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Reply to: Uber Has Lost

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Previously on "Uber Has Lost"

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  • vetran
    replied
    Originally posted by Smartie View Post
    You seem really stressed, are you OK?
    I guess it's the lockdown - do you have someone you can talk to?

    Anyway, you should look up the definition of social housing and note that it's not the same thing as housing association.

    As for the rest of your comments, I see you have an immovable view of the world.
    It's not unusual amongst successful people, this exceptionalism.
    Everyone likes to believe it's purely their skills and motivation that did it.
    In fact, your achievements, and everyone else's are 50% luck. At least. The data is out there, if you care.
    Have a great weekend.
    I get annoyed when people suggest I am incorrect or something is wrong, I have to fix it if I can. Years of support & critical work I suppose.

    social housing covers both council & Housing Association - lets ask some experts.

    What is social housing - Shelter England

    Social homes are provided by housing associations (not-for-profit organisations that own, let, and manage rented housing) or a local council. As a social tenant, you rent your home from the housing association or council, who are your landlord.
    Social housing is also sometimes referred to as council housing, although these types of homes are slightly different in terms of the type of tenancy agreement you sign, and the rights you have to property as a result.
    Provide some evidence and I will change my apparently immovable mind. My view of the world is driven by evidence. If it hadn't been for Maggie we would have been far worse off, the figures prove it. If new lie had carried on we would be in real trouble.

    Yep I am a lucky dog, I was born in the UK to a Family that expected me to achieve and supported me.

    I have survived through multiple financial crisis I first nearly lost my home in the ERM crisis, 15% interest is a bitch, some friends did lose theirs. I have been low on work plenty of times, jumped from sinking ships, twice made redundant, lost a long term contract to offshoring, every time my savings and will to reinvent myself meant I succeeded. I did have some 'luck' as you see it some of my old bosses (and bosses' bosses rang me up and offered me jobs if I wanted them, the same bosses have done that multiple times. Some recruiters were intrigued with my end customers or inventive solutions and put me forward.


    Luck - I'm more of the opinion this quote covers it.
    "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

    Leave a comment:


  • Smartie
    replied
    Originally posted by vetran View Post
    Multiple personalities are a bitch! try here
    You seem really stressed, are you OK?
    I guess it's the lockdown - do you have someone you can talk to?

    Anyway, you should look up the definition of social housing and note that it's not the same thing as housing association.

    As for the rest of your comments, I see you have an immovable view of the world.
    It's not unusual amongst successful people, this exceptionalism.
    Everyone likes to believe it's purely their skills and motivation that did it.
    In fact, your achievements, and everyone else's are 50% luck. At least. The data is out there, if you care.
    Have a great weekend.

    Leave a comment:


  • AtW
    replied
    Meanwhile in America people are above courts -

    'I can't keep doing this': gig workers say pay has fallen after California's Prop 22 | California | The Guardian

    Leave a comment:


  • AtW
    replied
    Originally posted by edison View Post
    Corporate welfare - exactly. This has been the hidden neo liberal business narrative for a long time now. Poor people are chastised for being benefits scroungers whilst rich corporates rack up billions upon billions in subsidies, grants and tax breaks every year whilst corporate taxes fall. Some estimates have this corporate welfare at around £100 billion a year, just in the UK.
    Corps pay a lot of taxes and provide employment, more importantly they provide goods/services that are in demand (otherwise they won’t have revenues).

    Leave a comment:


  • AtW
    replied
    Originally posted by GhostofTarbera View Post
    So I can claim my holiday pay and employee rights from all the banks I’ve worked at from the moment I logged on in the morning until I logged off?
    Only if you are paying employee level taxes...

    Leave a comment:


  • vetran
    replied
    Originally posted by Smartie View Post
    Thanks for the figures. As for your comment above, you're going to be waiting for some time - perhaps you should ask the person who actually said it ;-)

    Multiple personalities are a bitch! try here

    Originally posted by Smartie's alternate personality View Post

    Social housing has been decimated and the remaining stock is often of poor quality - if we want cleaners, bus drivers etc. in areas of otherwise high incomes and we want them to live in decent housing, we need more social housing.

    Leave a comment:


  • vetran
    replied
    Originally posted by Smartie View Post
    Going to ignore the random personal abuse because you know, Ad Hominem says more about the poster.

    Anyway, nice figures but you're missing the point - those are UK wide numbers.

    I've personal experience of one of the areas decimated by the early Thatcher years - 30% unemployment there and it took decades to recover when eventually call centres and similar employment finally arrived.

    The Thatcher government allowed many miners, steel workers and those from associated industried onto sickness benefit. Partly because quite a few of them were sick, but also because they were never likely to get another job. No jobs left in the area at all for those people even with 'retraining' and despite their strong work ethic, wanting to provide for their families.
    This was also good for the government because it kept all those people out of the unemployment statistics (ref your post).

    Unfortunately, the continuing lack of jobs and the raising of kids in unemployed households resulted in generational unemployment which became embedded as a normal way of life, rather than a safety net.

    Just because you don't know people who didn't choose it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen of course.
    As for you 'get on your bike' Tebbit-style quote, yes a lot of people did, like me. People who could - those who had the education, intellect or whatever to move on up.
    However, people have family and friends in those areas, they don't have the skills or the money so they can't all move down South, and why should they?
    Maybe if that Tory government has invested properly in those areas in the eighties, Boris wouldn't still have to be promising to 'level up' now.

    I see you favour the continued rentier approach where landlords make all the money and people are kept without the ability to raise a deposit and actually buy their own house, for their own benefit.
    Guessing there is some self-interest going on there.
    If you post something stupid without facts then don't you expect derision?

    When Maggie took over unemployment was rising sharply, factories were being closed, I have been to so many huge sites down south that were closed in the 70s,80s & 90s initially because the unions resisted any change so companies just closed up and went abroad.

    She left the overall level of unemployment the same as when she started it may have been higher up north.

    Blair inherited a falling unemployment level but at 1% higher than Maggie left but Cameron inherited an 8% unemployment rate 2 % more than Maggie left. Why don't you blame Blair & Brown for generational unemployment?

    Blair & Brown were big on incapacity benefit maybe we should review their record?

    JSTOR: Access Check

    Just over 2.5 million people of working age were on the incapacity benefit register in Great Britain in 2006, twice as many as 15 years earlier, and we explore the factors contributing to that huge growth.
    Was that down to coal mining? Can we blame fatch? The 250,000 made unemployed as coal miners are dwarfed by the 1.25 million Blair left unemployed on incapacity benefit.

    I can assure you unemployment happened down here as well, when I and my friends left school in the early eighties there was no work hence YTS and then an apprenticeship. I didn't start earning a decent wage until my 20s.

    My first 4 basic career choices slowly became roles likely to become extinct, I retrained myself every time. I have then taken another 5 major turns just within IT. Many successful people I have worked with have had similar experience.

    Many of my family live up north, some even worked for the coal board and were laid off. None of them have been unemployed for any length of time, many of them did not have further education. Some joined the forces and retrained, worked abroad or moved down here before Tebbit even thought of it.

    One of my managers in the late 80s drove down in his ford Granada every week from Yorkshire on Sunday night and disappeared as early as possible on Friday afternoon. He stayed initially in a B&B but ended up sharing with another chap. He was hardly minted just determined to be in work. His family were miners.

    The problem with the coal mines that like my first few jobs it became obvious that jobs there were going to become extinct too because so many people died extracting it or using it Oil and nuclear were going to replace it. The Miners refused to retrain and so became unemployable. Finding a job is your problem the government may help but its all on you.


    The renter approach is the only game in town until prices come down to affordable levels. That can only happen when we have enough dwellings. Encouraging landlords to take welfare tenants would mean fewer are refused tenancies over professional people.

    How would you replace the rental model and how would you fund it?

    I actually have no rental properties so I will lose if prices fall, me house is me pension innit! Well as well as some stonking final salary ones.

    Leave a comment:


  • Smartie
    replied
    Originally posted by vetran View Post
    Oh leftie made up tulip! I'm right on , I hate fatch!!!
    Going to ignore the random personal abuse because you know, Ad Hominem says more about the poster.

    Anyway, nice figures but you're missing the point - those are UK wide numbers.

    I've personal experience of one of the areas decimated by the early Thatcher years - 30% unemployment there and it took decades to recover when eventually call centres and similar employment finally arrived.

    The Thatcher government allowed many miners, steel workers and those from associated industried onto sickness benefit. Partly because quite a few of them were sick, but also because they were never likely to get another job. No jobs left in the area at all for those people even with 'retraining' and despite their strong work ethic, wanting to provide for their families.
    This was also good for the government because it kept all those people out of the unemployment statistics (ref your post).

    Unfortunately, the continuing lack of jobs and the raising of kids in unemployed households resulted in generational unemployment which became embedded as a normal way of life, rather than a safety net.

    Just because you don't know people who didn't choose it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen of course.
    As for you 'get on your bike' Tebbit-style quote, yes a lot of people did, like me. People who could - those who had the education, intellect or whatever to move on up.
    However, people have family and friends in those areas, they don't have the skills or the money so they can't all move down South, and why should they?
    Maybe if that Tory government has invested properly in those areas in the eighties, Boris wouldn't still have to be promising to 'level up' now.

    I see you favour the continued rentier approach where landlords make all the money and people are kept without the ability to raise a deposit and actually buy their own house, for their own benefit.
    Guessing there is some self-interest going on there.

    Leave a comment:


  • ladymuck
    replied
    Charts time! That escalated quickly

    Leave a comment:


  • Smartie
    replied
    Originally posted by vetran View Post
    I am still interested in you supporting your accusation that housing association dwellings are poor quality. Or a retraction.
    Thanks for the figures. As for your comment above, you're going to be waiting for some time - perhaps you should ask the person who actually said it ;-)

    Leave a comment:


  • vetran
    replied
    Originally posted by Smartie View Post
    If we get away from the neo liberal conspiracy stuff for a moment, let's remember the origins of these labour subsidies.

    Gordon Brown introduced a welfare to work package with the idea that they didn't want people languishing on the dole for generations (thanks Thatcher!)
    The step from unemployment to (low paid) employment was insurmountable for many because they lost among other things housing benefit which, due to the cost of housing in many areas, meant they were a lot worse off in employment and could not afford to get a job.

    The idea was that sufficient benefits were still paid to allow people to take jobs which has many benefits psychologically such as motivation, self-confidence, mental stimulation, work habit etc.
    So, it was a good idea at the time.

    However, this has turned into a situation where the benefits have been taken for granted by companies who might otherwise have paid better wages, leaving many jobs at minimum wage with top ups from the government. The law of unintended consequences.

    We do need to fix this and perhaps a higher minimum wage is the answer, though at a certain level that will reduce the number of jobs available.

    My take on it is that we need a fair distribution of costs and benefits when looking at companies. The employees need a fair wage including the senior staff who need pay reductions. The shareholders (including those of us with pensions) need a fair return and the customers need a fair price and decent service. At the moment the balance is skewed to cheap goods/service for customers, high pay for senior staff and excessive support for share prices. The balance needs to be redressed to give low paid employees a better deal.

    Oh leftie made up tulip! I'm right on , I hate fatch!!!

    Unemployment in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

    Thatcher took over in 1980 at 6% unemployment (which had grown 4% since 1977) mainly due to the closure of manufacturing and increased automation. It hit 11.9% in 1982 thanks partially to a world recession and started falling




    when she left in 1990 (a decade not a generation later ) it was 6% again, she had closed fewer pits than Labour and repaired the sick man of Europe mainly restructuring to compete with cheaper overseas manufacturers. The conservatives introduced YTS a scheme that helped me and many of my peers into work.

    Which of the 6% have stayed unemployed from 1981 to date, I know of few long term unemployed people who didn't choose that life?

    I have worked with many people who worked abroad or relocated south in the 80s/90s because that was where the jobs where.

    Housing benefit distorts rental prices just as a housing shortage does.

    We need to pay rent directly to Landlords and give them the ability to remove problem tenants fairly so landlords will consider welfare tenants. If you had guaranteed rent and good tenants why would you refuse to rent to them?

    Councils could set the rent level and pay extra where there is a housing shortage.

    Subsidising jobs is ridiculous if we have to suffer inflation to get decent wages then lets get on with it.

    Leave a comment:


  • vetran
    replied
    Originally posted by Smartie View Post
    Of course, it's common sense isn't it? The trouble is common sense ideas are often wrong.
    In theory, yes if we built a billion houses this year the cost would come down a lot however there is a limit to the capacity for building and the trend is actually decreasing supply since the 60's.
    The recent high point was 200,000 homes built in 2007/8.
    But, we have an increasing population and a greater proportion of people living alone so the demand is also increasing.
    So, do you have any thoughts on what is 'enough' new build, do we have the capacity (or can it be increased) to build that many and do you have figures to support that assertion?

    We have the figures for increase in population from ONS, we have the details of occupancy from ONS which due to culture changes such as blended families and multi occupancy for financial reasons still sits at about 2.4 persons per home distorting the real demand.

    When more homes become available its likely the level of occupancy might change.

    Overview of the UK population - Office for National Statistics.

    The UK population has grown year-on-year since 1982 as seen in Figure 1. The 2019 mid-year population estimates release showed that the population of the UK reached 66.8 million, up from 66.4 million in mid-2018. This population growth marks an increase of 0.5%, or an additional 361,000 people, between mid-2018 and mid-2019. Growth in the year mid-2018 to mid-2019 was slower than in any year since mid-2004.
    The UK population is projected to increase further; our 2018-based principal national population projections suggest the UK population will surpass 69.6 million by mid-2029 and reach 72 million by mid-2041 – increases of 4.2% and 7.8%, respectively, from mid-20191.

    So growing at > 361,000 a year would suggest we need 150,000 dwellings a year. As we have not built anywhere near that for years we probably need to build > 250,000 a year if growth is to be exceeded and catch up building a million more homes in 10 above our established growth. In 2007 Labour built 224,000 the highest number since 1981 so 250,000 is close an the Conservatives planned to build this number every year to catch up.

    Diggers, breeze block ready mixed concreate and prebuilt framed buildings were not that common in 1981. 40 years of building technology advance should help build more homes in a year than in 1981.


    Mrs May's government released a report suggesting we were 1 million homes short 4 years ago and should build 1 million by 2020 - we are nowhere near this and we have had another million join our population.

    https://assets.publishing.service.go...le_version.pdf

    We also need to replace substandard homes, the 1960s towers we have painted with Petrol, the flats where you are burgled once a week because your neighbour needs a fix etc.

    If we had more cheap housing we would consider removing these dangerous eyesores not put explosive lipstick on them.

    I am still interested in you supporting your accusation that housing association dwellings are poor quality. Or a retraction.

    Leave a comment:


  • Smartie
    replied
    Originally posted by edison View Post
    Corporate welfare - exactly. This has been the hidden neo liberal business narrative for a long time now. Poor people are chastised for being benefits scroungers whilst rich corporates rack up billions upon billions in subsidies, grants and tax breaks every year whilst corporate taxes fall. Some estimates have this corporate welfare at around £100 billion a year, just in the UK.
    If we get away from the neo liberal conspiracy stuff for a moment, let's remember the origins of these labour subsidies.

    Gordon Brown introduced a welfare to work package with the idea that they didn't want people languishing on the dole for generations (thanks Thatcher!)
    The step from unemployment to (low paid) employment was insurmountable for many because they lost among other things housing benefit which, due to the cost of housing in many areas, meant they were a lot worse off in employment and could not afford to get a job.

    The idea was that sufficient benefits were still paid to allow people to take jobs which has many benefits psychologically such as motivation, self-confidence, mental stimulation, work habit etc.
    So, it was a good idea at the time.

    However, this has turned into a situation where the benefits have been taken for granted by companies who might otherwise have paid better wages, leaving many jobs at minimum wage with top ups from the government. The law of unintended consequences.

    We do need to fix this and perhaps a higher minimum wage is the answer, though at a certain level that will reduce the number of jobs available.

    My take on it is that we need a fair distribution of costs and benefits when looking at companies. The employees need a fair wage including the senior staff who need pay reductions. The shareholders (including those of us with pensions) need a fair return and the customers need a fair price and decent service. At the moment the balance is skewed to cheap goods/service for customers, high pay for senior staff and excessive support for share prices. The balance needs to be redressed to give low paid employees a better deal.

    Leave a comment:


  • Whorty
    replied
    Originally posted by mattster View Post
    Yes I know that! but why is D a French letter? If I could be arsed I would go back and read the original post, I must have missed something.
    'D' wasn't part of the joke ... that was another posting just calling out a letter. Move away from the D ......

    Leave a comment:


  • Smartie
    replied
    Originally posted by vetran View Post
    If we build enough dwellings the value of housing will fall...
    Of course, it's common sense isn't it? The trouble is common sense ideas are often wrong.
    In theory, yes if we built a billion houses this year the cost would come down a lot however there is a limit to the capacity for building and the trend is actually decreasing supply since the 60's.
    The recent high point was 200,000 homes built in 2007/8.
    But, we have an increasing population and a greater proportion of people living alone so the demand is also increasing.
    So, do you have any thoughts on what is 'enough' new build, do we have the capacity (or can it be increased) to build that many and do you have figures to support that assertion?

    Leave a comment:

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