dozens, probably hundreds, of times more significant than Brexit effects. We are deluding ourselves and failing to address the very real problems if we pretend otherwise.
So how will we be able to judge Brexit? I think it will take 10-20 years to determine whether cutting our own path has made a difference. If we do wean ourselves off imported labour and work hard as a nation to boost our productivity as a result it will have been a success. If we significantly reduce our horrendous trade deficit either by import substitution or exports to new markets it will have been a success. If we fail to do these things and continue with the disastrous policies of excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training it will have failed. We will know in 20 years but a lot depends upon the quality of governments elected in the meantime.
Excellent and agree 100%
Blaming the media is a bit OTT. It is not as if ordinary folk will not have noticed petrol shortages or gaps on the supermarket shelves even without reading the papers.
But there would have been no petrol shortages had it not been for the media, so back to square one for you.
Blaming the media does not explain regional differences. Unless you think BBC South Today or BBC Radio Sussex is the main driving force.
So there's no major media presence in the Southeast or London?
No FBPE Remainers desperate for there to be a story there either?
This whole FBPE-is-responsible-for-the-distribution-crisis you're pushing, it is unhinged.
There is no distribution crisis.
There's a panic crisis in London and the South East. Why do you think there's a panic crisis in London and the SE if not media/FBPE?
Other people already set out plausible reasons to you in recent days. It's pointless for me to repeat them because I won't match their eloquence. It's just... it's not Twitter doing this. It really, really isn't.
Of course it wasn’t just Twitter.
Radio 5 Live, the station of choice for a lot of road warriors, played its part too. They’ll say they didn’t, that they spent three days saying there were no shortages and not to panic buy - but all people heard was “shortages, panic buy”. As someone commented here the other day, Derren Brown would have been proud of that one!
That was me, you’re welcome.
Was a good analogy, which stuck as much as R5L’s subliminal messaging over fuel.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
For one thing we're two different people so can have different thoughts or priorities.
For another we should import that which we're unproductive with and export those that we're productive with.
We're a small island with a lot of people and not much land. Agriculture makes up 0.59% of UK GDP and takes up over 70% of UK land. Maybe, just maybe, reserving 70% of our land for 0.59% of our GDP isn't the most productive use of our limited space?
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
This is not just a cultural argument. A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
We're not talking about tariffs and subsidies The UK is adding barriers to trade, ie the opposite to the NZ move, and keeping subsidies.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
What barriers to trade? A little bit of customs paperwork? Big frigging deal, NZ deals with far, far, far more than that and thrives.
Cutting off virtually-infinite minimum wage labour isn't a barrier to trade.
NZ has high immigration, a persistent trade deficit, and has struggled to move beyond primary production where it has an obvious comparative advantage.
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Burnham has learnt how to win since 2015.
Anyone who doesnt want him to replace the current useless nonentity does not care about winning and are only interested in factional shite.
Get him a seat quick
If it shortens Johnson's tenure I would give it a whirl. I am not sure it does.
The problem for labour is that Starmer is in post and Burnham is not in Parliament but he is Mayor of Manchester
Any move to change is not a quick fix as Burnham would need a Parliamentary seat and in doing so it would be seen as a direct challenge to Starmer's authority and make his position untenable
The best way would be for Burnham to seek a seat at the next election but then that too would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Starmer
Just been looking at the contractor rates for Council planning officers in the south east. One ad is up for over £70 per hour, so £115k per year. This is for a job where a permanent role would normally be at around £40k; and a manager at little more, maybe £50k. At those pay levels, Council's are going to either go bust or be unable to carry out their statutory functions, or both (as planning fee income covers nowhere near those costs). Something else to keep an eye on.
Theyll go bust. Many didn't make savings during Covid so now need to make a lot more than usual from rising costs anyway, so cannot afford the staff they already have.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
For one thing we're two different people so can have different thoughts or priorities.
For another we should import that which we're unproductive with and export those that we're productive with.
We're a small island with a lot of people and not much land. Agriculture makes up 0.59% of UK GDP and takes up over 70% of UK land. Maybe, just maybe, reserving 70% of our land for 0.59% of our GDP isn't the most productive use of our limited space?
An excellent argument for rewilding.
This is like when PBTories were taking the average distribution of person per square mile in Scotland as a meaningful figure.
The distribution of agriculture - and remember that includes forestry in one sense: does PT? - is highly scattered along the graph axes: from upland sheepery and Sitka plantations to Fife and Lincs grain barons.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
We're not talking about tariffs and subsidies The UK is adding barriers to trade, ie the opposite to the NZ move, and keeping subsidies.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
What barriers to trade? A little bit of customs paperwork? Big frigging deal, NZ deals with far, far, far more than that and thrives.
Cutting off virtually-infinite minimum wage labour isn't a barrier to trade.
NZ has high immigration, a persistent trade deficit, and has struggled to move beyond primary production where it has an obvious comparative advantage.
And that immigration it has - does it try to attract high-skilled immigration, or low-skilled minimum wage immigration?
Attracting high skilled immigration is a positive, attracting low-skilled just deflates our economy.
Just been looking at the contractor rates for Council planning officers in the south east. One ad is up for over £70 per hour, so £115k per year. This is for a job where a permanent role would normally be at around £40k; and a manager at little more, maybe £50k. At those pay levels, Council's are going to either go bust or be unable to carry out their statutory functions, or both (as planning fee income covers nowhere near those costs). Something else to keep an eye on.
Theyll go bust. Many didn't make savings during Covid so now need to make a lot more than usual from rising costs anyway, so cannot afford the staff they already have.
There has also been some interesting "investment" in commercial property from a few. Still. Let the market decide. If Councils go bust they can be bought up by other more efficient Councils. Or become fully autonomous anarcho-syndicalist communes or summat.
What we are getting at the moment is incessant media coverage of every small and not so small issue that arises blaming these bumps in the road on Brexit. The fact that other countries are also suffering dislocations and disruptions as a result of the chaos called by Covid is ignored: it must be the fault of Brexit.
In many, probably most, cases this is just nonsense. So, for example, we have the problem of high gas prices. This is an international phenomenon which the UK is more than usually vulnerable to because successive governments failed to create enough storage. Do I claim that this was a misplaced reliance on the SM? Of course not, it was pure incompetence.
In other cases Brexit plays a small part. So we are by far from being alone in finding we do not have enough HGV drivers as deliveries and economic activity pick up again but the assumption that we could just import all the cheap labour we needed is no longer valid and so there is an extra piquancy to our problems as a result of the fact we are weaning ourselves off cheap labour.
In respect of food there is almost nothing to this at all because we have chosen not to impose the conditions on our imports that the EU is imposing on our exports, at least not yet. But every day we see stories about some supermarket somewhere being short of this or that.
The reality, as I have expressed before is that trying to measure the pluses and minuses of Brexit (and I accept there are both) at this stage is like trying to measure the ripples caused by a stone thrown into a raging tempest. The world economy and ours have gone through something truly incredible as a result of the pandemic. The consequences are dozens, probably hundreds, of times more significant than Brexit effects. We are deluding ourselves and failing to address the very real problems if we pretend otherwise.
So how will we be able to judge Brexit? I think it will take 10-20 years to determine whether cutting our own path has made a difference. If we do wean ourselves off imported labour and work hard as a nation to boost our productivity as a result it will have been a success. If we significantly reduce our horrendous trade deficit either by import substitution or exports to new markets it will have been a success. If we fail to do these things and continue with the disastrous policies of excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training it will have failed. We will know in 20 years but a lot depends upon the quality of governments elected in the meantime.
Excellent and agree 100%
Blaming the media is a bit OTT. It is not as if ordinary folk will not have noticed petrol shortages or gaps on the supermarket shelves even without reading the papers.
But there would have been no petrol shortages had it not been for the media, so back to square one for you.
Exactly right. The media stoked this, partly to fuel the 24 hour news cycle.
How can you make an imaginary shortage. Cars hold finite amounts , if no shortages then it should have been over and done long before this. Even numpties cannot keep filling up.
No, but they can keep topping up.
Jerry can sales increased by 1700% last weekend. Not only car hold fuel.
The media reporting made it a self fulfilling prophecy. Initial panic caused panic buying. More coverage. More panic buying.
It’s been over since Wednesday by me.
This seems to be focused on London and the south east.
The media love nothing better than fomenting panics, be they logistical or moral.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
EDIT: Or encourage more with STEM degrees or experience etc to go into teaching.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
For one thing we're two different people so can have different thoughts or priorities.
For another we should import that which we're unproductive with and export those that we're productive with.
We're a small island with a lot of people and not much land. Agriculture makes up 0.59% of UK GDP and takes up over 70% of UK land. Maybe, just maybe, reserving 70% of our land for 0.59% of our GDP isn't the most productive use of our limited space?
An excellent argument for rewilding.
PS Not disputing that there is some space for rewilding (in fact quite a lot). Edit: but one needs to consider grouse moors, etc., as a form of agriculture for that purpose (which of course they are).
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
This is not just a cultural argument. A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
We're not talking about tariffs and subsidies The UK is adding barriers to trade, ie the opposite to the NZ move, and keeping subsidies.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
What barriers to trade? A little bit of customs paperwork? Big frigging deal, NZ deals with far, far, far more than that and thrives.
Cutting off virtually-infinite minimum wage labour isn't a barrier to trade.
NZ has high immigration, a persistent trade deficit, and has struggled to move beyond primary production where it has an obvious comparative advantage.
Ish but not really:
New Zealand has high immigration, but a lot of that is high skill migration, not unlimited low skill,
Its fertile land is going to give it an advantage in agricocher so unsurprising it exports a lot. but this is balanced with some other sectors.
New Zealand has a thriving 'Tec' sector, developing 'Apps' and also builds and lunches satellites, 'Rocket Lab', the Space X of the small Stat market, and a film industry to name a few.
As to trade deficits, a quick search and I found this:
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
If the climate change activists have their way pig production for meat consumptions will be banned
If God didn’t want us to eat pigs, why did He make them out of bacon?
It has so many nitrates and nitrites in it that it's basically poison. Group 1 carcinogen. You might as well smerk tabs.
Nitrate free bacon is widely available. Though I've given up eating it.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Burnham has learnt how to win since 2015.
Anyone who doesnt want him to replace the current useless nonentity does not care about winning and are only interested in factional shite.
Get him a seat quick
If it shortens Johnson's tenure I would give it a whirl. I am not sure it does.
The problem for labour is that Starmer is in post and Burnham is not in Parliament but he is Mayor of Manchester
Any move to change is not a quick fix as Burnham would need a Parliamentary seat and in doing so it would be seen as a direct challenge to Starmer's authority and make his position untenable
The best way would be for Burnham to seek a seat at the next election but then that too would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Starmer
I do not envy labour's problems
Too late on BJO's analysis. Burnham could always relinquish his Mayoralty role and seek a seat.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
The current fixed pay scales make it very difficult to recruit teachers in subjects like maths, physics and computer science, because they can earn so much more in industry. If government wants to attract more teachers in these subjects, it needs to let the market work to set a price for them.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Just because its possible to make more of a profit by becoming more productive doesn't mean people will actually do so until they're in a position where they need to do so.
New Zealand eliminated all tariffs and subsidies to agriculture and look where they are now.
We're not talking about tariffs and subsidies The UK is adding barriers to trade, ie the opposite to the NZ move, and keeping subsidies.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
What barriers to trade? A little bit of customs paperwork? Big frigging deal, NZ deals with far, far, far more than that and thrives.
Cutting off virtually-infinite minimum wage labour isn't a barrier to trade.
NZ has high immigration, a persistent trade deficit, and has struggled to move beyond primary production where it has an obvious comparative advantage.
Ish but not really:
New Zealand has high immigration, but a lot of that is high skill migration, not unlimited low skill,
Its fertile land is going to give it an advantage in agricocher so unsurprising it exports a lot. but this is balanced with some other sectors.
New Zealand has a thriving 'Tec' sector, developing 'Apps' and also builds and lunches satellites, 'Rocket Lab', the Space X of the small Stat market, and a film industry to name a few.
As to trade deficits, a quick search and I found this:
OK that's only one month, but last years annual trade deficit does look to be below 1.5% of exports so hardly a big concern.
Those numbers are screwed by Covid.
Until Covid, NZ ran a trade deficit since the early 90s.
Anyway my point is simply that when people (mostly Brexiters) say that NZ thrived despite scrapping tariffs on agricultural imports, they are not really telling the whole story.
Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.
There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...
The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.
The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
The country needs to wake up to the ever-growing dictatorship that this gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents are developing for us.
You are sounding hysterical. Not much than 6 years ago, your own gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents was in Coalition Government with this same Conservative Party. That your lot made it a condition to block off any discussion of our EU membership - despite having been pledged to a referendum on the very subject - in the end gave us Brexit.
And "dictatorship"? Has anybody - and I mean ANYBODY - said we won't have an opportunity within 3 years or so to throw the Government out in a general election if they lose the support of the country? Hyperbolic toss. We are not America.
If you are so worried, get going on an alternative set of proposals that a disillusioned country might actually row behind.
Have you heard of the term "elective dictatorship"? For 5 years they can do anything, including lie, cheat, con, defraud, then achieve 40% of the vote in a FPTP system, which then gives them another 5 years.
Democracy eh?
Labour behaved like for 13 years. It may be a lot longer than 13 years before they’re allowed another go.
Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.
There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...
The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.
The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
The country needs to wake up to the ever-growing dictatorship that this gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents are developing for us.
You are sounding hysterical. Not much than 6 years ago, your own gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents was in Coalition Government with this same Conservative Party. That your lot made it a condition to block off any discussion of our EU membership - despite having been pledged to a referendum on the very subject - in the end gave us Brexit.
And "dictatorship"? Has anybody - and I mean ANYBODY - said we won't have an opportunity within 3 years or so to throw the Government out in a general election if they lose the support of the country? Hyperbolic toss. We are not America.
If you are so worried, get going on an alternative set of proposals that a disillusioned country might actually row behind.
Have you heard of the term "elective dictatorship"? For 5 years they can do anything, including lie, cheat, con, defraud, then achieve 40% of the vote in a FPTP system, which then gives them another 5 years.
Democracy eh?
Labour behaved like for 13 years. It may be a lot longer than 13 years before they’re allowed another go.
aah, the old arguement. Everyone does it (which isn't true by the way), so why don't we do it. This is the first government that featherbeds their rich supporters with impunity. Ignores inquiry decisions and is now attempting to neuter the only legal recourse. I have said before that I am not a Labour supporter btw, but I remember when ministers were found out and were made to resign. I even remember Laws doing the same. I even remember May sacking at least 2 ministers for their behaviour, but this government? They make me sick. Sadly many of the Johnson Fanbois stir similar rumblings. I think I will be taking a holiday from this site for a while.
Yep, Boris Johnson is slowly but surely denuding people of their faculties. By the time he goes he will have done great damage. Our political standards will be significantly lower than when he came in.
Reminiscent of someone or other, can’t quite put my finger on who..
Indeed. Not - tbf - of quite the same order but everything, good and bad, is always primary colours in America. We tend to be just that little bit more muted and this applies in the morally empty, mentally vacuous political charlatan space too.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Burnham has learnt how to win since 2015.
Anyone who doesnt want him to replace the current useless nonentity does not care about winning and are only interested in factional shite.
Get him a seat quick
If it shortens Johnson's tenure I would give it a whirl. I am not sure it does.
The problem for labour is that Starmer is in post and Burnham is not in Parliament but he is Mayor of Manchester
Any move to change is not a quick fix as Burnham would need a Parliamentary seat and in doing so it would be seen as a direct challenge to Starmer's authority and make his position untenable
The best way would be for Burnham to seek a seat at the next election but then that too would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Starmer
I do not envy labour's problems
Too late on BJO's analysis. Burnham could always relinquish his Mayoralty role and seek a seat.
It would still take time and would undermine Starmer and Labour
Can you imagine the field days the media would have
Labour need to stick with Starmer, it is their best hope
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
This is not just a cultural argument. A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
This is not just a cultural argument. A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Why not? Is it impossible to invest in training?
Obviously not; hence my original post.
If its possible to invest in training, then its possible to replace the skills that were imported for minimum wage.
Govt is now presenting shortages as a steely Thatcher-style struggle to reorder the economy. But the memoirs, Lawson for example, show how obsessively they prepared. Before the miners strike they stockpiled coal and increased power capacity. This govt doesn't seem as... organised https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1444610807418007552
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
I think you’re rather putting words in my mouth there. I think Britain is some way off a “fascist autarky”.
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
So the market does even affect teachers.
See. Agree with much of that. So what would be the immediate effect, if, exhorted by the PM to celebrate rising wages as the Brexit Dividend, the Unions downed tools next week?
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
This is not just a cultural argument. A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Why not? Is it impossible to invest in training?
Obviously not; hence my original post.
If its possible to invest in training, then its possible to replace the skills that were imported for minimum wage.
Again, read the original post.
It is not practically possible to train people with certain cultural inheritances.
Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.
Climb off Johnson's cock for five minutes and write one.
Trust you to speak from the gutter.
I was only pointing out as I have previously, that the site is out of kilter to the way the nation is expressing its voting intention.
Its rabidly anti Govt imho. Indeed we are stopped from talking about the appalling Rayner, whilst slagging off of Boris continues daily and unabated. The balance of the site needs addressing.imho
Nobody is stopping you talking about Rayner. Write a thread. I'm sure it will be published. Govts govern and therefore are open to much more scrutiny than oppositions. It is the nature of the beast that there will be more threads critical of the govt. I don't think anyone can claim Starmer is getting an easy ride here.
As has been pointed out before if you don't like it you don't have to stay.
OGH banned discussion of Rayner the day of her comments
Not really. If I recall correctly, OGH took exception to some of the extremely misogynistic comments that came out of the woodwork in reference to Rayner. She has attracted much comment, unbanned, since then. Perhaps OGH could confirm?
I don’t think he discusses such things, but from what I recall, that’s about right. Curious that those complaining didn’t mention that bit…
It was Justin and his "out of wedlock" shenanigans, I believe.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
It shows a lone figure in a deep hole he has dug himself into with his bulldog. A spade leans against the wall. His dog wears a cover with "1966" on it. His shirt says something silly like "Saxe Coburg". Faces peer down from above. He adopts a defiant stance and, brandishing his fist, saying "Very well, alone."
Apologies for my ranging imagination.
Does he have clown makeup on
No clown costume maybe. This is John Bull ("ros bif"). I think his eyes should stare in different directions. The faces looking down ought to be arranged in a circle. And if it be artistically feasible maybe show lightning and storm clouds to underline civilization's real problem, left implied only.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
I think you’re rather putting words in my mouth there. I think Britain is some way off a “fascist autarky”.
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
Ha.
Housing construction has been 100Ks less than population growth for a very considerable number of years. During that time, house prices rose. Almost as if the scarcity of the vital commodity......
The restriction of the building of properties is official policy of the state. Phone the police in rural Britain to report a crime. They will barely bother. Imply that someone is building a house without permission - blue lights*
We have people paying literally £1 million pounds to live in cottages that the Edwardians built for the workers in a brick factory, not far from where I live.
*A farmer friend demonstrated this perfectly. The usual robberies from his farm over the years. Crickets. Then one day, he decides to put a roof on an old stone, abandoned building - as a secure store. He had the planners, the cops etc round the day he started....
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
Culled at cost to farmers. Those 120,000 pigs can't be brought to market because there aren't the butchers to process them.
Which is why artificial shortages are a bonkers way of attempting to raise wages. Shortages mean that activity that is wanted, maybe is vital, and which previously was done, will no longer be done.
It doesn't even work in raising wages in real terms.
If it is wanted then the abattoirs should pay higher wages. Supermarkets will need to pay more and ultimately consumers.
People shouldn’t be forced to work in dangerous, depressing jobs for low wages
Fine words from extremely rich people butter no parsnips. What is the alternative "let them eat cake"
We had a shitty economic structure based on cheap labour from overseas. Great for short term profits but resulted in lower capital investment and downward pressure on wages.
We are going through an adjustment period. We will (hopefully) end up with an economy that works better for the average person. That’s why I voted for Brexit
A very old fashioned approach. That sort of protectionism would destroy the service sector and makes no sense at all in the 21st century
It’s not protectionism.
It’s cutting off access to an effectively unlimited supply of cheap labour and thereby changing incentives for management for the better
It's not cheap labour its diverse labour. Would London be as dynamic without it's immigrant workforce or New York or the States in general? It's backwaters without immigrant labour which necrotises. It's the magnetism of dynamic economies that attract the Labour. British advertising and film making for example would be severely diminished if had to rely on a British only workforce.
This is not just a cultural argument. A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Why not? Is it impossible to invest in training?
Obviously not; hence my original post.
If its possible to invest in training, then its possible to replace the skills that were imported for minimum wage.
Again, read the original post.
It is not practically possible to train people with certain cultural inheritances.
Yes indeed. Oriental lassitude mades it very hard to get the tea planting done, unless you have an active overseer. A good colonial policeman helps keep them in line - that Blair chap is a bit odd, but effective.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
So the market does even affect teachers.
You're onto something here, but there are some other factors to consider.
For a start, the amount that schools can pay is capped by the funding they get from central government. Even if they wanted to use the pay flexibility that academies have, it doesn't get them far.
Second, most teachers aren't that motivated by cash in the first place. If they were, they wouldn't be doing the job. Obviously money talks, but it would need to be an awful lot of money... and then many teachers would respond like doctors and just do fewer days. Because they're generally knackered. And that's why getting existing teachers to retrain in shortage subjects hasn't taken off, despite the encouragement. Teaching something new is way harder than something you've taught for a decade.
Finally, all this would cost more, and there's zero sign of the government being willing to stump up the cash. Because, deep down, we all want high pay and low costs for us.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
The loudest shouts for needing fuel where I am is actually from taxi and Uber drivers, who are struggling because they, er, need fuel. Many are off the road at the moment. Those who have filled up are taking advantage of the scarcity situation - daughter was quoted £45 for a six-mile Uber trip yesterday.
Several things can be true at once:
1. There is no shortage of fuel overall. 2. Panic buying has greatly exacerbated some minor distribution issues. 3. As a consequence, there is a shortage of available fuel at filling stations in some parts of the country.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
So the market does even affect teachers.
God help us!
The shortages of teachers in the UK is because, indeed, that lots have been quitting the profession. Mostly for other jobs.
It is interesting to see where retention is a problem in eduaction - once again it seems to be more about conditions than pay. See our various resident teachers...
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
I think you’re rather putting words in my mouth there. I think Britain is some way off a “fascist autarky”.
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
Ha.
Housing construction has been 100Ks less than population growth for a very considerable number of years. During that time, house prices rose. Almost as if the scarcity of the vital commodity......
The restriction of the building of properties is official policy of the state. Phone the police in rural Britain to report a crime. They will barely bother. Imply that someone is building a house without permission - blue lights*
We have people paying literally £1 million pounds to live in cottages that the Edwardians built for the workers in a brick factory, not far from where I live.
*A farmer friend demonstrated this perfectly. The usual robberies from his farm over the years. Crickets. Then one day, he decides to put a roof on an old stone, abandoned building - as a secure store. He had the planners, the cops etc round the day he started....
To be fair, there have been instances of town planners being murdered in these situations.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
I think it was 1968, when I walked into school, a good mile away, through snow drifts taller than I was....
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
I think you’re rather putting words in my mouth there. I think Britain is some way off a “fascist autarky”.
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
Ha.
Housing construction has been 100Ks less than population growth for a very considerable number of years. During that time, house prices rose. Almost as if the scarcity of the vital commodity......
The restriction of the building of properties is official policy of the state. Phone the police in rural Britain to report a crime. They will barely bother. Imply that someone is building a house without permission - blue lights*
We have people paying literally £1 million pounds to live in cottages that the Edwardians built for the workers in a brick factory, not far from where I live.
*A farmer friend demonstrated this perfectly. The usual robberies from his farm over the years. Crickets. Then one day, he decides to put a roof on an old stone, abandoned building - as a secure store. He had the planners, the cops etc round the day he started....
To be fair, there have been instances of town planners being murdered in these situations.
...and a 20mm cannon modified to be attached to one of his vehicles...
WTF - this isn't Texas.
My friend the farmer wasn't even annoyed at the whole proceedings. Though they insisted on him shutting down work for the day, despite him presenting to the planner officers the reasons why he didn't need planning permission to do what he was doing.
He figured it was one of those things where they were a bit embarrassed by having turned up mob handed and simply driving off would have made them feel foolish.
So he made them all a round of builders tea. And phoned his lawyer.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Re the thread header - if you work for a company and decide to quit and set up as an independent business, it is risky. Maybe your partner will be unhappy at you leaving the security of being on PAYE with 6 weeks paid holidays a year etc, and value those perks higher than you do the freedom of being your own boss
If, three months into going it alone, you were told you had cancer, and could barely work for a year due to the treatment needed to cure it, with no sick pay, and no money coming in, I don't doubt most people would say going it alone was not going well.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
On Marr's paper review they discussed the possibility of Burnham ousting Starmer in the next 12 months if things do not improve
And then made the point that Burnham affirms he will work with Gove/Boris while Starmer says Boris is a trivial man
Interesting
On the day the PM tells Marr it's fine to incinerate hundreds of thousands of pigs, a man called "Burnham" says he'll work with him?
He certainly did
Burnham is more interested in securing development for his constituents in Manchester, than he is in playing petty party politics. He can either engage with the government, or have the needs of his constituents be ignored by them.
Burnham is more interested in securing developments for Burnham.
I might come over all BJO, and suggest if he does stab Starmer in the back, Johnson style, it would almost be worth viewing the spanking Johnson will give him in GE2024. Although the downside to that is Johnson will remain free to do his worst.
Or best !!!!!
The problem is, his best might very well be worse.
At least we'll all have a giggle at his rapier-like wit.
I have just caught up with some of the Marr interview. Talk about a train wreck. I do hope the BBC are busy hunting down Johnson's HIGNFY performance to replace the Marr interview footage, by at least the lunchtime bulletin.
I watched it and it was no different to any other Johnson interview. He is not a man for delivering a brief. He also knows this. On the other hand I was struck by just how rude Marr was to our nations elected leader. I am not calling for cringing respect, but why not let the man finish? Just pathetic.
It was a bad interview on both sides. Sad fact is that post-stroke Marr isn’t really up to the job. But Johnson was simply playing for time with bluff and bluster to avoid answering any questions, which was why Marr was desperately tying to get back in. His whole riff on “of course I don’t blame you”, deliberately misunderstanding what Marr had meant, was pitiful.
The biggest news from the interview is that thousands of pigs face culling and incineration within the next two weeks unless the government gets its act together to respond to the next crisis in line, and that Johnson had no answer.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Around half, including First School, are bussed in round here. Quite a number walk.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
So the market does even affect teachers.
You're onto something here, but there are some other factors to consider.
For a start, the amount that schools can pay is capped by the funding they get from central government. Even if they wanted to use the pay flexibility that academies have, it doesn't get them far.
Second, most teachers aren't that motivated by cash in the first place. If they were, they wouldn't be doing the job. Obviously money talks, but it would need to be an awful lot of money... and then many teachers would respond like doctors and just do fewer days. Because they're generally knackered. And that's why getting existing teachers to retrain in shortage subjects hasn't taken off, despite the encouragement. Teaching something new is way harder than something you've taught for a decade.
Finally, all this would cost more, and there's zero sign of the government being willing to stump up the cash. Because, deep down, we all want high pay and low costs for us.
Yes. If my pay went up to a market rate, I would cut my hours to two days a week instead of the 3-4 I’m planning on.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
I might have missed it, but your point - a very reasonable one - was not raised by Marr. It’s almost as though the media have forgotten about monetary policy.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
"w" I assume? As in "cwrw"?
W and y, yes.
Intrigued that the first thing you think of when talking in or about Welsh is beer.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
For appeal purposes the rules still expect those over 8 to be able to walk three miles to school. I doubt many do. I walked a mile and that was a lot compared to most.
Comments
Holidays are coming
2019, 2020 and 2021 editions
It lowers housing costs.
Land for housing is worth more than agricultural land.
And by lower housing costs it increases economic mobility and so allows workers to move to where the jobs are.
Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
I tend to believe that government has a role to play in creating the conditions for the former outcome rather than the latter. I am not encouraged by the evidence of their performance to date.
I always said that, in terms of British economic performance, what mattered more than whether we were in the EU, or out, was how well the country was run. Brexit creates a crisis, a sink or swim moment. We might swim, but we might well sink.
I recall that shock therapy wasn't all that good for the post-Soviet Russian economy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/marine-le-pens-father-backs-far-right-rival-eric-zemmour-for-presidency-72zl2lhhl
I'm still not sure if he is going to run or just on a big publicity grab.
But that's the problem.
We're talking about artificially induced shortages, supposedly to drive up wages.
He seems far more serious, far less there just to trot out meaningless party lines.
I thought one of the key benefits of Brexit was to be our food production self sufficiency.
Cutting off virtually-infinite minimum wage labour isn't a barrier to trade.
Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages?
Join a Union.
None of this is even particularly controversial.
The idea though is that Brexit would *allow* us to deregulate those costs away and perhaps thereby find new markets.
Brexiters seem to have given up looking for those deregulation opportunities are just going with higher prices as the supposed “Brexit dividend”.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
A lot of the skill we imported (I’m thinking in restaurants, and the arts, but there are extensions into “harder” industries) is simply not replaceable by domestic talent.
Any move to change is not a quick fix as Burnham would need a Parliamentary seat and in doing so it would be seen as a direct challenge to Starmer's authority and make his position untenable
The best way would be for Burnham to seek a seat at the next election but then that too would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Starmer
I do not envy labour's problems
The distribution of agriculture - and remember that includes forestry in one sense: does PT? - is highly scattered along the graph axes: from upland sheepery and Sitka plantations to Fife and Lincs grain barons.
Attracting high skilled immigration is a positive, attracting low-skilled just deflates our economy.
Still. Let the market decide. If Councils go bust they can be bought up by other more efficient Councils.
Or become fully autonomous anarcho-syndicalist communes or summat.
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
EDIT: Or encourage more with STEM degrees or experience etc to go into teaching.
First signs that Reeves is having an effect?
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
14m
Lab overtakes Con as more trusted to "keep taxes low for people like you", 34% to 31% in Public First poll for TaxPayers' Alliance http://publicfirst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/PF_TPA_Affordability_Poll.pdf
New Zealand has high immigration, but a lot of that is high skill migration, not unlimited low skill,
Its fertile land is going to give it an advantage in agricocher so unsurprising it exports a lot. but this is balanced with some other sectors.
New Zealand has a thriving 'Tec' sector, developing 'Apps' and also builds and lunches satellites, 'Rocket Lab', the Space X of the small Stat market, and a film industry to name a few.
As to trade deficits, a quick search and I found this:
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/interestrates/new-zealand-has-nz-261-million-trade-surplus-in-june-1030641895
OK that's only one month, but last years annual trade deficit does look to be below 1.5% of exports so hardly a big concern.
Though I've given up eating it.
Children have a statutory right to be educated.
Sir K losing in May 2023 triggers a summer leadership race.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
So the market does even affect teachers.
Until Covid, NZ ran a trade deficit since the early 90s.
Anyway my point is simply that when people (mostly Brexiters) say that NZ thrived despite scrapping tariffs on agricultural imports, they are not really telling the whole story.
Can you imagine the field days the media would have
Labour need to stick with Starmer, it is their best hope
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1444610807418007552
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
It is not practically possible to train people with certain cultural inheritances.
The faces looking down ought to be arranged in a circle. And if it be artistically feasible maybe show lightning and storm clouds to underline civilization's real problem, left implied only.
Housing construction has been 100Ks less than population growth for a very considerable number of years. During that time, house prices rose. Almost as if the scarcity of the vital commodity......
The restriction of the building of properties is official policy of the state. Phone the police in rural Britain to report a crime. They will barely bother. Imply that someone is building a house without permission - blue lights*
We have people paying literally £1 million pounds to live in cottages that the Edwardians built for the workers in a brick factory, not far from where I live.
*A farmer friend demonstrated this perfectly. The usual robberies from his farm over the years. Crickets. Then one day, he decides to put a roof on an old stone, abandoned building - as a secure store. He had the planners, the cops etc round the day he started....
For a start, the amount that schools can pay is capped by the funding they get from central government. Even if they wanted to use the pay flexibility that academies have, it doesn't get them far.
Second, most teachers aren't that motivated by cash in the first place. If they were, they wouldn't be doing the job. Obviously money talks, but it would need to be an awful lot of money... and then many teachers would respond like doctors and just do fewer days. Because they're generally knackered. And that's why getting existing teachers to retrain in shortage subjects hasn't taken off, despite the encouragement. Teaching something new is way harder than something you've taught for a decade.
Finally, all this would cost more, and there's zero sign of the government being willing to stump up the cash. Because, deep down, we all want high pay and low costs for us.
Incredible I know.
Several things can be true at once:
1. There is no shortage of fuel overall.
2. Panic buying has greatly exacerbated some minor distribution issues.
3. As a consequence, there is a shortage of available fuel at filling stations in some parts of the country.
It is interesting to see where retention is a problem in eduaction - once again it seems to be more about conditions than pay. See our various resident teachers...
Any other leader would be 20 points ahead
====
He doesn't get how deep and serious Labour's problems are does he?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Harry_Collinson
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Really? Burgon, RLB, Corbyn, Abbott, etc. etc? I don't think so, Owen.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
Now Skyr is in charge and where are they now? Turnabout is fair play.
Neither the left nor the 'centrists' of Labour are willing to face up to why Labour are behind.
WTF - this isn't Texas.
My friend the farmer wasn't even annoyed at the whole proceedings. Though they insisted on him shutting down work for the day, despite him presenting to the planner officers the reasons why he didn't need planning permission to do what he was doing.
He figured it was one of those things where they were a bit embarrassed by having turned up mob handed and simply driving off would have made them feel foolish.
So he made them all a round of builders tea. And phoned his lawyer.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Please.
If, three months into going it alone, you were told you had cancer, and could barely work for a year due to the treatment needed to cure it, with no sick pay, and no money coming in, I don't doubt most people would say going it alone was not going well.
The biggest news from the interview is that thousands of pigs face culling and incineration within the next two weeks unless the government gets its act together to respond to the next crisis in line, and that Johnson had no answer.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
There are other MPs who were aware that 30% of its readers voted Labour in 2017. Their task is to increase that proportion.
Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes.
Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Intrigued that the first thing you think of when talking in or about Welsh is beer.