Reply to: The Living Wage

[vetran]

As can seen by the Comet fiasco (we are funding the redundancies while the usual piranha gnaw at the corpse) its down to what you allow companies & the market to get away with.

You give low paid workers subsidies or offer cheap imported labour bottom end wages stay low.

You offer younger /better qualified / more motivated workers then they are going be employed over those with higher expectations or less motivation (I suspect the over 50's and those with lower qualifications make a bigger proportion of the unemployed than 25 year olds with a masters degree).

subsidise ignorance & poverty and you get more of both.

[Robinho]

It looks as though you've been reading "The Wealth of Nations" whilst ignoring the bits about the importance of morality.

The ideal is nice but real life just isn't like that, are we not paying the price for greed and exploitation right now??

The current recession is absolutely nothing to do with capitalism and all to do with the government. It a textbook example of an Austrian business cycle.

[eek]

The Dodgy family's going up in the world!

Yes the son is now a dustman.

[Mich the Tester]

My son was offered a job in recruitment and I told him to only do it as a last resort. Fortunately he has landed a proper job

The Dodgy family's going up in the world!

[DodgyAgent]

Recruitment agent?

My son was offered a job in recruitment and I told him to only do it as a last resort. Fortunately he has landed a proper job

[Mich the Tester]

Me too. The immigrants are the only ones willing to do the low paid tulipty jobs. People in this country can't be arsed because they'd rather claim benefits and wait for the dream job to arrive in their lap.

Recruitment agent?

[The Spartan]

People in this country can't be arsed because they'd rather claim benefits and wait for the dream job to arrive in their lap.

How likely is that to happen ...... um ......... er ................ never

[eek]

Me too. The immigrants are the only ones willing to do the low paid tulipty jobs. People in this country can't be arsed because they'd rather claim benefits and wait for the dream job of being paid to do sod all at home to arrive in their lap.

FTFY

[psychocandy]

Ahh now I'm not blaming immigrants as given my experience if I was running a business I would probably hire them due to their work ethic, the difference is like I do here I send a substantial chunk of my money back to the UK so you're in a situation where a lot of money wouldn't be going back into the country (the UK that is)

But immigration controls here are a lot tighter than the UK so the effect here would be very minimal I suppose

Me too. The immigrants are the only ones willing to do the low paid tulipty jobs. People in this country can't be arsed because they'd rather claim benefits and wait for the dream job to arrive in their lap.

[Robinho]

Knowing people in some of those countries listed, the tax take may look lower but it doesn't include indirect taxes, wages and the cost of living.

For example in NZ lots of skilled workers earn less than their counterparts in the UK but the cost of living is the same.

Plus the way their tax laws are written you can't work as we do here.

Those aren't tax rates. They're tax revenues as a % of GDP.

[NotAllThere]

Have you ever run a business where you have to find enough money each month to meet the payroll?...

No, because we made tons of money.

[Mich the Tester]

It looks as though you've been reading "The Wealth of Nations" whilst ignoring the bits about the importance of morality.

Yep, and Adam Smith's 'Theory of Moral Sentiments' is worth reading too. Sort of complimentary to Wealth off Nations; don't read one without the other and remember that it's only one viewpoint; there are many other ways to analyse situations.

[SueEllen]

Have you ever run a business where you have to find enough money each month to meet the payroll?

No .. I thought not

Yes I have.

Hence I will never employ anyone directly again.

[SueEllen]

Most countries don't actually. We pay a disgusting amount here, about 40% of all GDP. It should be about 15%.

A few other countries...

USA 26.9
Switzerland 29.4
Australia 30.8
Canada 32.2
New Zealand 34.5
South Korea 26.8
Japan 28.3

A couple of failed economies in there mind, but also some extremely strong ones too.

Knowing people in some of those countries listed, the tax take may look lower but it doesn't include indirect taxes, wages and the cost of living.

For example in NZ lots of skilled workers earn less than their counterparts in the UK but the cost of living is the same.

Plus the way their tax laws are written you can't work as we do here.

[gingerjedi]

Capitalism doesn't exploit anyone. All capitalism is is a series of mutually beneficial voluntary transactions.

The wealth divide is nonsense too. Earning X amount more than someone doesn't mean your life is X times better. And you can only earn such an amount by providing more than that amount of value to someone else so you shouldn't be discouraged from doing so.

It looks as though you've been reading "The Wealth of Nations" whilst ignoring the bits about the importance of morality.

The ideal is nice but real life just isn't like that, are we not paying the price for greed and exploitation right now??