Can you give me a well reasoned answer as to why Ed Balls would make a better chancellor than George Osbourne?
The Budget 2015 – 12:30
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Can you give me a well reasoned answer as to why Ed Balls would make a better chancellor than George Osbourne?
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Cos he's less posho innit.
That's not what has happened in any country that has introduced a minimum wage, nor any of the times a minimum wage has been increased. Yes, there is some small inflationary effect but (a) there is flexibility in the system other than price rises and (b) the cost of things isn't solely dependent on Labour so a 10% rise in pay doesn't translate into a 10% increase in cost.
He actually knows a thing or two about economics, having taught the subject at Harvard. Hasn't set Ireland as an economic traction point for the UK.
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There's a big difference between theoretical economics and running the economy of a country...
Well not really - the consequences of the coalitions economic policies were entirely predictable using economic theories i.e. cut public spending hard and fast = recession, lower living standards for all but the richest. When you resort to Plan B the economy improves and a feel good factor returns - just in time for the election (strange coincidence that eh?).
Edit: I will just point out that yes, I know that Chancellor of the Exchequer is a political role and not an economic one.
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Well, that's such a low standard it doesn't seem to be much of a challenge. I think Ed Balls will be a better chancellor than George Osborne because he's not irrationally, or ideology, wed to an agenda of needless austerity in a doomed effort to get rid of the deficit on unnecessarily short time period. I also think he's less heartless and shows little sign of wilfully targeting the poorest for cuts. He's also got a much better economic background.
I don't think Ed Balls would be a great chancellor; but better than Osborne? Of course.
Incidentally, just because he's shadow chancellor doesn't necessarily mean he'll be chancellor under Miliband or chancellor for that long. It wouldn't be the first time the shadow chancellor hadn't gone on to be the actual chancellor after an election.
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It's about the only way you'd get me to drink their product. Let's call it an informed decision.
I don't and I don't.
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Quite so.
I should clarify that I am no fan of the Tory party. On Labour though, I fail to see what credibility they have on the economy.
I would sooner see Osborne running the Treasury than Balls although it does leave a nasty taste saying that.
I'm not saying it is. We do already have a minimum wage. Obviously. Tiny increases (like we do already) are easy on the system. But to increase it to a level where everyone working would be on a 'living wage' would be quite an increase. The results would be devastating; I fear it would do employment more damage than good.
Right, I see what you're getting at nowI'd disagree on the details but the broad stroke seems fine.
You have this backwards, Lawson resigned because he couldn't take the UK into the ERM; not because he didn't want to. It was John Major, of course, who took the UK into the ERM but, unfortunately, did it at about the worst time and, with some rather desperate mishandling from Lamont, it ended up generating Black Wednesday.
Lawson couldnt work with in the fixed constraints of the ERM, which was one of the reasons why he quit.
It was pushed through when the pound was entirely incompatible with the mechanism, by John Major, not Norman Lamont who was stuck with the mess when he took over.
It still doesnt answer the questionn how 22 year old (at the time) tea boy David Cameron is any way responsible for black wednesday.
So it seems from The Office of Budget Responsibility reports that Osbornes current and future growth predictions, are based heavily on net inward migration.
Not only did the ~300,000 migrants from the last year provide a 0.6% boost to Britains economy but this is the predicted level of immigration needed every year over the next term for the predicted growth figures in Osbornes budget.
"But, that's great for National GDP" they cry "But what about us at the ground level, we see no benefit"
"But, they come and take all our jobs, there is nothing left for us" They retort
"Ok, but that's just averaging, it's all in the low pay unskilled sector where they work for low pay where all the jobs are being displaced" They would say if they could actually frame a reasonable response
"But we don't have the housing and it's putting too much pressure on the local infrastructure which is unable to cope"
Yep, this is the issue.
So if all the economic indicators are that immigration are a benefit to our country, then we should be using that economic benefit to solve the issues immigration does bring.
The woman from the Taxpayers Alliance on QT last night was talking about a few of their recent 41 proposals, which sounded sensible on the face of it. One was if we built on just 1% of green belt land we could build 1 million houses. So we seem to have the space, but not the political will.
Not only did the ~300,000 migrants from the last year provide a 0.6% boost to Britains economy but this is the predicted level of immigration needed every year over the next term for the predicted growth figures in Osbornes budget.
"But, that's great for National GDP" they cry "But what about us at the ground level, we see no benefit"
"But, they come and take all our jobs, there is nothing left for us" They retort
"Ok, but that's just averaging, it's all in the low pay unskilled sector where they work for low pay where all the jobs are being displaced" They would say if they could actually frame a reasonable response
"But we don't have the housing and it's putting too much pressure on the local infrastructure which is unable to cope"
Yep, this is the issue.
So if all the economic indicators are that immigration are a benefit to our country, then we should be using that economic benefit to solve the issues immigration does bring.
The woman from the Taxpayers Alliance on QT last night was talking about a few of their recent 41 proposals, which sounded sensible on the face of it. One was if we built on just 1% of green belt land we could build 1 million houses. So we seem to have the space, but not the political will.
I don't think there's much evidence to support that view; and predictions based on the kind of economics that it's based on have been wrong every single time about the effects of such increases. Experience from our own country as well as other countries makes it clear that higher wages are sustainable so why shouldn't it work now?
Great so why not control immigration so we can adequately plan our infrastructure to cope with that migration? One million new homes on greenbelt land - well fine but the housing crisis is the most prevalent in London and the South East. Are there enough places at the schools near where these houses will be built? How many free beds are there in nearby hospitals? Will the roads and rail links in these areas cope?
In the immediate future, I'd raise welfare payments and increase the minimum wage. I'd probably also, and somewhat reluctantly, paper over the cracks with a rise in tax credits. In the medium term, I'd bring the vast majority of externally contracted services such as cleaning back into direct public ownership. Before they were privatised it used to be that you could get a job at a Hospital and, if you were good and worked hard, get promoted to a porter and then trained as a nurse or supervisor. Now, it's almost impossible to get any kind of promotion from a cleaning job and what you can get is very small scale. There needs to be a means for people who've not got off to a great start to work their way up. Alongside this, we need to give workers a better stake in the running of companies. Traditionally, this was achieved through Trade Unions but our country has developed an unhealthily adversarial model of the relationship between unions and employers. German-style representation of staff on company boards seems like a good approach and Labour's approach of profit-sharing to staff also seems promising on the surface although it needs careful consideration. Finally, we need to get the economy outside of London working. My favoured way of doing this is to boost investment in universities since this would also close the sever underfunding gap we have in our research spending and the existing universities in many areas are well placed to take up the money. Start-up funding for spin-off businesses in these areas will also be needed.
This is a striking graph from the Resolution Foundation
What on earth has changed since Autumn that has led to the chancellor deciding on a £30bn shift in his plans?
What on earth has changed since Autumn that has led to the chancellor deciding on a £30bn shift in his plans?
Political will, it's not like you build 1M homes without the infrastructure to support it.
As for everything being london centric, by all accounts there is plenty of public land held all around london by Health trusts etc that they wont release. Hence the devolution of powers to the Mayor to try and free some of this up.
But bigger pricture thinking, we could start to look at making the UK less London centric overall, the Governement have to vacate the HoP for it's extensive rennovations, why don't we look to build a modern, purpose built parliament elsewhere in the country.
There is plenty we could do with the will to change the status quo.
So from your experience and knowledge you think that if they UK simply raises it's minimum wage from £5.13/£6.50 to a living wage £8 - £9.50 (depending on what you read / live) the economy would be fine with that and we would solve the problems with low incomes people / families?
So anywhere from a ~60% to a ~80% rise in minimum wage. Everyone who is caught below £8 - £9.50 would have their wages increased.
Sorry; but from my understanding of economics that would cause many businesses to collapse and ultimately just push prices up, not solving very much and short term causing more issues. (increased unemployment, etc.)
We haven't even covered the people who are on the the new proposed minimum wage (£8-£9.50). How are they going to feel now people below them are on their wage due to a change in minimum wage? After all it is quite a jump and they must have been valued at higher than minuimum wage to begin with..
Unless I have completely misunderstood your point?
There's no doubt that a rise in the minimum wage will cause some jobs to disappear - that's just supply and demand, but how many is dependent on elasticity. We saw the same dire predictions that you're making in the late '90s when the minimum wage was introduced, really there were very few jobs that were lost as a result. The sort of job that pays minimum wage is normally pretty key to operations, that means e.g. a company that cleans offices won't be able to cut the number of cleaners it provides just because it suddenly has to pay them all an extra £1.50 an hour.
The other argument against living wages is that it'll cause inflation, well again I feel this is overstated. Most companies these days tend to set their prices according to their value on the market, not simply a cost-plus-profit calculation. That means that even if their employment costs go up they cannot alter their prices to the same extent or sales will fall. Essentially their profit margin will suffer either way, so in effect the living wage will have redistributed money from executives and shareholders, to low income workers, which is pretty much the point. Inflation would probably go up, but only because of a boost to the economy as low-income workers spend more.
So, why don't we set the minimum wage level to £25 an hour then? Well clearly there is a point at which the minimum wage can become too high, making it impossible to achieve reasonable profits in many businesses which will affect investment. What's the cut off point? I don't know, but I think it's above the living wage level.