Brexit, for once some facts.

[Zlatan]

When you set a minimum wage you kill jobs. Plain and simple. It makes the politicians look good and pleases all the people on the left but the fact is you stop jobs coming to that area.

You also kills opportunities for certain groups to get any work at all - Down's syndrome sufferers (if we can say that) used to get all sorts of work doing very very simple stuff - because it was worth the while of certain empolyees to pay them a certain wage (as low as £4/hour - but for what they could actually achieve that was all they were worth) - many if not all of these jobs have gone now with the minimum wage requirements - and it leaves those still in work feeling like they're 'on charity'.

Where do the jobs go? Abroad - where people will work at market rates. Or companies (like Macdonalds) speed up the use of robots - because they don't cost so much.

Trouble is tho OJ employees will pay whatever absolute minimum is, to maximise their profits. With high unemployment and hard times that can be very low. At better times employers have to offer better wages to attract employees.
The rate is not determined by what employers should or could pay its determined by minimum they can get away with. Rather like the price we sell things at, its nothing to do with the value its what the market will stand but in reverse. Workers need protection, otherwise employers would pay next to nothing, when they can.
Extend your argument and we go back to miners digging out coal for 5p an hour. We, ve seen enough worker exploitation in our country to know there is some protection needed.
If I couldnt pay an employee more than minimum wage I, d be changing the business.
People should not have to work 12 hour days, 6 days a week to only survive, which is what our current minimum wage equates to.

 

[flecc]

If a business can't support paying its employees a living wage it perhaps isnt competitive enough to survive?

Not necessarily since there's more than one market place. As I mentioned, the many which are part time staffed and people don't need the protection of a minimum wage since they do two or more jobs.

Only very recently I posted about two jobs that are very often done in combination. That's the morning hotel work cleaning and restocking rooms between about 9 and 12, and evening office cleaning from circa 6pm. Together 6 to 8 hours of work and 16 to 18 hours of personal time. Quite a few even contrive to fit three jobs into 24 hours. That is a totally different job market where protection is irrelevant. Not only do they earn enough and often don't suffer from taxation, they don't even need employment protection since the loss of any one job out of two or three held is nothing like as serious as losing ones only job.

Yes my inclinations are socialist, but with the flexibility to recognise all the possible options that exist and which people should have the freedom to choose.
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[Danidl]

No 50Hertz, neither Boris nor the government have done this. It's the employers who will be footing the bill and it will actually slightly increase the government's tax take.

And worse still, look at the jobs it will cost. Only yesterday I was listening to the huge scale of retail job losses in the last year as retailers struggle to survive in the high street. This increase in the living wage will cost even more jobs as it pushes more retailers to the brink, closing more shops.

This is one area where I agree with OJ, it should be left to the market. There are plenty of people who are happy to work for far less than even the old minimum, let alone this new burst of populism. They include large numbers who combine two or even three jobs, so for them the minimum wage in a job is an irrelevance. Their income comes from more than one source and can be quite high in total.
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This neatly brings one back to the illiteracy argument of last week. These people get trapped into a slavery of running multiple insecure jobs, hoping to get ends meeting. The highest they could theoretically earn, without eating ,or sleeping is 144 x 8 per week.

Flecc, you are looking at this the wrong way around. If there is a minimum living wage, employers will invest in better technology , including better education for the workforce and increase their productivity that way. Case in point, my town, is getting a new pharmaceutical plant, initial cost 0.3billion , virtually all the jobs will third level. A Pharmacy plant takes eggs , ..cheap as chips, adds biological agents , bacteria etc and forms vaccines and customised antibiotics . The value is the added value of the intellectual property and capital of the workforce.

 

[Zlatan]

Not necessarily since there's more than one market place. As I mentioned, the many which are part time staffed and people don't need the protection of a minimum wage since they do two or more jobs.

Only very recently I posted about two jobs that are very often done in combination. That's the morning hotel work cleaning and restocking rooms between 9 and 12, and evening office cleaning from circa 6pm. Together 6 to 8 hours of work and 16 to 18 hours of personal time. Quite a few even contrive to fit three jobs into 24 hours. That is a totally different job market where protection is irrelevant. Not only do they earn enough and often don't suffer from taxation, they don't even need employment protection since the loss of any one job out of two or three held is nothing like as serious as losing ones only job.

Yes my inclinations are socialist, but with the flexibility to recognise all the possible options that exist and which people should have the freedom to choose.
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But flecc the number of jobs held down is irrelevant. Its the total hours worked and the total pay taken home. Besides, more jobs means more travelling, more wasted time and less efficiency.
Perhaps all workers should be also paid a profit sharing bonus?? Then we could scrap minimum wage?
How does Mike Ashley become one of richest men in country? Its not entirely on backs of zero hours contracts and paying minimum wage but it certainly helps him. Is that right?
Besides, thousands of workers can never be considered financially profitable. (care workers, nurses etc etc) How do we set their wages? Shouldnt we be discussing fair pay, a decent standard of living, good working conditions, security and good work life balance rather than minimum wage?
We want to be able to pay minimum we can but then get surprised we get criminal behaviour. Yes, there is a link. Prisons are full of the desperately poor costing us a fortune.???
A few years ago my eldest won an award for saving 2 kids from a house fire. How do we establish fair pay for fire service? Market forces?

 

[oldgroaner]

I should have thought it obvious to everyone that declaring spending

For OG everything has to feed into his negative narrative. So no matter what happens OG will manage to find the negative angle and express that and only that. He has to or his whole world-view would break down. It's called confirmation bias.

You would find it helpful if you want too engage in sensible debate to drop this attitude problem you suffer from where I am concerned.
You are the one damaging the nation, not me.
You have put a self confessed liar, cheat and con man into power, and you criticise me?
And you try to put a positive spin on your mistake?
Very droll as you will see in time.
And behind this creature is the British version of Rasputin, Cummings.

 

[Zlatan]

I should have thought it obvious to everyone that declaring spending

You would find it helpful if you want too engage in sensible debate to drop this attitude problem you suffer from where I am concerned.
You are the one damaging the nation, not me.
You have put a self confessed liar, cheat and con man into power, and you criticise me?
And you try to put a positive spin on your mistake?
Very droll as you will see in time.
And behind this creature is the British version of Rasputin, Cummings.

Great post OG, I love off the wall mad thinking. Wasnt Rasputin errr, for want of a nicer word.... shagging the kings Mrs . Cant see Cummings at Buck palace somehow.
Pity Corbyn didnt have a Cummings. Do you think he, d be after DA?

 

[Danidl]

Not necessarily since there's more than one market place. As I mentioned, the many which are part time staffed and people don't need the protection of a minimum wage since they do two or more jobs.

Only very recently I posted about two jobs that are very often done in combination. That's the morning hotel work cleaning and restocking rooms between about 9 and 12, and evening office cleaning from circa 6pm. Together 6 to 8 hours of work and 16 to 18 hours of personal time. Quite a few even contrive to fit three jobs into 24 hours. That is a totally different job market where protection is irrelevant. Not only do they earn enough and often don't suffer from taxation, they don't even need employment protection since the loss of any one job out of two or three held is nothing like as serious as losing ones only job.

Yes my inclinations are socialist, but with the flexibility to recognise all the possible options that exist and which people should have the freedom to choose.
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Those are not socialist inclinations. In general such would be a demand that everyone pays their fair share of taxation,and that the fruits of production are shared . That there will be protection for the weak from the strong. I am all for freedom but on a level playing field.

 

[Danidl]

When you set a minimum wage you kill jobs. Plain and simple. It makes the politicians look good and pleases all the people on the left but the fact is you stop jobs coming to that area.

You also kills opportunities for certain groups to get any work at all - Down's syndrome sufferers (if we can say that) used to get all sorts of work doing very very simple stuff - because it was worth the while of certain empolyees to pay them a certain wage (as low as £4/hour - but for what they could actually achieve that was all they were worth) - many if not all of these jobs have gone now with the minimum wage requirements - and it leaves those still in work feeling like they're 'on charity'.

Where do the jobs go? Abroad - where people will work at market rates. Or companies (like Macdonalds) speed up the use of robots - because they don't cost so much.

Some jobs deserve killing!

 

[flecc]

If there is a minimum living wage, employers will invest in better technology , including better education for the workforce and increase their productivity that way.

That's the theory, but it has flaws. The first is that the investment in technology can so often wipe out jobs. Too high a minimum can drive an employer to do just that. Another flaw is the inflexibility, many people actually want to work part time or with anything from one to three or more jobs.

I haven't said I'm against employment protections, I'm certainly not, but there should be flexibility in application to prevent the harm that such measures frequently do.

I'm reminded of my father in this discussion. He was made redundant at 62, effectively retired, but that didn't suit him. He started to get part time jobs and by three years later he had a staggering five jobs in combination which he did well into his seventies.

He started by stocking shelves in a busy off licence, then later added the book keeping for that business. The further additions were school crossing patrol, shifts as a lifeguard at the council's swimming pool and on Fridays he ran a stall at the local market selling what was grown by the local produce association and some local farmers.

He love doing those five jobs in combination, they kept him occupied and their variety was more interesting and involving than any of his full time work had been. Some while ago a radio program was about Londoners in multiple jobs and the most common thread was how much they preferred working that way. Having had that experience with my father I fully understood that of course.

It's all too easy to get stuck into the rigidity of one view on such matters, the flexibility that allows freedom of choice is important in life.
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[flecc]

I am all for freedom but on a level playing field.

There can't be a level playing field with freedom, simply because people and their preferences can be so different from each other.
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[Zlatan]

Some jobs deserve killing!

Yep, lecturers??

 

[Danidl]

That's the theory, but it has flaws. The first is that the investment in technology can so often wipe out jobs. Too high a minimum can drive an employer to do just that. Another flaw is the inflexibility, many people actually want to work part time or with anything from one to three or more jobs.

I haven't said I'm against employment protections, I'm certainly not, but there should be flexibility in application to prevent the harm that such measures frequently do.

I'm reminded of my father in this discussion. He was made redundant at 62, effectively retired, but that didn't suit him. He started to get part time jobs and by three years later he had a staggering five jobs in combination which he did well into his seventies.

He started by stocking shelves in a busy off licence, then later added the book keeping for that business. The further additions were school crossing patrol, shifts as a lifeguard at the council's swimming pool and on Fridays he ran a stall at the local market selling what was grown by the local produce association and some local farmers.

He love doing those five jobs in combination, they kept him occupied and their variety was more interesting and involving than any of his full time work had been. Some while ago a radio program was about Londoners in multiple jobs and the most common thread was how much they preferred working that way. Having had that experience with my father I fully understood that of course.

It's all too easy to get stuck into the rigidity of one view on such matters, the flexibility that allows freedom of choice is important in life.
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What your father did was by choice. I am sure the money was nice as well. If people do that by choice.. marvellous. Of course people want to be busy , out in the world and make a difference ,but I think you and the respondents to that radio program are gilding a lily and putting a good face on what is an economic necessity. .. like actors resting by doing restaurant work and DJing at night.
In general the strong do not need the protection of the law from the weak,and in this case the strong are the employers

 

[Danidl]

Yep, lecturers??

..If you think Education is expensive, try ignorance!.

 

[flecc]

..If you think Education is expensive, try ignorance!.

Boy, did you get thet wrong. I can think of a whole string of ignorant uneducated people who ended up obscenely wealthy, starting with a post war scrap dealer.
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[flecc]

In general the strong do not need the protection of the law from the weak,and in this case the strong are the employers

I think you often put the cart before the horse.

In the area of employment the first duty of government above all others is to run the economy in such a way that there are plenty of jobs. It's when they fail that employers can take advantage of job shortage by paying low wages. It follows that it's the governments which cause low wages by their failure.

Implementing a minimum wage policy is correcting a symptom while ignoring the cause.
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[Danidl]

I think you often put the cart before the horse.

In the area of employment the first duty of governemnt above all others is to run the economy in such a way that there are plenty of jobs. It's when they fail that employers can take advantage of job shortage by paying low wages. It follows that it's the governments which cause low wages by their failure.

Implementing a minimum wage policy is correcting a symptom while ignoring the cause.
.

Perhaps we differ there. The first duty of Government is to protect its people from external threat. Hence an army or alliances The next is to protect the people from internal threats, . This includes even draconian actions like compulsory quarantine , internment . , Suspension of Habeas Corpus ,. Etc The next is to have laws ,so that they regulate the behaviour of its citizens. Hence law courts,and police. The economic well-being only comes then.... Things like education, Hospitals, grants ,building bridges ,training centres are down in this level of the pecking order.... A state invests in these things in order to improve the wealth of its citizens, and its own prestige

 

[Danidl]

Boy, did you get thet wrong. I can think of a whole string of ignorant uneducated people who ended up obscenely wealthy, starting with a post war scrap dealer.
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And I can think of bridges falling, nuclear power stations exploding, hundreds of millions killed because of a failure of knowledge.

 

[flecc]

Perhaps we differ there. The first duty of Government is to protect its people from external threat. Hence an army or alliances The next is to protect the people from internal threats, . This includes even draconian actions like compulsory quarantine , internment . , Suspension of Habeas Corpus ,. Etc The next is to have laws ,so that they regulate the behaviour of its citizens. Hence law courts,and police. The economic well-being only comes then.... Things like education, Hospitals, grants ,building bridges ,training centres are down in this level of the pecking order.... A state invests in these things in order to improve the wealth of its citizens, and its own prestige

You didn't read what I posted, the key words emphasised in bold this time:

"In the area of employment the first duty of government above all others is to run the economy in such a way that there are plenty of jobs."

The first five words qualify the rest of the sentence.
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[Danidl]

You didn't read what I posted, the key words emphasised in bold this time:

"In the area of employment the first duty of government above all others is to run the economy in such a way that there are plenty of jobs."

The first five words qualify the rest of the sentence.
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So we are not disagreeing!! What a nice way to finish off the year.

 

[Zlatan]

..If you think Education is expensive, try ignorance!.

You seem to do ok on it.. (smiley face)