Gone very quiet

[skwdenyer]

urquattroGus said:

People have to live and the wage amount is OK, we are the privileged ones here who don't know what it's like to try and live on this.

However, the timing and magnitude of the increase this time came when many businesses are struggling to stay afloat and has in my view compounded matters, also surely it is inflationary when every cup of Coffee, Gregs etc the price goes up and is passed on to the already struggling consumer.

A bigger issue for business has been all the people on just above that wage whom now also feel de valued and would like a similarly large increase in what is for many businesses a very tough year.

But how would people on NMW have coped with inflation, especially in energy bills but also more generally, without an increase?

I'm like a broken record, I'm afraid - we needed to let the housing market collapse in 2008/9 and be rebuilt sustainably, with lots of investment in new units on (sanely-valued) land. It is the only solution to this problem if we won't accept the building of masses of new social housing.

Frankly I'd like to see compulsory purchase of land-banked sites. We've got to do something.

[Digga]

skwdenyer said:

So how are people earning less going to keep a roof over their head? I don't know your political stance specifically, but a great many people have consistently voted in favour of destroying social housing, cutting education spending, cutting benefits, etc. How *precisely* is the square to be circled?

I agree £25k for somebody to sweep the floor is quite a lot. So why not buy autonomous machines to do that job? That would be the smart play - invest in productivity. But for some reason we British are very very bad at that, too.

So many people want something for nothing. In this case, they want a prosperous economy, ever-rising house prices, and yet want "somebody else" to cover the wages of staff. How is that supposed to resolve itself?

INflation happened but did not necessarily coincide with an increase in SME profitability. And then they also raised corporation tax too.

So whilst I agree with the thrust of your argument, the logic that business can, in any way, suddenly 'afford' to unilaterally hike wages is flawed.

[skwdenyer]

Digga said:

skwdenyer said:

So how are people earning less going to keep a roof over their head? I don't know your political stance specifically, but a great many people have consistently voted in favour of destroying social housing, cutting education spending, cutting benefits, etc. How *precisely* is the square to be circled?

I agree £25k for somebody to sweep the floor is quite a lot. So why not buy autonomous machines to do that job? That would be the smart play - invest in productivity. But for some reason we British are very very bad at that, too.

So many people want something for nothing. In this case, they want a prosperous economy, ever-rising house prices, and yet want "somebody else" to cover the wages of staff. How is that supposed to resolve itself?

INflation happened but did not necessarily coincide with an increase in SME profitability. And then they also raised corporation tax too.

So whilst I agree with the thrust of your argument, the logic that business can, in any way, suddenly 'afford' to unilaterally hike wages is flawed.

NMW exists to stop businesses leaning on the lowest paid. If businesses cannot pay NMW then they will close. That's the "greater good" equation - it is more important to set NMW at a viable level than it is to not cause problems for businesses.

I'm not saying that's right. But businesses are only one part of the political equation.

More broadly, we've got all-but full employment. This isn't a situation in which NMW is likely to put millions out of work.

[Digga]

skwdenyer said:

NMW exists to stop businesses leaning on the lowest paid. If businesses cannot pay NMW then they will close. That's the "greater good" equation - it is more important to set NMW at a viable level than it is to not cause problems for businesses.

I'm not saying that's right. But businesses are only one part of the political equation.

More broadly, we've got all-but full employment. This isn't a situation in which NMW is likely to put millions out of work.

Erm... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-11...

Not sure it all scans.

Anyway, whilst I agree with the ethos of raising NMW, as I say, there is no way many SME businesses can reorganise, in the current environment, to assimilate it.

[Paddymcc]

classicaholic said:

It now costs a minimum of £24,612 to employ someone for 37.5hrs - thats just too much for a lot of businesses to afford, especially in low margin manufacturing, Whilst I agree workers need to be reasonably paid nearly 25K for a labourer to sweep the floor is madness!

I had this conversation with my accountant recently when he asked was i interested in taking on some more labour so i pointed him at my profit margin % and how much i would have to increase turnover to cover that 24k a year.

Simply not worth the hassle.


With regards the housing posts above i cannot understand how and why local councils are not flat out building those pre-fab bungalows to solve things. My local town still has quite a few of those tin ones constructed after WW2 and they are still perfectly serviceable and liveable.

The solutions are there its just no one wants to do anything about it.

[Forester1965]

The NMW is what it is. Businesses will raise prices to accommodate. Those that can't would have a question mark over their viability.

What it might have done is displace older workers who are full price, replaced by younger ones whose MW is lower.

[skwdenyer]

Paddymcc said:

classicaholic said:

It now costs a minimum of £24,612 to employ someone for 37.5hrs - thats just too much for a lot of businesses to afford, especially in low margin manufacturing, Whilst I agree workers need to be reasonably paid nearly 25K for a labourer to sweep the floor is madness!

I had this conversation with my accountant recently when he asked was i interested in taking on some more labour so i pointed him at my profit margin % and how much i would have to increase turnover to cover that 24k a year.

Simply not worth the hassle.


With regards the housing posts above i cannot understand how and why local councils are not flat out building those pre-fab bungalows to solve things. My local town still has quite a few of those tin ones constructed after WW2 and they are still perfectly serviceable and liveable.

The solutions are there its just no one wants to do anything about it.

Local councils for many many years were forced to sell off stock and banned from building more with the money. Today, where will they get the cash, when central Govt still mandates what they get and what it is to be spent on (and have slashed the funding).

Easy to blame local Govt - that's what central Govt wants you to do. Doesn't scan, however.

[skwdenyer]

Digga said:

skwdenyer said:

NMW exists to stop businesses leaning on the lowest paid. If businesses cannot pay NMW then they will close. That's the "greater good" equation - it is more important to set NMW at a viable level than it is to not cause problems for businesses.

I'm not saying that's right. But businesses are only one part of the political equation.

More broadly, we've got all-but full employment. This isn't a situation in which NMW is likely to put millions out of work.

Erm... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-11...

Not sure it all scans.

Anyway, whilst I agree with the ethos of raising NMW, as I say, there is no way many SME businesses can reorganise, in the current environment, to assimilate it.

And I've been saying for a long, long time that our economy is broken, a fact only hidden by a variety of smoke and mirrors and Govt policy (including de facto subsidies for low-paid workers). So many on here shouted me down.

Yet here we are. Productivity is terrible. Housing is extortionate. Taxation is high, yet investment is low and falling. The birth rate is dropping, the educational and training of our future staff is awful, and so on. Disposable income is low and dropping.

This isn't new. If raising the NMW makes it clear to a few more people how utterly awful has been the management of our economy for so long then that's all to the good IMHO.

[Dr Interceptor]

Forester1965 said:

replaced by younger ones whose MW is lower.

My local pub does this... Only employs bar staff between 18 and 20 to save £2.84 per hour per staff member. The problem is they're (generally) unreliable, grumpy, moody, don't speak properly, and generally not very good at their job. You do get the odd good one of course.

We'd rather the landlord put 10p on a pint and employed some proper staff, but he just doesn't see it.

A bit like the fact the wine he sells is st, so the ladies either don't go, or when they do go drink a half of lager and lime, because the wine is st. If he spent an extra £2 a bottle, he'd sell a lot more of it.

[Digga]

skwdenyer said:

Local councils for many many years were forced to sell off stock and banned from building more with the money. Today, where will they get the cash, when central Govt still mandates what they get and what it is to be spent on (and have slashed the funding).

Easy to blame local Govt - that's what central Govt wants you to do. Doesn't scan, however.

This is the crux:



And yes, I know plenty who happily lived in post war prefabs. There are a few still about around here.

https://x.com/NobleFrancis/status/1770748737192616...

[skwdenyer]

Digga said:

skwdenyer said:

Local councils for many many years were forced to sell off stock and banned from building more with the money. Today, where will they get the cash, when central Govt still mandates what they get and what it is to be spent on (and have slashed the funding).

Easy to blame local Govt - that's what central Govt wants you to do. Doesn't scan, however.

This is the crux:



And yes, I know plenty who happily lived in post war prefabs. There are a few still about around here.

https://x.com/NobleFrancis/status/1770748737192616...

I know. Now, hands up who here voted for this ridiculous policy.

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

Dr Interceptor said:

My local pub does this... Only employs bar staff between 18 and 20 to save £2.84 per hour per staff member. The problem is they're (generally) unreliable, grumpy, moody, don't speak properly, and generally not very good at their job. You do get the odd good one of course.

We went to a pub for food once that only employed youngsters and they were exactly like this. Plus they seemed to not want to use a pen to write anything down and just gave us a "I got this" nod as each of us ordered.

First of all they completely messed up the drink order.

Then the food arrived and they had completely messed this up. We then got the "We can make you another one and it will be 15 minutes, is that OK"?

Not really, the whole point is we want to eat together. If you had just written this down this would not have happened.

Never been back since.

[Digga]

skwdenyer said:

I know. Now, hands up who here voted for this ridiculous policy.

That's as disingenuous as saying "hands up who voted for 20mph speed limits in Wales".

[Steve H]

skwdenyer said:

But how would people on NMW have coped with inflation, especially in energy bills but also more generally, without an increase?

I'm like a broken record, I'm afraid - we needed to let the housing market collapse in 2008/9 and be rebuilt sustainably, with lots of investment in new units on (sanely-valued) land. It is the only solution to this problem if we won't accept the building of masses of new social housing.

Surely if house prices collapse, the only investment in new housing will be if local/national government puts it into social housing? Commercial developers would just be mothballing everything until things improved. Put it another way, when prices did drop significantly in 08-09 that’s exactly what they did.


I was too young when Maggie got started but would have voted for selling off council housing, but I can’t see any argument for more not being built. It’s the perfect way of providing (relatively) sensibly priced rental housing and boosting home ownership levels for the current generation that are struggling to get on the ladder.

Even if we allow that the previous sale money has now been pissed away, I would have thought the income raised by renting new homes out would cover the investment cost if organised correctly.

[Paddymcc]

Steve H said:

I would have thought the income raised by renting new homes out would cover the investment cost if organised correctly.

Yes surely the cost of subsidising the private landlords and tennants would more than cover the costs of the mortgage on a property if they actually built them themselves.

Personally id put a moratorium on people buying the council house stock until things are at least on a path to being fixed.

[Steve H]

Is there any council stock left that is still being sold?

TBH I thought it had pretty much all gone and was handled by housing associations that rent out but don’t sell now.

[skwdenyer]

Steve H said:

Is there any council stock left that is still being sold?

TBH I thought it had pretty much all gone and was handled by housing associations that rent out but don’t sell now.

Govt is extending RTB to Housing Association stock - utter madness. Compelling HAs to sell.

[skwdenyer]

Steve H said:

skwdenyer said:

But how would people on NMW have coped with inflation, especially in energy bills but also more generally, without an increase?

I'm like a broken record, I'm afraid - we needed to let the housing market collapse in 2008/9 and be rebuilt sustainably, with lots of investment in new units on (sanely-valued) land. It is the only solution to this problem if we won't accept the building of masses of new social housing.

Surely if house prices collapse, the only investment in new housing will be if local/national government puts it into social housing? Commercial developers would just be mothballing everything until things improved. Put it another way, when prices did drop significantly in 08-09 that’s exactly what they did.


I was too young when Maggie got started but would have voted for selling off council housing, but I can’t see any argument for more not being built. It’s the perfect way of providing (relatively) sensibly priced rental housing and boosting home ownership levels for the current generation that are struggling to get on the ladder.

Even if we allow that the previous sale money has now been pissed away, I would have thought the income raised by renting new homes out would cover the investment cost if organised correctly.

If in 2008/9, Govt had signalled clearly that prices would not be allowed to return to previous levels, I suspect things would have been different. Developers will always develop if there's margin; the problem was all the banked land at huge prices.

Selling off Council Housing is madness. It was mostly really great quality stock, designed to be maintainable and very difficult to replace, as well as often being in great locations as urban environments expanded (we mustn't ghettoise social housing).

It would have been far more efficient for Govt to co-invest with developers in building affordable housing for sale. Giving away lots of housing at very cheap rates to people who happened to have been renting for a long time (often without any means testing - council housing was get-in / stay-in, never needs-based) was just a giant piece of poorly-controlled asset transfer. Had Labour proposed it in a different way, it would have been branded "wealth redistribution" and stealing public assets to buy off poor voters.

[clockworks]

Is it even possible for local authorities to build decent social housing at an "affordable" price, unless done on a large scale?

With building costs for extensions at £1500+ per sq metre, a compact 3 bed would cost at least £100k for the shell. Add in the price of a plot, plus fitting it out, and it's going to cost £200k. Just the interest on the loan would be more than the "social" rent income.

Where I live, new builds are going on the market for around 50% more than the equivalent 1960's build. 4 bed dormer bungalow next door has just gone on the market at £450k. Nicely updated too.
New build 4 beds the other side of the village are £600k and up. One on a wider plot (proper detached, with more the 3 feet between buildings) is closer to £700k.

Maybe prefabs are the only real option?

[classicaholic]

In the UK we seem to want to build with bricks and mortar a lot whereas I built a house in the US that was really very quick to build, has great insulation and is warm in the winter and cool enough in the summer at a much higher temperature range than we get in Britain. The house is timber frame with boarded outsides, lots of insulation and then covered with plastic siding, the roof is basically roofing felt and was incredibly quick to build and didnt cost a fortune, 18 years on and its still looking good and is fully watertight, I was sceptical at 1st as it looked like a garden shed build wise but it and millions of others in the US cant be wrong.