the economy.

[marco]

Looking at the Economy from your own perspective is of course your right pal.


But taking into account the effects of the economy on many of potential potential customers of yours is mine.


If the economy as it is doing is rewarding the few SMEs like yours as it is they will never reach their full potential as the poverty of your potential customers is a barrier to your growth.

Now you maybe happy with your lot at the moment, but in a fairer more equal society you could grow your business muh more.

define fairer and more equal. I see it as you pay in and you take out. yes?

Thats a very simplistic defining principle but one i doubt anybody would disagree with.

But you totally missed my point. Poverty is not just about being out of work. More people that even are facing in work poverty and more is spent on housing benefit for those in work that not. Poverty wages mean hardworking families, your potential customers, might have to make the carpet they have last another 2 years, they may decide that the bedroom doesnt need carpetting at all. This poverty is very real and its happening now but still tax credits are cut which will reduce incomes of the lowest paid again.

My cousin works damn hard at a special school in Runcorn. Her boys are big lads. The eldest despite graduating with an MA is currently working for free in a charity shop, her middle son despite trying and trying and trying just cannot find a job, her youngest has just started as an apprentice barber and gets paid peanuts. At the end of the week after she has paid her bills she has £37 to feed her family on. My mum sends her and the boys food parcels.

Despite doing the right thing they arnt going to be new customers of yours mate as they simply have no money.

thats a very good post rascal and sums it up for many families

 

[mackenzie]

If you're self employed can you claim working tax credits etc?

Yes.

Its behind the bizarre unexplained rise of the self employed in my opinion.

Its created a situation where a number of hours irregular work qualify you for tax credits without having to enter the world of the welfare sanctioning JSA. Basically its creating an underpaid underclass who live from week to week. The threats of workfare of sanctions are so severe that some of the poorest most in need of work and those on zero hour contracts rely on tax credits to keep there head aboue water.

Without the prospect of a proper decent paid job, they are trapped in the very welfare dependency that that fucking insane monster IDS promised to dismantle.

The self employment 'incentives' for the unemployed were introduced under Thatcher in the early 80's. They quickly disappeared soon after but were resurrected in this recession, nearly 30 years later.
Why? Because they haven't got an answer to anything for the ordinary working man other than try it on your own and become one of us.

Trouble is that ain't really happening.

 

[marco]

Yes.

Its behind the bizarre unexplained rise of the self employed in my opinion.

Its created a situation where a number of hours irregular work qualify you for tax credits without having to enter the world of the welfare sanctioning JSA. Basically its creating an underpaid underclass who live from week to week. The threats of workfare of sanctions are so severe that some of the poorest most in need of work and those on zero hour contracts rely on tax credits to keep there head aboue water.

Without the prospect of a proper decent paid job, they are trapped in the very welfare dependency that that fucking insane monster IDS promised to dismantle.

The self employment 'incentives' for the unemployed were introduced under Thatcher in the early 80's. They quickly disappeared soon after but were resurrected in this recession, nearly 30 years later.
Why? Because they haven't got an answer to anything for the ordinary working man other than try it on your own and become one of us.

Trouble is that ain't really happening.

the thatcher government created a lot of this mess when they closed the pits, the majority of workers went on the sick which in turn kept the dole figures from rising then in the years to follow people noticed it wasnt a bad life on the sick and if you were good enough and could put a decent limp on you may even get a brand new car, this is how the sick culture (no offence to the genuine claimants) was created so they clamped down on this and people moved onto working tax credits, you can basically have a business that does not make a profit yet qualify for WTC, and guess what unemployment is at an all time low, amazing how the government can bend the figures of benefit claimants, i bet if you added the tax credit working with no actual work the sick and unemployed the true figure of inactive people would be around 18 million

 

[Rascal]

Yes.

Its behind the bizarre unexplained rise of the self employed in my opinion.

Its created a situation where a number of hours irregular work qualify you for tax credits without having to enter the world of the welfare sanctioning JSA. Basically its creating an underpaid underclass who live from week to week. The threats of workfare of sanctions are so severe that some of the poorest most in need of work and those on zero hour contracts rely on tax credits to keep there head aboue water.

Without the prospect of a proper decent paid job, they are trapped in the very welfare dependency that that fucking insane monster IDS promised to dismantle.

The self employment 'incentives' for the unemployed were introduced under Thatcher in the early 80's. They quickly disappeared soon after but were resurrected in this recession, nearly 30 years later.
Why? Because they haven't got an answer to anything for the ordinary working man other than try it on your own and become one of us.

Trouble is that ain't really happening.

But it gets them off the unemployment figures that were so toxic for Thatcher

 

[roaminblue]

The economy has created plenty of jobs but that's not the only thing it needs to do. Creating the conditions for business expansion is just one part of it, plus it depends on the context of that expansion. Supply-side economics says that an increase in output feeds through to higher wages and therefore higher consumer demand. This in turn feeds further industrial expansion.

However our economy hasn't responded in the 'normal' way that it was supposed to in a recession. That would involve wages staying roughly static but the numbers employed falling, so that the cost of production fell. This time, the workforce were far more flexible and a large part of the fall in production costs came from a reduction in wages, leading to less unemployment than might have been expected.

That meant there was a lot of slack in the labour force and the growth we've seen is mainly just about taking up that slack. That's not resulting in higher wages plus the squeeze on public sector employment means that growth in output isn't being matched by growth in consumer demand. We'll only see truly sustainable growth when production is really expanding, rather than just taking up the excess capacity in the workforce.

As an analogy, imagine a class which has gone down from a maximum of 30 pupils to 20. The teacher isn't at full capacity and can cope quite easily. Numbers start to go up and the teacher gets stretched more until numbers hit 30 again, when they're at full capacity but it's still only one teacher. When numbers get to 35 or more, the class is split and now there's two teachers.

In the first phase, the school is growing but not creating extra employment. In the second phase, it is. We're still in the first phase.

I'm not so sure that I'd say the economy has created plenty of jobs. YoY increase in self-employed is still hovering around the 8% mark I think, whereas full-time employment is around 2%.

People forget we also had a CAGR of -11% between 2007 - 2008 in employment levels.

I also think part of the robustness of the labour market was down to the liquidity trap. I'm of the opinion that the firms' main concern was meeting liabilities, they didn't want to consolidate so much that they would lose market share. hence they sought gains in operating efficiency but attempted to keep the production capacity up. You can see this in the credit markets. The comps on LIBOR+bps and the calls on bonds during that period were as low as avid merrion's humour, but it wasn't a sale people wanted to shop at. Firm's with the debt capacity weren't buying, acquisitions were at a 15 year low, and anything that could have been spun out, stripped away, and made more efficient, stayed the right side of the LBO.

I agree wholeheartedly about the slack that needed taking up, and it is doing. But I'd be concerned if rates rose too early. I still think there are more people working p/t and self-employed than there needs to be for a substantial hike. I would say rate rise won't be in the first half of the year (alhtough not just because of the employment figures). I'm notn 100% up to date, though, I missed my weekly round up :-)

 

[roaminblue]

The theory was that by cutting tax you stimulate growth through business investing more and thus the tax cuts pay for themselves. Where in actual fact we have had some stimulation in growth but not enough to compensate the amounts lost in revenue from corporation tax. The logical thing to do would be to raise corporation to the point where you don't hurt growth but you don't lose any revenue from corporation (cost neutral).

I think the downsizing of the state in other areas probably matches that loss through savings. Or I think that is what they will argue.

Even if the cut was going to make a difference, we wouldn't see it straight away. Corporations were just too unwilling to put themselves at risk in recent history. That will change though, we're turning a corner in terms of acquisitons and capex. I think we'll see recent highs in 2015 in both.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the tax break was predominantly about capex wasn't it? We did see higher levels of inward investment YoY I think, so it could be argued that it had an effect

 

[Rascal]

Im watching Free Speech from BBC4 on Iplayer and it appears our young are far more clued up than most of the RWNJs on here.


It has made my night.

 

[Moriati]

Europe's Triple-Dip Recession Arrives: German Industrial Production Crashes Most Since February 2009.
And then a few hours ago we finally got undeniable confirmation that Europe is once again in recession, its third since Lehman, only this one is worse: it is led by the "core" countries, with Germany in the forefront, a Germany which just reported industrial output which suffered its biggest monthly decline in more than five years in August. Specifically, German IP tumbled 4%, led by capital goods which crashed 8.8%; consumer goods sliding 0.4%, and basic goods dropping 1.9%, with the headline plunge far below the consensus of -1.5%, and below even the worst forecast of -3.0%, the biggest drop since February 2009, a result which according to the FT rose "fears that Europe’s biggest economy might be heading for recession and prompting renewed concern about the economic health of the eurozone."
Oh, don't be afraid: the world's largest economic block is now without doubt in a triple-dip recession, which will in turn drag both the US and China down with it.

 

[smudgedj]

Im watching Free Speech from BBC4 on Iplayer and it appears our young are far more clued up than most of the RWNJs on here.


It has made my night.

More clued up? Why have the Rightwingers on here run out of sensible things to say?

 

[Rascal]

Europe's Triple-Dip Recession Arrives: German Industrial Production Crashes Most Since February 2009.
And then a few hours ago we finally got undeniable confirmation that Europe is once again in recession, its third since Lehman, only this one is worse: it is led by the "core" countries, with Germany in the forefront, a Germany which just reported industrial output which suffered its biggest monthly decline in more than five years in August. Specifically, German IP tumbled 4%, led by capital goods which crashed 8.8%; consumer goods sliding 0.4%, and basic goods dropping 1.9%, with the headline plunge far below the consensus of -1.5%, and below even the worst forecast of -3.0%, the biggest drop since February 2009, a result which according to the FT rose "fears that Europe’s biggest economy might be heading for recession and prompting renewed concern about the economic health of the eurozone."
Oh, don't be afraid: the world's largest economic block is now without doubt in a triple-dip recession, which will in turn drag both the US and China down with it.

A damning indictment of the austerity the Neo Liberals have said is what we need.


Austerity is a Neo Liberal scam. People will wake up to this