Reform UK

[President Merkin]

swisstoni said:

If a business can't afford to pay an acceptable wage, then without wanting to be rude, it doesn't sound like a going concern.

You have a cute habit of glib reductionsim. This being an absolute pearler.

It's extrremely easy to trot out this line as long as you doggedly fail to take any other factors into consideration. If we take new data from the FT today, we can see that in order to continue the social contract that we expect societally to buy a house start a family is broken.

There are lots of complex reasons for this but nevertheless, saving a deposit for a house would have taken on average four years in the 1990's but now takes 13 years in the country as a whole & 30 in London. It's stating the obvious that no one is spending a lifetime saving up to buy a place in London, the epitome of a broken system but your response is - oh well, it's not a proper business if they're not paying what I consider to be an acceptable wage. A thought process that would embarrass the average lower sixth former. Did you really think that was a worthwhile point?

[anonymous-user]

crankedup5 said:

The French people so politically active that they make their demands visual.
For me if the established political Parties are not delivering then it requires a disrupter to shake up the comfortable complacency.
Continuing to vote for what has continually failed for decades will not change the future.

Voting for unicorns wont help either.

[JagLover]

Condi said:

Okay, look at it this way.

If there are 10 jobs in the UK, and we have 9 British workers, there is 1 job vacancy, possibly the lowest paid job, as all the Brits think they are worth more than £9/hr. That is filled by a foreign national, who can earn £5/hr at home or £9/hr here.

If you restrict immigration, and say those people can't come to the UK, you still have 10 job vacancies and 9 applicants. No matter how much you pay for the last job, there will always be 1 job which remains unfilled. Maybe that is collecting the bins, maybe that is caring for the elderly, maybe that is an electrician, maybe that is a doctor. Who knows, but you can't get 9 people to do 10 jobs.

It's all very well talking about upskilling the UK workforce so they can get better jobs, but we still need people empty the bins.

This is assuming a static demand for labour.

In actuality when labour is scarce then what happens is that the job is substituted by machinery/better training of existing staff or the job itself ceases to exist due to the economic activity ceasing or reducing. This is a normal part of the creative destruction of capitalism and over time switches labour to more productive sectors of the economy.

[520TORQUES]

oyster said:

The elderly I'm not suggesting we encourage to work, so the improving health care bit is irrelevant. I'm talking about those aged 57-70, this isn't elderly at all - far from it in fact.

That depends on the work you have done and how lucky you have been in the genetic lottery. Both my sisters have been in nursing all their life and are now 59 and 60, their worn out and now retired/semi retired. I've been doing a job on my feet all day and at 58 am feeling the physical effects of that now. If you sit on your arse all day the physical impact and ability to work into older age is different.

If you want to extend working life, there needs to be a change in attitudes to career changes in the late 50's onwards.

The other issue is making it to retirement age with the physical capability to enjoy that time. I'm glad my parents retired in their mid 60's because they got 10 years if relatively healthy retirement, they are now early 80's and it's not the same. Time flies by and you only recognise this as you get older.

[JuanCarlosFandango]

Condi said:

Okay, look at it this way.

If there are 10 jobs in the UK, and we have 9 British workers, there is 1 job vacancy, possibly the lowest paid job, as all the Brits think they are worth more than £9/hr. That is filled by a foreign national, who can earn £5/hr at home or £9/hr here.

If you restrict immigration, and say those people can't come to the UK, you still have 10 job vacancies and 9 applicants. No matter how much you pay for the last job, there will always be 1 job which remains unfilled. Maybe that is collecting the bins, maybe that is caring for the elderly, maybe that is an electrician, maybe that is a doctor. Who knows, but you can't get 9 people to do 10 jobs.

It's all very well talking about upskilling the UK workforce so they can get better jobs, but we still need people empty the bins.

Not quite true. That 10th job could be automated. Or maybe at an increased wage could get someone back into the workforce from long term unemployment or being sick, home making or retirement. Or it might just be completely unnecessary.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of our persistent productivity shortfall is that it's relatively cheap to employ people on low wages which are then subsidised by various benefits.

[swisstoni]

President Merkin said:

swisstoni said:

If a business can't afford to pay an acceptable wage, then without wanting to be rude, it doesn't sound like a going concern.

You have a cute habit of glib reductionsim. This being an absolute pearler.

It's extrremely easy to trot out this line as long as you doggedly fail to take any other factors into consideration. If we take new data from the FT today, we can see that in order to continue the social contract that we expect societally to buy a house start a family is broken.

There are lots of complex reasons for this but nevertheless, saving a deposit for a house would have taken on average four years in the 1990's but now takes 13 years in the country as a whole & 30 in London. It's stating the obvious that no one is spending a lifetime saving up to buy a place in London, the epitome of a broken system but your response is - oh well, it's not a proper business if they're not paying what I consider to be an acceptable wage. A thought process that would embarrass the average lower sixth former. Did you really think that was a worthwhile point?

It’s not what I consider to be an acceptable wage that matters.
It’s what people liable to want to do the job would find acceptable.

And do try to spell out some of these ‘complex reasons’ why we can’t pay people enough to live.

Just in case i can follow the complexity of it all.

[Vanden Saab]

JagLover said:

Condi said:

Okay, look at it this way.

If there are 10 jobs in the UK, and we have 9 British workers, there is 1 job vacancy, possibly the lowest paid job, as all the Brits think they are worth more than £9/hr. That is filled by a foreign national, who can earn £5/hr at home or £9/hr here.

If you restrict immigration, and say those people can't come to the UK, you still have 10 job vacancies and 9 applicants. No matter how much you pay for the last job, there will always be 1 job which remains unfilled. Maybe that is collecting the bins, maybe that is caring for the elderly, maybe that is an electrician, maybe that is a doctor. Who knows, but you can't get 9 people to do 10 jobs.

It's all very well talking about upskilling the UK workforce so they can get better jobs, but we still need people empty the bins.

This is assuming a static demand for labour.

In actuality when labour is scarce then what happens is that the job is substituted by machinery/better training of existing staff or the job itself ceases to exist due to the economic activity ceasing or reducing. This is a normal part of the creative destruction of capitalism and over time switches labour to more productive sectors of the economy.

There seem to be many still bemoaning the introduction of brushes to clean chimneys or suggesting it cannot be done.

[JagLover]

JuanCarlosFandango said:

I wouldn't be surprised if part of our persistent productivity shortfall is that it's relatively cheap to employ people on low wages which are then subsidised by various benefits.

I suspect this was a large part of the reason for the creation of the "living wage" and its increases since. If the market can no longer deliver increases in pay then if it is mandated it might finally restart investment in reducing the demand for labour.

[cheesejunkie]

s1962a said:

If you started paying care workers £50 an hour, you'd get plenty of indigenous people taking it up.

Paid for by increasing taxes of course. No external labour needed.

If wishes were wings we'd all be able to fly.

That's what reform are offering, wishes without the ability to back them up.

I'd have to be dumb as a bag of bricks to think that Reform intend to raise working wages given who funds them and where their support comes from.

But fools will be fooled.

[s1962a]

cheesejunkie said:

s1962a said:

If you started paying care workers £50 an hour, you'd get plenty of indigenous people taking it up.

Paid for by increasing taxes of course. No external labour needed.

If wishes were wings we'd all be able to fly.

That's what reform are offering, wishes without the ability to back them up.

I'd have to be dumb as a bag of bricks to think that Reform intend to raise working wages given who funds them and where their support comes from.

But fools will be fooled.

I was replying to a post that suggested that the indigenous folk wouldn't want to do these jobs and that we needed immigration. Thats not true, at the right price they would. If £50 an hour is a pie in the sky rate, then what rate do you suggest the indigenous folk would fill up the vacancies?

[s1962a]

cheesejunkie said:

I'd have to be dumb as a bag of bricks to think that Reform intend to raise working wages given who funds them and where their support comes from.

Agree with you there - it sounds like the £350m a week. Remember that?

If we don't have immigration into this country (either from Europe, which has been restricted since Brexit, or from the rest of the world), then we need to raise wages and pay more money in taxes so we can get our folk to fill the vacancies. That only applies to unskilled labour of course.

[QJumper]

JuanCarlosFandango said:

I wouldn't be surprised if part of our persistent productivity shortfall is that it's relatively cheap to employ people on low wages which are then subsidised by various benefits.

That's quite possibly true, although I'm not sure how we'd fix that. Currently the only way we try to address that is via a mandated minimum wage. Other countries (Sweden for example) seem to have more success by dispensing with almost all government involvement in labour relations and leaving employers and workers to work it out betweeen themselves, via collective bargaining. Intererestingly, despite seeming to favour workers, it's amongst the highest for productiivity in Europe, has a very low level of days lost to strikes, and yet is amongst the most entrepreneurial, with Stockholm second only to silicon valley in billion dollar tech start ups.

I don''t know what the answer is for the UK, but it's clear that without either massive natural resources, or significantly increased productivity, then something needs to change. It would make sense for more money to distributed to the bottom end, not just out of a sense of social fairness, but for the practical benefit of releasing caplital into the hands of people who will spend it in the local economy, without the need for benefits or loan finance.

Thinking off the top of my head, I'd probably look to a way of freezing income taxes, and maybe even lowering them for the middle and bottom levels. Any benefits that are then required to fill a shortfall in low wages I'd be looking to finance via corporation taxes. Possibly with tax incentives for businesses based on how much they pay their workforce.

In my view, individuals carry too much of the tax burden. That was probably ok once, when businesses reinvested profits in the economy in order to drive growth. Now however, in a multinational environment, far less of that profit benefits the economy, and there's far greater opportunity for corporations to be parasitic rather than contributors.

[LF5335]

Amazing how many usernames on this thread actively supporting Reform are the same as those cheerleading Brexit and the Rwanda proposition.

Loving the way that a back of fag packet set of numbers are being taken as gospel. Do you all really think that Richard Tice has single-handedly come up with a solution to everything? If so, I have some magic beans that you’re going to love.

[valiant]

LF5335 said:

Amazing how many usernames on this thread actively supporting Reform are the same as those cheerleading Brexit and the Rwanda proposition.

Loving the way that a back of fag packet set of numbers are being taken as gospel. Do you all really think that Richard Tice has single-handedly come up with a solution to everything? If so, I have some magic beans that you’re going to love.

Wanting a fully costed manifesto from Labour. Take Reform’s numbers on faith.

NHS waiting list is currently around 7m and Reform are aiming to zero that. Exactly how are they proposing to do that and over how long and at what cost?

Labour critics want it all spelled out to the nth degree so how about Reform supporters answer the above.

[ATG]

gt_12345 said:

Kermit, please answer this:

90% of immigrants, just like the normal British population, will earn below £40k and be a net-taker. If you have one child you need to earn £50k just to cover the education costs, let alone NHS, transport etc.

Net-taker means they cost more than they contribute.

1) How does admitting net-takers fund pensioners?

2) When the millions people you admit become pensioners, who's going to fund their pensions? Even more migrants?

You're regurgitating a frequently repeated yet completely nonsensical "net contributor" argument. Do you think nurses and teachers contribute to the UK economy by helping to produce an educated, physically able workforce? Yes, obviously. Is that reflected in their relatively low salaries? No. So are their salaries and income tax a useful measure of their total economic contribution? No.

No one is claiming that you have to keep importing young workers for ever. It is not a Ponzi scheme. You just import some now to offset a proportion of the economically inactive elderly to lessen the immediate impact. You're just smoothing the transition to a smaller population with higher average age and associated higher retirement age.

[Seasonal Hero]

LF5335 said:

Amazing how many usernames on this thread actively supporting Reform are the same as those cheerleading Brexit and the Rwanda proposition.

Loving the way that a back of fag packet set of numbers are being taken as gospel. Do you all really think that Richard Tice has single-handedly come up with a solution to everything? If so, I have some magic beans that you’re going to love.

And have 350m reasons why you can trust Farage.

[LF5335]

valiant said:

Wanting a fully costed manifesto from Labour. Take Reform’s numbers on faith.

NHS waiting list is currently around 7m and Reform are aiming to zero that. Exactly how are they proposing to do that and over how long and at what cost?

Labour critics want it all spelled out to the nth degree so how about Reform supporters answer the above.

I’ve been in corporate meetings a long time ago where people genuinely produced nonsense like in the link and then badged it as financial savings and a perfect solution. The whole thing is laughable.

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/reformuk/pages/19...

[crankedup5]

Killboy said:

crankedup5 said:

The French people so politically active that they make their demands visual.
For me if the established political Parties are not delivering then it requires a disrupter to shake up the comfortable complacency.
Continuing to vote for what has continually failed for decades will not change the future.

Voting for unicorns wont help either.

Strength can only come from support, support will only come from disillusioned electorate and something offered which fills the holes of disillusionment. This is why we are seeing Right wing political parties gaining traction.
As the established political parties pick up on what is changing then those politicians recognise that they need to wake up from their slumbers. One option for the disillusioned electorate is, as we have seen in here from some, not bothering to vote at all.
This is how the Brexit Party achieved their targets. The major Parties made the mistake of hand waving away the challenger.

[JagLover]

ATG said:

No one is claiming that you have to keep importing young workers for ever. It is not a Ponzi scheme. You just import some now to offset a proportion of the economically inactive elderly to lessen the immediate impact. You're just smoothing the transition to a smaller population with higher average age and associated higher retirement age.

The UK population is not forecast to fall. The ONS is predicting a rise of 7 million by 2060. This is however dependent on a net migration prediction of 245K a year, which is considerably lower than that experienced in recent years, so it may well be more than that.

One might almost say that you would need a managed immigration system in order to "only" have a population increase of 7 million, but apparently that is extreme to suggest.

[cheesejunkie]

s1962a said:

I was replying to a post that suggested that the indigenous folk wouldn't want to do these jobs and that we needed immigration. Thats not true, at the right price they would. If £50 an hour is a pie in the sky rate, then what rate do you suggest the indigenous folk would fill up the vacancies?

It's a false premise as I would take serious objection to differentiating between indigenous and others as a false dividing line. The word "indigenous" revolts me but I know why it's used.

Pay people enough. Don't make it about where they came from.

But current realities are that the UK needs immigration. Always has. Always will.

I can fully understand why some feel aggravated about that but the parties claiming to offer them solutions aren't offering solutions that will work. It's very easy to be opposition. It's much more difficult to take responsibility. Brexit demonstrated that in spades. once given control they didn't know what to do with it and floundered around looking for enemies to blame.