Are Labour a total shambles now as an opposition?

[Vic]

Of course it was! Manchester University supplemented all research into Graphene via the private sector on the understanding it would be the private sector who took advantage of it, IE, developing applications for profit. Manchester University makes a profit, that is what pays for the nice shiny buildings such as the National Graphene Institute.

I had to sign a form when I was at Manchester which said anything I invented or produced in my project was the property of the university, why do you think that was? The sole objective of universities and academic research is to make money plain and simple. Universities couple up with private industry on virtually all projects and the reason is always the same, because they get paid to do it and because they couldn't do it otherwise.

Profit is the prime driver in everything because profit is what allows you to reinvest and grow something. Not making any profit means you can only sustain what you have so in general more and more profit is good. Without profit there is no growth, there is no technological advancement and there is no incentive for someone to go out and develop something like Graphene.

Just because some private companies redirect profit back to more unproductive stakeholders like shareholders does not automatically mean profit is bad.

Sadly I take your point, but thankfully there are still people willing to put money into scientific research for the public good rather than for profit.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

Yes that we’ll know Tory shit “Red Ed”. What a bastard he is.

If you think we should reduce unemployment as a priority over training and improved pay for those already in work, you have absolutely no idea what the current employment market looks like.

I have seen you go off on idiotic tangents before so i will put this as simply as i can, the vast majority of unemployed are unskilled, so i would stop bringing in unskilled workers, as the Australians do

 

[Bigga]

Why don't companies raise prices? Competition, for a start

Lots of businesses run on small margins, but they move volume to make a living

If a wage increase is imposed or even the threat of a wage increase is imposed, companies will accelerate their research into technological solutions to take up the work of a human(or amending the business model, if you will). Then more people will be out of work, or at best, need retraining. Which again comes at a cost - It is the world we live in

I understand the logic, but it's faulty to use it as a brush for all business. There are lots of ways of producing good trade and profit.
There are many examples where people stay with a 'business' or 'product' through price increases, from food to household to hardware. So, if that's the case, there's a profit.

I worked for Currys, once upon a time and I had to find a way of keeping regular customers through price increases. Building a rapport helped me at that stage.
I would have people, literally, do business with no one, but me.

There are lots of reasons why business profits are small; poor footfall, poor sales, and yes, competition is also a factor.


Acceptable percentage increase and keeping/ increasing business whilst increasing wages?

I don't see an issue here.

 

[Ban-jani]

I have seen you go off on idiotic tangents before so i will put this as simply as i can, the vast majority of unemployed are unskilled, so i would stop bringing in unskilled workers, as the Australians do

Well I tend to upset the Corbyn cult members and Breitbart’s monthly subscription members on this forum so I must be doing something right.

I’ll say it again, unemployment isn’t an issue currently, we now have the lowest rate of unemployment ever. A focus should be on improving those in work and then we will need to back-fill the lower skilled jobs once those we’ve helped to progress have actually progressed.

Providing training for those already here is a better option than just importing talent.

 

[inbetween]

Sadly I take your point, but thankfully there are still people willing to put money into scientific research for the public good rather than for profit.

It's easy to forget there are many great ideas that don't get support because they are not financially viable which indeed is sad. Nuclear fusion is probably the greatest example, we spend more money on nuclear decommisioning than we do on research into this source of energy that would negate any need for any other source forever.

The probable reason why it gets so little financial attention is nuclear fusion cannot ever be sold. It would cost a ridiculous amount of money, far more than anyone could ever pay for. Currently its problem is it requires more energy than it produces which makes it pointlessly expensive. Obviously the energy companies aren't going to invest in it because they will be put out of business by it so the problem is where would the money come from?

So indeed it is true that profit gets in the way of advacement but in other areas it is also directly responsible for it. If you look at the technological changes in the medical, space etc fields, they are all being driven solely by private sector profit/investment. It's a difficult one that just needs balance.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

Well I tend to upset the Corbyn cult members and Breitbart’s monthly subscription members on this forum so I must be doing something right.

I’ll say it again, unemployment isn’t an issue currently, we now have the lowest rate of unemployment ever. A focus should be on improving those in work and then we will need to back-fill the lower skilled jobs once those we’ve helped to progress have actually progressed.

Providing training for those already here is a better option than just importing talent.

Unemployment has not been lowered it has simply been manipulated for decades and broken down into sub groups that get counted by different departments, focusing on training is pointless companies will only train if there is a need, we as a nation have a growing pool of unemployed unskilled people and immigration is the biggest cause of that

 

[The perfect fumble]

The Blairites and the Tories, the Dippers and Rags of British politics...



The Grauniad lights a candle to Blair every morning.

 

[Ban-jani]

Unemployment has not been lowered it has simply been manipulated for decades and broken down into sub groups that get counted by different departments, focusing on training is pointless companies will only train if there is a need, we as a nation have a growing pool of unemployed unskilled people and immigration is the biggest cause of that

Yes it has. It’s been manipulated too but it’s certainly been lowered. I work in the recruitment industry for the 2nd largest group in the UK. The amount of research we’ve done into the market, as a business, is immense.

I’m not disagreeing it’s been manipulated but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t also considerably dropped to record lows.

We have unskilled workers, but the idea that importing skilled workers and leaving those already here to work unskilled jobs isn’t good for the current population.

Companies are looking, through government initiatives, to offer more in-depth graduate schemes and to take unskilled workers and give them courses using the apprenticeship levy.

This is the sort of thing we need to do. Rather than importing Software Developers, the government should be helping and pushing companies to train them from scratch.

The jobs are there waiting, we just need to make our own people capable of doing them.

 

[bluethrunthru]

say what you like but I doubt they are shambolic enough to give £14m of taxpayers money to a ferry company with no vessels and no ports to use and that same company copies and pastes the t&c's from a takeaway menu on its website - they may be be daft they may be gullible but they aren't stupid like the Tories.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

Yes it has. It’s been manipulated too but it’s certainly been lowered. I work in the recruitment industry for the 2nd largest group in the UK. The amount of research we’ve done into the market, as a business, is immense.

I’m not disagreeing it’s been manipulated but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t also considerably dropped to record lows.

We have unskilled workers, but the idea that importing skilled workers and leaving those already here to work unskilled jobs isn’t good for the current population.

Companies are looking, through government initiatives, to offer more in-depth graduate schemes and to take unskilled workers and give them courses using the apprenticeship levy.

This is the sort of thing we need to do. Rather than importing Software Developers, the government should be helping and pushing companies to train them from scratch.

The jobs are there waiting, we just need to make our own people capable of doing them.

A pointless post if you want to believe that with a growing population caused by imitation, that more Britons are employed than there ever has been , that is your prerogative, likewise we have had government initiatives it still did not have us stop importing Doctors and Nurses and one of the most acclaimed skill training courses in Briton the one with all the awards is flipping burgers at Mc Donalds