How would you fix the economy?

BloodyL said:
Incentives for small manufacturer companies to try and bring back jobs for low to mid skilled workers?
Disincentives for large companies who buyout other companies and then close down production in the UK?
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The minimum wage destroyed that idea.

Paying someone 6 odd quid an hour for tying bundles of flowers or shoving leaflets in magazines isn't economically viable.

I've raised the point before, when labour introduced the minimum wage they wiped out the low paid low skilled job market and move those who are simply not worth 5 or 6 odd quid an hour into the benefits system 100%.

I don't know why people have such a problem accepting that you have to have poor people, people in the middle, and rich people.

And before the hand wringing socialists wet their pants at the idea of someone earning less than minimum wage, I was on less than £5 an hour from 1992 to 1997, (for 2 years of that I was on £3 an hour) and managed to buy a house and not claim a penny in benefits.
 
atpbx said:
And before the hand wringing socialists wet their pants at the idea of someone earning less than minimum wage, I was on less than £5 an hour from 1992 to 1997, (for 2 years of that I was on £3 an hour) and managed to buy a house and not claim a penny in benefits.
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£3 an hour 20 years ago is probably not too far off todays minimum wage with inflation? Actually that's probably wrong :o.
 
We need to be like the States, when you walk into a hospital you're greeted with a how are you going to pay for this person not let's treat everyone.

Why we don't is beyond me, I take insurance out for hospital treatment when I'm abroad but here it seems like a free for all.
 
Frodo1805 said:
Wow. what about single mothers and fathers looking after little kids by themselves through no fault of their own?
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It's not my fault either, so why should I pay for it.

I generally think tax should be used for the common interest, e.g. defence, transport, education, health etc. Not charity.
 
billysielu said:
It's not my fault either, so why should I pay for it.

I generally think tax should be used for the common interest, e.g. defence, transport, education, health etc. Not charity.
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Well, answer one to 'why should I pay for X because Y is not my fault' - you might one day end up in such a situation and I am sure you'd appreciate the safety net.

I think it is not OK for you to take such decisions on your ivory tower. So, a thought experiment (called the Veil of ignorance):

Assuming you are a fully aware, sentiment being about to be 'born' in this Earth. When you are born, you'll be randomly placed in England; a random city, town and between a random couple. You could end up in any family.

You know everything there is to know about the UK. You know that, for example, the 50% of households earn less than £25k and 50% earn more. You know that 99% of households earn less than £80k. You know that x% of households are jobless single parents/end up being single parents, for one reason or another. You know that if you are born in such a unit, odds are that your life is going to be pretty miserable - your life chances will be poor. You'll be less healthy, less educated and will achieve less than most others.

Now, answer the question: should there be child benefit which allows such a family unit to at least sustain themselves at some level?

If you answer no, you're condemning yourself if you fall on the wrong side of the odds. If you answer yes, your chances of living an average life are much higher.

What's your choice going to be? :)

The good thing about the 'Veil of ignorance' is it is a really nice way to exploit the power and passion behind greed and instinctive individualism for the greater good of building a good social framework. You can apply it to many things; death penalty, whether something should be illegal, taxes and so forth. It's all well and good for you in a certain position of certain upbringing, income etc to dictate terms - but it is another for you to have all that undone and to be randomly dropped back into society, and to then form these opinions.
 
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atpbx said:
Its £4.80.

And If we are fair, some jobs aren't even worth paying that an hour.
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The minimum wage for people aged 18-20 is £4.98 and under 18 is £3.68, so I guess they should be doing the jobs that are not worth paying more for.

It does seem a bit odd to base it on age and not the skills you have though.
 
Hatter The Mad said:
Well, answer one to 'why should I pay for X because Y is not my fault' - you might one day end up in such a situation and I am sure you'd appreciate the safety net.

I think it is not OK for you to take such decisions on your ivory tower. So, a thought experiment (called the Veil of ignorance):

Assuming you are a fully aware, sentiment being about to be 'born' in this Earth. When you are born, you'll be randomly placed in England; a random city, town and between a random couple. You could end up in any family.

You know everything there is to know about the UK. You know that, for example, the 50% of households earn less than £25k and 50% earn more. You know that 99% of households earn less than £80k. You know that x% of households are jobless single parents/end up being single parents, for one reason or another. You know that if you are born in such a unit, odds are that your life is going to be pretty miserable - your life chances will be poor. You'll be less healthy, less educated and will achieve less than most others.

Now, answer the question: should there be child benefit which allows such a family unit to at least sustain themselves at some level?

If you answer no, you're condemning yourself if you fall on the wrong side of the odds. If you answer yes, your chances of living an average life are much higher.

What's your choice going to be? :)

The good thing about the 'Veil of ignorance' is it is a really nice way to exploit the power and passion behind greed and instinctive individualism for the greater good of building a good social framework. You can apply it to many things; death penalty, whether something should be illegal, taxes and so forth. It's all well and good for you in a certain position of certain upbringing, income etc to dictate terms - but it is another for you to have all that undone and to be randomly dropped back into society, and to then form these opinions.
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That's a good read that man, the problem being there is many on here who think they will never be in that situation, and only really care about themselves which is pretty sad.
 
billysielu said:
It's not my fault either, so why should I pay for it.

I generally think tax should be used for the common interest, e.g. defence, transport, education, health etc. Not charity.
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I very much doubt that you are a net contributor yourself (just by how the income distribution is in this country, not saying it is a fact), so you yourself could be a net drain on the system.
 
Hatter The Mad said:
It depresses me that most people in this thread can vote :(
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+1.

What I find more amusing is that most of the suggestions in this thread would either break the economy or cost us significantly more in the long-run (as a result of a massive hike in our crime rat).

If anything this thread should be used as evidence against the entire concept of democracy.
 
sack everyone who works in government, sack everyone who works at the job centre, sack everyone who works in a council office.

Replace them all with computers.

Should sort most of the issues. And it would run far more smoothly.


I guess though on a more serious note, I dont know what i'd do exactly, and tbh I dont know what im talking about but:

Focus on good education
- Includes removing this ridiculous "univeristy is the only path to success" rubbish.
Sustainable energy independance
Skill based immigration.
efficient military budgeting (not budget cuts, but actually using the money efficiently!)
-IE, let the USA foot the RnD bill, then take their tech and put good bits on it (ala, apache)
Smoking bans similar to those in Australia to relieve NHS pressure. Doesnt effect current legal smokers, but prevents new smokers in future eventually eradicating it (im a smoker too!)
Cool spaceships and lasers and stuff.
 
Spook187 said:
That's a good read that man, the problem being there is many on here who think they will never be in that situation, and only really care about themselves which is pretty sad.
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The ironic thing is that on average most of them are probably kids that have barely contributed a thing to country.
 
require everyone aged 16-18 to join the army, not to go to war, just for the training.
ban offshore banking, if you want to save, then it has to be done in this country.
remove income tax, raise vat to 25%.
cap savings at ~£500k (enough for a good house? most expensive thing you should need to save for).
savings over £500k would be taxed at 50%.
Nationalise electric/gas/trains/bt/banks and move them all back to being service based rather than just being out for profit.
Change relationship with EU so we are just part of a European free market without having to follow all their rules or pay them money.

Stupid ideas, but what the hell :P It would stop people saving for no reason and keep the money moving, which is what a healthy economy needs. The army service would just help straighten out the people who usually go on to join gangs and not bother working.
 
atpbx said:
The minimum wage destroyed that idea.

Paying someone 6 odd quid an hour for tying bundles of flowers or shoving leaflets in magazines isn't economically viable.

I've raised the point before, when labour introduced the minimum wage they wiped out the low paid low skilled job market and move those who are simply not worth 5 or 6 odd quid an hour into the benefits system 100%.

I don't know why people have such a problem accepting that you have to have poor people, people in the middle, and rich people.

And before the hand wringing socialists wet their pants at the idea of someone earning less than minimum wage, I was on less than £5 an hour from 1992 to 1997, (for 2 years of that I was on £3 an hour) and managed to buy a house and not claim a penny in benefits.
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It's just that The Way Forward for a while now has been our brains not our brawn at a fair expense of the nations manual workforce.

On another note:
We aren't capitalising on the BBC as much as we used to since chunks of it were privatised, most importantly the triumvirate of R&D, Production and Archive.
R&D puts you at the leading edge for worldwide licensing(Public facing open source, inhouse closed), Production gives you material for your platform and your markets, The Archive provides open access for all license payers (if sky can do it then so can you BBC, tut tut.) and provides an added edge through the markets for the ROW.
So the idea of privatising the BBC is useless as all that's left is admin now really.
 
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What kind of nonsense is that?

"We have to have poor people, we have to have middle people, we have to have rich people"

Prove it.
 
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