HPC001
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Posts posted by HPC001
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Could you have answered that at 18?
I wanted to do Business Studies but no decent university offered the course in the late 1990's so I had to do Economics, which I thought would be similar. After studying utterly pointless things like Econometrics and Laffer Curves for 3 years I was left with a "good" degree but not actually qualified for anything.
What about college courses? Was there no relevant HND for example? Applying for work as a trainee\entry level administrator? What about starting your own business (I'm not 100% sure what your aim was)?
Do I regret going? Not in the slightest, I had the time of my life, am still in regular contact with lots of friends and married a girl I met there.Good stuff, it's no secret that (excepting the biggest geeks) people do expand their social lives in that environment. Admittedly there's a little too much booze and casual sex for my liking, but those are optional - not everyone is like that.
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+1 good on you
I was hoping you'd have a more substantiative reply, but I guess it's better than being flamed for daring to ask for something back for my prior tax\NI contributions...
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No Vince. Graduate the income tax, that'll mean that those graduates who earn higher salaries than the rest of the population will pay back in proportion to the benefit of their education. Make sure that only people who can realistically benefit from a degree get to university. No ifs or buts, rich stupid Johnny will just have to find himself a trade, or live off the family income. That's a whole lot of work, as you'll have to revamp the education system from top to bottom, because at the moment we have no idea who's stupid, and who isn't - they all have straight A's. Nothing to stop the rich starting and funding their own universities, but make sure they never have the right to set or moderate degree exams.
While you're at it, reform the whole income tax system. Scrap NI and make it part of income tax. Make it impossible to evade, and simple to administer. Get rid of non-doms allowances - if you work here, you should pay here. The only people who will winge are the rich and their accountants.
Most 'rich' people don't earn income that way, they own vast tracts of land and charge rents. You'll just make the average worker much poorer. The logical alternative would be to capture that land rent for legitimate state purposes, such as shared infrastructure (roads, bridges) that everyone benefits from. Particularly as high land values coincide with service provision and population density...
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Another rubbish idea from the Cable.
Current system: you only have to repay your loan if your degree actually helps you earn decent money. Industrial sponsors free to sponsor vocational degrees.
Vince's system: All degree-holders get clobbered, whether or not the degree actually enabled to earn a decent salary and whether or not the state actually paid. Tax system gets even more complex.
Vince is going in the wrong direction, the next thing we will have a National University Service free at the point of delivery held up by massive central bureaucracy.
£15k is the current threshold for repayment, which isn't exactly a lot of money, IBILT. That kind of wage pays for a meagre existence in the south of England at any rate.
As for vocational degrees, they're often mocked by Oxbridge-type elitists... never mind that in a free market, vocational skills are far, far more important than studying politics at Oxford (which by the way, reduced its grant awards recently).
The degree I study is partially sponsored by business income the university generates by training staff already in employment. The entire structure is designed to accomodate "day-release" style working. Half of the syllabus is traditional CompSci and the other half is basically determined by industry leading technology companies.
There's nothing inherently wrong with more people going to university if the courses are well defined and deliver actual benefit.
Edit: before anyone flames me about not living in the real world, I did for 5 years before going to university (my IT support responsibilities were effectively outsourced to Pakistan)
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No we don't! I live in a metropolitan area, two miles from a city centre, about 2 miles from the exchange and the broadband cannot support even low resolution Youtube clips let alone full screen HD television. You are very badly misinformed about the state of the UK's high speed data networks!
I'm over three miles from a telephone exchange yet I get 3.5mbit reliably via O2... what ISP are you with?
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Of course it doesn't. And neither do it's advocates. If one could put forward a moral case for land ownership then I might change my opinion.
Are you in favour of a land value tax?
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I don't know Marx- but you are correct- the only way for the market to value labour is via the dumb pricing mechanism- that is why the market is not fit to rule the world of human beings- we are not simply commodities in a market place- we exert not only supply and demand claims, but moral claims as well.
I've got nothing against a state to protect me from aggressive actions that are a genuine threat to myself, my property or physical freedom. Perhaps a limited set of other items, but these three are the most important by far and the only ones that really merit coercion\force.
You told me that the market could guarantee human liberty- yet now tell me that it's just a dumb pricing mechanism- how does a price discovery machine guarantee human liberty? What if that machine decides that the value of a man's labour is so low that he cannot feed himself- is this the liberty you speak of?It won't do that because no product or service will sell at a price that is too high for most people to afford. The only reason it appears to be the case now is a huge saturation of cheap credit.
The market price of labour can only be determined by the market- that is correct. In this model people are a commodity to be purchased like any other commodity- if the commodity is scarce relative to demand the price paid to labour rises- if there is too much labour the price paid falls.So you're arguing that I was a slave when I agreed to a contract working for a delivery company? ********.
What is not clear to me is how this simple model of value enhances individual liberty. Take a slave, for example- they have a market value that is determined by the number of slaves available, but no one would argue that they are in any way liberated by the pricing mechanism. In order for a slave's liberty to be increased it is necceary to move beyond the simple supply and demand paradigm and introduce the concept of moral rights- but this concept is entirely absent from your market place model.See above.
So how does the free market address the moral right of a worker to be rewarded according to their efforts, and not just their scarcity?There's a bit more to it when they are actually hired. They still have to perform the activities to a minimum standard. Some companies choose to provide shares, bonuses, and allowances as an incentive. Co-operatives are entirely based around good work raising the entire group's value (through sales etc), and thus returning the worker's investment directly through better share prices. There may be company outings, training schemes, etc etc. Even under the current broken system these things still occur.
You need to get out of your narrow paradigm and engage critical thinking.
So in your view the world is populated entirely by rich eccentrics who take jobs entirely for their own amusement and have no need to work at all?Working for XYZ Couriers is just one way of meeting your basic needs. Others include charity, growing your own food and collecting your own water, bartering either items or skills with associates\friends, borrowing to either create a venture or starting one independently (with or without capital depending on its nature), getting a scholarship or sponsorship etc etc. I could go on but your mode of thinking doesn't seem to encompass self-sufficiency...
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On shopkeepers getting a minimum wage too. In most areas of economic life there is already legislation stopping competition. In most areas you cannot just open a business and compete. You need a license which has barriers of entry. And the gatekeepers of those licenses purposefully limit the number of licenses.
I'm against occupational and business licencing. I specifically referenced state backed cartels in this very thread.
For example I would like to open a pharmacy and sell legal drugs to people. There is no technical reason I could not do that. The only thing preventing that is the state. Which the rich and powerful in Britain seem to think is a good idea. They think it is a good idea to limit competition and make minimum profitability for their business at a generous level.Precisely. I on the other hand, have nothing to gain from large pharmaceutical companies sewing up the market with the help of the state's monopoly on force.
Wunderpup made a fabulous point that we are valueing the worker based on how cheap it is to replace him. Which seems inhuman. So right now there is a great surplus of workers, which has driven jobs like pharmacy helpers and shelf stockers down towards nothing.Which is the result of what has been said above RE: cartels, licensing, and also a lack of imagination when it comes to a lot of rank and file members of the public on how to make a living.
So I come up and say you know we should legislate a much higher minimum wage for these workers. Suddenly I am an anti-free market, anti-liberty person, who doesn't understand the benefit of a competitive market.As has been said, this will not fix the underlying problems of the economy. When I was in work, the vast majority of my income went in rent and taxes. I should add that in my last job, I was paid nearly double the minimum wage for relatively easy work that didn't even require an interview. Conditions were pretty generous on the whole. Before you start saying I lived in a large house - I did not. I had a room and little in the way of luxuries.
Please address the regulatory and land issues I have raised before blaming the small business (which provides 98% of the UK's jobs) for not paying enough.
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Right, wonderpup, let's try one last time...
In a purely market based system scarcity is rewarded clearly- those with in demand skills can force higher rates of reward. This is not in dispute- indeed this is only a way purely market system could allocate rewards.
But here's a funny thing- if the government were to raise the upper tax band to 95% or so there would be outrage from people like Bogbrush- outrage not because such a decison would be illegal, or outside the rules- but outrage because such a decision would be in his mind immoral
I'm hardly a rich man, closer to the opposite end of the scale, so I have no vested interest here. Yet I can see that the intervention of the state has simply impoverished people like myself trying to get by, and proceeded to screw them out of the so-called safety net. Ergo it doesn't work.
So we have curious inconsistancy that those who are most vocal in their support of a purely amoral wealth distribution mechaism- the market- are also the most vocal when it comes to their own moral right to keep the profits that result from that distribution.Are you saying there should be no bidding involved for a contract? The market consists of human beings trading and making offers regarding labour.
So- does Bogbrush have a moral claim on the wealth he has created on not? He would argue-I believe- that he has. But how is this claim to reconciled with the idea that those he might employ have no such moral claim on the wealth they have created?They have a claim on what they agreed to in a contract with him. Bogbrush, I'm guessing, put up the capital for the venture or at the very least borrowed it, so he is justified in deciding exactly where he starts spending that capital (labour, equipment etc).
Bogbrush would argue that while his income ought to be a function of the moral linakge between effort and reward- the income of his employees ought to be function of their commodity value in the market place.Bogbrush is entitled- while his employees are fungible- two different models of wealth distribution are in play here.
See above. You also assume they have no alternative but to work for Bogbrush on his terms. They don't exist in a void either, not that you acknowledge that fact - you ignored the points I made about the existing conditions we are under.
again note that the argument against the tax rise would not be that it was breaking the rules of the system- it doesn't- the argument would be that such a rise would be unfair and unjust- that his hard won wealth was being in effect legally stolen from him by evil statists.I would say the same thing about income tax and NI. They are theft of a worker's output. More importantly the state claims a monopoly of force to collect those taxes. Bogbrush on the other hand, in a free market, has to compete with others for their labour.
So while I accept that the market does indeed reward scarcity I would argue that this is too simple a mechanism to deliver a fair distribution of societies wealth. For it does not and can not take into account that people can have a moral claim on the fruit of their labour that is undiluted by the fact that a million others could have done that work instead of them.There are not enough entrepreneurs, but that's at least partially explained by the references I made to LVT and post 127 of this thread. You refused to acknowledge these factors and demand price fixing. Here, have the link again: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=146560&view=findpost&p=2609576
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But surely it's self evident that a business that cannot pay a living wage is- by definition- a failed business? I can't see the logic here at all. In order to be in business you have to be able to pay your staff- is this not so? Why is this simple notion so problematic?
Last time I checked £5.90 an hour wasn't poverty wages. It isn't spectacular by any means, but you can live on it reasonably well in 99% of the UK. That aside, what is your definition of a living wage?
Is it that the expectation of state subsidised wages is so embedded that it's now considered a right by employers?It is if you're in collusion with the state to monopolise a sector or form cartels. If you bothered to read the other threads you'd see I'm against that.
Paying a living wage isn't an optional extra- it's a basic part of how things work- if people earn no money they can't buy stuff which means there is no economy.Multinationals who outsource can find a consumer base elsewhere, ergo they aren't restricted to the UK.
There seems to be a curious notion here that we can somehow excluder labour from the income stream and leave the consumer base intact- I don't see how that's supposed to work.That's because it's become acceptable to be deep in debt for such things as a degree or purchasing a house, and regress to making money by doing others' laundry. Unfortunately a large chunk of the general public riding the boom didn't appreciate the problems this entails in the future.
However, you're still ignoring costs other than labour. For example, a small business in the UK is usually paying obscene rents and council rates to operate. This cuts into their margin, forcing prices up. Ergo it then appears that wages are inadequate. Go back to the post in this thread I linked, I won't repeat this again.
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Your market prices 'things' very well- but is unable to process the fact that a man is not a 'thing'. Again, not a flaw in the market, but a limitation on the markets ability to secure human liberty.
Can you explain, for example, why plumbers and electricians can command such a high rate working independently?
In addition to my post, please refer to:
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=146560&view=findpost&p=2609576
and then reply taking all of that into account
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Surely being able to pay it's employees enough to live on and make a profit are sort of basic things that any viable business must be able to deliver?
Living costs rising is not the fault of the average business, wonderpup. They're not all out to screw you, you just don't see the bigger picture. Check out the LVT and Iain Duncan Smith threads for some examples. I would go on, but there's little point posting the same thing over and over again to ignorant people.
If they were to pay more as it stands, and still keep a margin, you would see the end product become more expensive - thus nullifying any overall improvement.
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You may be confusing unfair dismissal with wrongful dismissal. WD is a type of breach of contract claim made by people who have been dismissed without notice. In very basic terms, the claim is that you did not commit gross misconduct, therefore even if you should have been dismissed it should have been with notice. The value of the claim is limited to the value of the notice period i.e. what it says in your contract. This might be what you were referring to.
I'm aware that there are these two types of dismissal claims, the type of claim is irrelevant to the point I made, though...
Interestingly, as I said before, whether you did or did not commit gross misconduct is not at issue in UD claims. However, it is at issue in WD claims. So you could win your WD claim by proving you were innocent, but lose your UD claim because it was reasonable for the employer to believe you were guilty at the time of dismissal (even though this was an incorrect belief).I wasn't even given a chance to put forth a case...
Edit: I should also add that no disciplinary procedures were followed, despite me being introduced to them in the opening course of duties.
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That may be true for a breach of contract type claim, such as unlawful deduction from wages, but it's not true for unfair dismissal or any type of discrimination claim. For example, in unfair dismissal cases the tribunal can award what it considers to be just and equitable plus a basic award based on length of service and pay.
Really? I had no success getting a tribunal to hear the case...this is for being summarily dismissed on unsubstantiated allegations, by the way. No pay, no real explanation, just asked to hand over the keys to the office and leave. If you're really that interested I can PM you the court case reference...
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No LVT, no dismantling of government protected cartels then (including occupational licensing)? What about protectionist countries dumping their goods on us? No comment on the insane levels of compliance costs?
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Meanwhile back in the real world, you can only sue for what your contract says you're entitled to during your work (basically, your pay). Or at least that's what I've discovered so far...
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Capital has its price controllers in the Bank of England, labour has its own in the Low Pay Commission. Reckon I know who's winning.
Don't forget land...and planning regulations.
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It's crazy. Should be an in-house induction, 3 hour training session and what construction call 'tool box talks', held once a week for 20 mins.
At the rate advertised, you'd spend nearly 2 days just paying the cost of that certificate. Crazy...
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The state knows a lot about them and has them on a leash, personally I wouldn't want to be in that situation. Then again you practically get an hour-long interrogation when claiming JSA (then subsequent interview checking 2 forms of ID and your answers)..
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Look at it from their point of view would your rather;
1) Hire the best person for the job who is less qualified on paper. (and get blamed if it turns out badly)
or
2) Hire the best qualified on paper, even if they clearly lack aptitude for the job. ( And now your backside is covered if it turns out badly- since you can claim to have hired the best qualified candidate.)
The interests of the HR person are served not by hiring the best person, but the most defensible one- which means the most qualified- which results in a paper qualification obsessed culture that screens out such non paper attributes like the ability to actually think.
Looking at some low-level job ads now...apparently you need to spend £50 on getting a food hygiene certificate to prove you have common sense when dealing with food.
One of these days I'll jack it in and barter as a farm labourer in return for a small share of the crop and basic accomodation...
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LOL... we avoided that, but of the 3x graduates we interviewed (those not asking for 5-8K more than we were offering) FAILED the most simple 2 Question technical test.
We ended up taking a mid 40's guy that had put himself through evening classes to get ONC/HNC from a local technical college because he was the only one that actually came close to getting the (VERY BASIC) test CORRECT!
That's not what I expected at all! but the grad's weren't even worth interviewing....It was all about what they could get! naff all about what they could offer!
You're at one of the few companies where HR hasn't been outsourced to agency cretins that sift by qualification level. Or even just cretins at HR putting undue emphasis on degrees...
I don't know everything there is to know in the field but I can't truly improve that knowledge without being back in the workplace. I'd hope that as a mature student I might be viewed differently for placements but it doesn't seem to be the case.
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avoid hiring unlucky people by throwing 90% of the CVs in the bin. The fortunate 10% can then be sifted on keywords.
Wouldn't surprise me if that is indeed what happens...
That's . . . true. You know I know nothing of the information technology world, being evolved somewhere between the aardvark and the missing link.
You might just consider an MBA or Master's in another discipline at some point, very part-time, do it whilst working.
I'll keep it in mind.
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1 in 270 electronic engineers/computer scientists/chemists/mathematicians land a job would be a headline I would be interested in.
Friend of mine who's a senior accountant at Centrica had to sift through 600 applications for 3 graduate posts...
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Well good and you should at some point do a Master's or higher. Don't lose heart.
Not much point in my field, things move quickly. Best to break back into business and learn on the job ASAP...
If Companies Honestly Cannot Pay A Living Wage
in House prices and the economy
Posted · Edited by HPC001
Did you intentionally ignore my posts supporting a land value tax? The tax would be designed to capture land rents and guard against speculation, rewarding productive use. It would also encourage de-urbanisation as land values are highest in cities (and areas with service density, public or private).