Corbynistas - here is your future

[sasguru]

Venezuela on a 4 day week - just like Britain in the 70s
What's the commonality: a mismanaging socialist government.

The roots of Venezuela's horrific electricity crisis - Vox

"n the 2000s, after Hugo Chávez came into office, investment in new electric capacity in Venezuela dried up, particularly after he nationalized the grid in 2007. But demand for power kept soaring after the government froze electricity rates in 2002 and began subsidizing consumption. More and more people bought air conditioners, TVs, and so on. Today, Venezuela's per capita rate of electricity use is one of the highest in Latin America."

There's a typical socialist policy. Let's subsidise leccy, sounds good, lets help everyone.
And ignore the lessons of microeconomics (which usually have some predictive power unlike macroeconomics).
The other thing they did was cap prices on staples - again sounds good, lets help the poor.
Problem is small shops weren't making a profit, so stopped selling staples - result: shortages of essentials.

[DimPrawn]

I hear there's a loaf of bread for sale in town Komrade!




Too late Komrade.

[NickFitz]

We had a three day week, not a four day one.

People are expected to work too much anyway. We should never have gone back to five days.

Let's face it, ninety percent of middle management is just make-work stuff that adds nothing to the bottom line. If anything, it reduces efficiency. Spread the real work out and just as much could get done with each person working for much less time

[sasguru]

We had a three day week, not a four day one.

People are expected to work too much anyway. We should never have gone back to five days.

Let's face it, ninety percent of middle management is just make-work stuff that adds nothing to the bottom line. If anything, it reduces efficiency. Spread the real work out and just as much could get done with each person working for much less time :)

That's already happened.
The UK has the lowest productivity per person as well as the lowest unemployment rate in Western Europe (bar Germany).
I think those 2 facts are related :-)

[NickFitz]

That's already happened.
The UK has the lowest productivity per person as well as the lowest unemployment rate in Western Europe (bar Germany).
I think those 2 facts are related :-)

No, what's happened is the real work is still being done, but there's a load of make-work garbage also being done to maintain the illusion of high employment, because "employment" is defined as involving a five day week (except when it's convenient for the politicians to include part-time work in the figures). Remove the make-work stuff (hi there Human Resources), get more people doing the real work, and each person will have to do less work. Redefine full-time employment to be three days a week, and the employment level remains the same. Simple really.

[fullyautomatix]

Contrary to the popular notion that socialism wont work and will wreck the economy, the socialism that Corbyn believes in does actually work. It will decrease the gap between rich and poor and will give the lower class a ladder to climb so they can achieve social mobility. The problem with Tory government and indeed the New Labour govt was the belief that the rich need not be taxed and the middle and lower class be taxed to the maximum. It wont work.

[DimPrawn]

Contrary to the popular notion that socialism wont work and will wreck the economy, the socialism that Corbyn believes in does actually work. It will decrease the gap between rich and poor and will give the lower class a ladder to climb so they can achieve social mobility. The problem with Tory government and indeed the New Labour govt was the belief that the rich need not be taxed and the middle and lower class be taxed to the maximum. It wont work.

What will actually happen is:

The rich will be defined as working people in the UK that are professionals and highly skilled. They will emigrate or retire early or just simply give up.

The poor, mostly badly educated and/or feckless, will be given non jobs producing feck all.

The economy will tank, the unions will run the country in a tight grip (think Tube Driver mentality) and the country will grind to a halt.

Five years of utter misery and the IMF will bail us out as a bankrupt laughing stock.

THAT is Socialism.

[sasguru]

No, what's happened is the real work is still being done, but there's a load of make-work garbage also being done to maintain the illusion of high employment, because "employment" is defined as involving a five day week (except when it's convenient for the politicians to include part-time work in the figures). Remove the make-work stuff (hi there Human Resources), get more people doing the real work, and each person will have to do less work. Redefine full-time employment to be three days a week, and the employment level remains the same. Simplistic really.

FTFY

[DimPrawn]

No, what's happened is the real work is still being done, but there's a load of make-work garbage also being done to maintain the illusion of high employment, because "employment" is defined as involving a five day week (except when it's convenient for the politicians to include part-time work in the figures). Remove the make-work stuff (hi there Human Resources), get more people doing the real work, and each person will have to do less work. Redefine full-time employment to be three days a week, and the employment level remains the same. Simple really.

Stick to JavaScript and CSS, you at least grasp that.

[sasguru]

Contrary to the popular notion that socialism wont work and will wreck the economy, the socialism that Corbyn believes in does actually work. It will decrease the gap between rich and poor and will give the lower class a ladder to climb so they can achieve social mobility. The problem with Tory government and indeed the New Labour govt was the belief that the rich need not be taxed and the middle and lower class be taxed to the maximum. It wont work.

Thanks for the Friday afternoon laugh.
And that's why I believe in the theory of history as a cycle: a new generation of naifs is born every few years.