Labour plans to lower minimum age of voting

[Rofflay]

Smoke and mirrors the true loses will be those out of work via inflation. But if an employer decides to lay off people and raise prices to give two fingers to Labour. You could probably cap his profits and personal wealth but really i think everyone would lose or end up the same at before any changes happened.


It is worse because you are messing with people who can lay off workers. If you really wanted to give people a boost of personal income you probably have to look at where people spend money. Why are people poor and what can they not afford that is essential? bet the real costs are probably food, housing and utility bills. Build more houses and do something about the insane inflation of them. Grow more of our own food so we have to import less and thus make it cheaper. And do something about French utlity firms raising prices every god damm winter as well. If you did all of this you could probably leave wages as they are and instead try to manage inflation.

Wouldn't an increase to £8 an hour over the course of the next government be a less than inflation increase?

Apparantly it works out about even, Although some say the true figure is £10.

 

[Angilion]

That should be stopped which is another reason Labour are a laughing stock and for the record my political spectrum is not on the right... How will you stop subsidy when they have to meet an £8 per hour wage? They will simply hire less people and will play a game of chicken. And when people start to moan about job losses you will subsidise again because no one in the UK has the guts to cap profits. [..]

So you agree that we should stop using public funds on a huge scale to bridge the gap between what people are paid and what they need to live on...and at the same time you're speaking strongly against businesses being required to pay people working ~40 hours a week enough to live on.

How do you reconcile those two apparently opposing positions that you hold?

You mention capping profits...what use would that be? Businesses would either evade it or relocate to a different country or, more likely, pretend to do so. "Company headquarters" consisting of one room rented in Luxembourg, that sort of thing. It would provide a boost to the accounting industry, though, as you'd be creating an even larger market for tax evasion (legal and illegal) than we have already and complicating financial matters to some extent due to the huge increase in the number of companies as companies are technically split up so they can each profit up to the cap. e.g a company making a profit of 160% of the cap is divided (for legitimate business reasons, obviously, nothing to do with profit capping, oh no) into two companies each of which makes a profit of 80% of the cap. Almost any large business contains sections which could be reclassified as companies for the purpose of evading a profit cap and there are a multitude of ways to shuffle money around (or, more accurately, pretend to do so) in order to ensure that the profit is split between the companies in such a way that none of them exceed the cap.

Although relocating (or "relocating") the company outside of the UK would be easier for any company large enough to do so and international companies would find it easier to just not bother with the UK very much or to spin off "seperate" companies to do business in the UK. So the only companies seriously affected by the profit cap would be UK companies either unable or unwilling to evade the cap...so all you'd really be doing is putting UK companies at a disadvantage. Including inside the UK, so even if you're intending to pursue an isolationist position it still wouldn't help much. You'd have company A (UK company) profit capped and unable to compete against company B (a division of a foreign company created to enable it to do business in the UK whilst evading the cap by moving any excess to the parent company and with support and expansion costs met by the parent company).

Your plan would be far worse than a 4.2% increase per annum on the minimum wage for 5 years. At least that might have some effect on doing what you agree should be done - reducing the amount of public money used to bridge the gap between wages paid by businesses and the amount of income needed to live in the UK. It's true that the simplest profiteering approach would be for businesses to increase prices to match, but there would also be some scope for businesses to increase profits by selling more things rather than by selling the same amount of things at a higher price.

 

[Angilion]

Wouldn't an increase to £8 an hour over the course of the next government be a less than inflation increase?

I hope not, because an increase to £8 per hour over 5 years would be an increase of 4.2% per year.

 

[Danthus]

.....


Apparantly it works out about even, Although some say the true figure is £10.

Doesn't that make a bit of a mockery of Labours criticism that wages are not keeping up with inflation.

 

[Rofflay]

So you agree that we should stop using public funds on a huge scale to bridge the gap between what people are paid and what they need to live on...and at the same time you're speaking strongly against businesses being required to pay people working ~40 hours a week enough to live on.

How do you reconcile those two apparently opposing positions that you hold?

You mention capping profits...what use would that be? Businesses would either evade it or relocate to a different country or, more likely, pretend to do so. "Company headquarters" consisting of one room rented in Luxembourg, that sort of thing. It would provide a boost to the accounting industry, though, as you'd be creating an even larger market for tax evasion (legal and illegal) than we have already and complicating financial matters to some extent due to the huge increase in the number of companies as companies are technically split up so they can each profit up to the cap. e.g a company making a profit of 160% of the cap is divided (for legitimate business reasons, obviously, nothing to do with profit capping, oh no) into two companies each of which makes a profit of 80% of the cap. Almost any large business contains sections which could be reclassified as companies for the purpose of evading a profit cap and there are a multitude of ways to shuffle money around (or, more accurately, pretend to do so) in order to ensure that the profit is split between the companies in such a way that none of them exceed the cap.

Although relocating (or "relocating") the company outside of the UK would be easier for any company large enough to do so and international companies would find it easier to just not bother with the UK very much or to spin off "seperate" companies to do business in the UK. So the only companies seriously affected by the profit cap would be UK companies either unable or unwilling to evade the cap...so all you'd really be doing is putting UK companies at a disadvantage. Including inside the UK, so even if you're intending to pursue an isolationist position it still wouldn't help much. You'd have company A (UK company) profit capped and unable to compete against company B (a division of a foreign company created to enable it to do business in the UK whilst evading the cap by moving any excess to the parent company and with support and expansion costs met by the parent company).

Your plan would be far worse than a 4.2% increase per annum on the minimum wage for 5 years. At least that might have some effect on doing what you agree should be done - reducing the amount of public money used to bridge the gap between wages paid by businesses and the amount of income needed to live in the UK. It's true that the simplest profiteering approach would be for businesses to increase prices to match, but there would also be some scope for businesses to increase profits by selling more things rather than by selling the same amount of things at a higher price.

Ill look at it again later but right now off hand i dont have the answers. It is like this on purpose i think to confuse and keep the status quo. Someone somewhere knows how to work these different knobs to achieve harmony. But for me i reckon its beyond me.


There must be a way though i believe profit capping is one of them and stopping them from getting around it. And if you dont want to do business in Britain and threaten to leave then we will call your bluff because even if profit is 10% capped that is still going to pay thier wages. They have no choice either join the welfare bill or work for 10% profit max.


For example if i took Tesco BT and the big five power companys and nationalized them overnight to be a not for profit service to the UK population. Would you need to up the wages and as i said at the start get into a very confusing situation? There are very simple methods they could take but they do not have the guts because everytime Labour tried to reign in the power companys they would raise prices. Its a joke look at BT they are basically 50% state funded on thier Fibre rollout yet kept all the materials and network? They wont even let people go from line rental even if they do not use it and just want broadband. And remember this is what they now term the "fifth utlity" in goverment.

 

[Angilion]

The increase to the minimum wage is interesting. Increasing it to £8 an hour.

However reading this quote from the BBC:



So if the cost to the public sector would be 100% made up in savings in benefits paid out then it would have zero impact on people on minimum wage if they worked in the public sector.

Yes, but you're not supposed to pay attention to what they're saying! You're supposed to see only "a pay rise large enough so that I'll not have to worry so much about being able to pay the bills...I'll vote for that".

It's unlikely to be 100%, though. A high proportion, but not 100%.

There are some outliers. Me, for example. I'm paid £6.80 an hour but I live well enough without direct benefits from the welfare state (everyone benefits indirectly from the welfare state, even multibillionaires) because I don't have children, don't have a car, don't smoke or drink, don't go out and through being fortunate enough to be able to buy at the right time my mortgage is only £260 a month. But I am far from normal in that respect, most particularly regarding children. Most of my coworkers without children get by without direct benefits by living with their parents or by working 50 hours a week or by living with a partner who also works >35 hours a week. None of those with children could get by without benefits, it's simply not possible.

However, even for such an extreme outlier as myself an increase in minimum wage to £8 might not cost anything overall because I'd spend it in one way or another. Maybe then I'd be able to afford a pension, for example. I can't afford one now.

 

[Edrof]

Well, it makes a difference in so far as young people are generally idiots and allowing them to make a difference to other peoples lives is craziness.

Swap "young" for "a great many adults" and that statement still rings true.

 

[Rofflay]

Bascially the thing can be summed up like Anglion said.

Red Ed: "Hey i will give you a wage increase to £8! Vote for me"

The Cat: "Great! I'll be rich!!! Im of to buy me five fish! Yes you there sir give me five fish please and make it snappy"

Then when he realises that the fish actually cost more due to inflation and he can only afford his usual four fish he is obviously going to be a very upset voter. Obviously this is AFTER he has voted because he is a derpy werpy peasant who couldnt afford to go to Oxford or was kept so busy with his underpaid job that he had no time to google inflation. It already happened with the electric and gas attempts by Labour that was played out in public. And they lost because they have no control over a cat and mouse game without taking control of said company themselves or setting up a state rival. There is no experiments or what if it is exactly the same situation.


Tesco have to raise prices too guys if they have to find extra money to pay people £8 and still keep giving thier shareholders the same amount the probably demand per quarter or yearly. Do people expect them to say oh well chaps we have to pay more so i guess we will have to take a cut in profits. No prices are going to go right up to cover any extra bills.

 

[Angilion]

[..]
Tesco have to raise prices too guys if they have to find extra money to pay people £8 and still keep giving thier shareholders the same amount the probably demand per quarter or yearly. Do people expect them to say oh well chaps we have to pay more so i guess we will have to take a cut in profits. No prices are going to go right up to cover any extra bills.

Tesco already sell most things at a range of price points, so a more efficient solution for them would be to increase sales at a higher level in the range while retaining the same prices, e.g. sell Tesco Finest instead of standard Tesco brand or standard Tesco brand instead of Tesco Everyday Value brand. That would enable them to increase revenue by at least as much as their increase in wages cost (and probably by a lot more because they have far more customers than they have minimum wage employees) and give them the huge advertising opportunities of not increasing their prices and of being able to portray themselves as being a bit more upmarket (by enough to appeal to the snobbery of the bulk of the market but not enough to put them off by triggering the inverted snobbery of the bulk of the market). Which they do already, so it's not a new thing for them.

So no, Tesco won't have to increase their prices. They might do it anyway because they could, but they won't have to and it would probably be more profitable for them not to.

People who go from almost no disposible income and constant worrying about money to having a little disposible income and much less worrying about money can easily be sold more things rather than selling them the same things at a higher price. £30 a month for a phone contract with a bigger data cap instead of £20 a month for one with a smaller data cap. A £400 TV instead of a £200 TV. There are many ways to sell more things to those people rather than selling them the same things at a higher price.

Your summary of the situation is not the same as mine. We agree that it's a vote-buying ploy, but that's just the starting point of our different summaries of the situation and one which almost everyone agrees on.

 

[jono_astra]

.

 

[pitchfork]

And while we're at it let's raise alcohol to 21.

Why the hell would we want to do that?

Aside from appeasing some miserable boring old daily mail readers who think "Binge drinking" is some big new thing and people never used to get drunk back in the good old days when darkie took your coat and knew his place.

 

[Judgeneo]

best way imo to solve the issue would be. Add 50p an hour to each of the minimum wage payments and then drop the price of fuel down 30p to £1 a liter. That way the cost of living will decrease a fair amount with the cost of shipping and producing goods will drop down a fair amount. Whilst also giving the working man a little more in the pay packet.

I highly doubt the treasury could handle that...



Looking at the £8 minimum wage thing again, I don't think its that bad of an idea - which is a surprise as its from labour. 4.3% shouldn't be dramatically above the growth of the economy, and it would shift the some of the burdeon of paying the poor from gov. to plcs.
Presuming of course that tax credits and income support thresholds don't go up by the same amount.

 

[estebanrey]

We're going to increase minimum wage....

That's immigration from poorer EU countries going up again then. The British worker gets nowt due to inflation cancelling out the rise whereas Marcin Poleski gets to buy his house back in Eastern Europe 25% quicker.

 

[do_ron_ron]

That should be stopped which is another reason Labour are a laughing stock and for the record my political spectrum is not on the right... How will you stop subsidy when they have to meet an £8 per hour wage? They will simply hire less people and will play a game of chicken. And when people start to moan about job losses you will subsidise again because no one in the UK has the guts to cap profits.


Minimum wage increases are cat and mouse... You can never improve this way you HAVE to cap profits there is simply no other way to improve the standard of living in this country for people through thier wages. Which is why people are now worse off than before the crash. This increase would just be making this in line with the wages pre crash but hey dont let Labour tell you that huh?

The same tired old arguments. They said the same when the national minimum wage was being mooted. How it would put hundreds of thousands out of work, forms would collapse etc, etc ,etc. The right wing press as usual going overboard. The result .... numerous studies by various bodies saying that it was neutral in its outcome.

The Tories have put the clock back to the 30's, having people waiting by the phone for a day's work(instead of outside the factory gate in the 30's) and the reappearance of HP for everyday electric goods last seen when I was young(50+ years ago)

The actual measures are timid anyway .... it is over the lifetime of the next Parliament ... 30p increase a year ... hardly in MPs league.

 

[estebanrey]

The same tired old arguments. They said the same when the national minimum wage was being mooted. How it would put hundreds of thousands out of work, forms would collapse etc, etc ,etc. The right wing press as usual going overboard. The result .... numerous studies by various bodies saying that it was neutral in its outcome.

OK then, let's make it £50 an hour if it has no effect on jobs/prices.

 

[leaskovski]

Wow... £8 minimum wage, which would be that value if it was not just raised alongside inflation. Dem Policies.

 

[balky12]

Trouble is the money has to come from somewhere...

Doesn't only affect those on minimum wage, affects all between the old wage (£6.31) and the new (£8), then those closely above the new mark...

If you are on ~£8 now, so valued at roughly 22% more than someone on minimum wage, when it gets increased to £8 are you going to be happy? Ofc not. You will want a pay rise to...

It doesn't go all the way to the top obviously, but it will affect a fair chunk of people who work on a wage per/hour basis

 

[estebanrey]

Raising the minimum wage = lowering the average wage for those slightly above it.

Do you think these CEOs say "I guess we'll have to cut our massive bonuses and/or pay lower dividends a bit to pay for it"? Of course they don't, they just place wage freezes on those people who are just above it creating a two tiered society. Free market capitalism for those at middle and senior management level and nigh-on communism for everyone else.

 

[EvilDreams]

It seems to me that, if implemented, this will sort itself out.

How many 16 year olds actually give enough of a crap to show up and vote? When I was 16 all I cared about was smoking, drinking, playing guitar, playing playstation/N64/Computer games and scoring. The only addition to that, if I was 16 today, would be "standing transfixed stabbing at the the screen of my phone".

It's just the same as letting the general public vote. Only the ones who care enough or know enough about politics or which bunch of liars gets to be the bunch of liars in charge of "doing just enough to stay in but not too much and getting voted out next time" will actually make the effort to go and vote. In this way it sorts itself out. If everyone is forced by law to vote or additional people are compelled by politicians to vote...that's a bad thing. This...doesn't matter.

 

[RDM]

The Tories have put the clock back to the 30's, having people waiting by the phone for a day's work(instead of outside the factory gate in the 30's) and the reappearance of HP for everyday electric goods last seen when I was young(50+ years ago)

Considering that Brighthouse started in 2002 and has been going strong since I think you last point may be a little bit of the rose coloured glasses effect...