Portillo - Idle Young Should Be Entitled To Nothing

[Authoritarian]

Quite right, it's all garbage. The truth is that the state can never help you - there are no answers coming from there, all it can do it squander your money and f*ck people up.

Forget it, the truth is that you'll only make it by your own efforts and realising this is one of the great moments of discovery anyone can have. many never come to realise it and spend their wehole lives dreaming for the state to correct everything, like BoomBoomCrash, and just grow embittered and angry at why the World won't just make it fair.

I agree, there is a mentality in this country that assumes that 'the council should do something about it' when the most effective and satisfactory way of getting problems sorted is to deal with them yourself directly.

Having said that a great way of undermining people's independence is through a booming housing market, the state can't expect to drastically raise peoples living costs without having a knock on effect on their ability to provide adequately for themselves.

Edited August 31, 2009 by chefdave

[the wizard]

...Forget it, the truth is that you'll only make it by your own efforts and realising this is one of the great moments of discovery anyone can have. many never come to realise it and spend their wehole lives dreaming for the state to correct everything, like BoomBoomCrash, and just grow embittered and angry at why the World won't just make it fair.

Why should you accept injustice? I understand your point - you have to live your life now, in the world as it is - but this is a rhetorical device I have seen used a lot. As friendly advice it is excellent, as a debating point it is total garbage.

You can make a difference to your own life through hard work, but it really is getting harder as labour is slowly devalued relative to capital. The reality is that most very wealthy people have done little or nothing to earn that wealth, and many very poor people have no real chance to do anything about it.

In fact we need more protest, more people unwilling to accept the status quo.

Tell me, does Roman Abromovitch's yacht not make you bitter? It might if you were Russian. Being angry about terrible injustice and inequality, and living a happy producive life are not mutually incompatible.

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

Why should you accept injustice? I understand your point - you have to live your life now, in the world as it is - but this is a rhetorical device I have seen used a lot. As friendly advice it is excellent, as a debating point it is total garbage.

You can make a difference to your own life through hard work, but it really is getting harder as labour is slowly devalued relative to capital. The reality is that most very wealthy people have done little or nothing to earn that wealth, and many very poor people have no real chance to do anything about it.

In fact we need more protest, more people unwilling to accept the status quo.

Tell me, does Roman Abromovitch's yacht not make you bitter? It might if you were Russian. Being angry about terrible injustice and inequality, and living a happy producive life are not mutually incompatible.

The myth that hard work is a route to prosperity is the bedrock of American society. The reality is that there are people working 2 full-time jobs in the USA and still existing effectively on the breadline. The average American family works longer hours, for lower pay, and has less disposable income than they did 50 years ago. Those that are prosperous that advocate arduous toil as a route to prosperity have seldom engaged in any toil themselves. The idea of making a success of oneself via the application of hard work and dedication is useful in engendering a puritanical worth ethic, but it is mostly an illusion. Take a look at the list of the top 100, 1000 or 10,000 richest people in America, those that got in that position with good old fashioned hard work and dedication will be statistically insignificant.

Edited August 31, 2009 by BoomBoomCrash

[Stars]

Having said that a great way of undermining people's independence is through a booming housing market, the state can't expect to drastically raise peoples living costs without having a knock on effect on their ability to provide adequately for themselves.

This is why the debate gets so tangled and is politically unresolvable

What is hidden from most commentator's view is that the state has taxation policies which raise the price of real estate and so raise working people's costs and by the same mechanism actually hands out what is effectively welfare to the rich in rents and capital gains. To put it around the other way - the originally installed welfare for the rich (real estate) makes the welfare for the poor and unemployed a political / social necessity...it holds it it in place by making abolishing it impossible.

We then introduce the correct observation that welfare is bad for people; but we can't do anything practical with the observation because we are only acknowledging welfare for the poor as welfare and so aren't even seeing four fifths of the problem.

[the wizard]

This is why the debate gets so tangled and is politically unresolvable

What is hidden from most commentator's view is that the state has taxation policies which raise the price of real estate and so raise working people's costs and by the same mechanism actually hands out what is effectively welfare to the rich in rents and capital gains. To put it around the other way - the originally installed welfare for the rich (real estate) makes the welfare for the poor and unemployed a political / social necessity...it holds it it in place by making abolishing it impossible.

We then introduce the correct observation that welfare is bad for people; but we can't do anything practical with the observation because we are only acknowledging welfare for the poor as welfare and so aren't even seeing four fifths of the problem.

Yes.

[Sheer Heart Attack]

The myth that hard work is a route to prosperity is the bedrock of American society. The reality is that there are people working 2 full-time jobs in the USA and still existing effectively on the breadline. The average American family works longer hours, for lower pay, and have less disposable income than they did 50 years ago. Those that are prosperous that advocate arduous toil as a route to prosperity have seldom engaged in any toil themselves. The idea of making a success of oneself via the application of hard work and dedication is useful in engendering a puritanical worth ethic, but it is mostly an illusion. Take a look at the list of the top 100, 10000 or 10,000 richest people in America, those that got in that position with good old fashioned hard work and dedication ill be statistically insignificant.

Indeed, social mobility is now more of an aspiration than a reality in the UK and the USA.

American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers’ generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds.

The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family’s income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.

The findings suggest “the up escalator that has historically ensured that each generation would do better than the last may not be working very well,†says the study, which is scheduled for release today. The study was written principally by John Morton of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is leading the series, called the Economic Mobility Project, and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution. Other participating think tanks are the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and the Urban Institute.

In 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s, a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, the study says, 12% less than for men in their 30s in 1974 — their fathers’ generation — adjusted for inflation. A decade ago, median income for men in their 30s was $32,901, 5% higher than 30 years earlier. Ms. Sawhill said she isn’t sure why men’s wages have stagnated. “It seems there’s been some slowdown in economic growth, it’s possible that the movement of women into the labor force has affected male earnings, and it’s possible that men are not working as hard as they used to.â€

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/05/it.html

Ability to become a monetary success is largely depedent on these factors -

a) access to start-up capital

access to short-to-medium-term financing

c) some knowledge of what you're doing and how it is positioned in the marketplace and,

d) luck - the most important factor.

In a perverse way, housing bubbles are a great way to eke out some new entrepreneurs by giving them access to start-up capital and short-to-medium-term funding through equity financing.

However, as the price of housing rose unabated, this again restricted social mobility as the amount you need to own property rose out of the reach of the ordinary person and the finance that could be raised because of it.

Face it, the game is rigged against us all.

As an employer, I think the minimum wage has set back the cause of the working poor because it sets a floor for employers who know that the insane tax credit system will pick up the rest. Why should employers pay over the odds for staff if Nanny is going to subsidise the staff?

Why can I pay staff members £7ph in 2009 when that is what I was earning as an employee in 1998? Answer - the minimum wage makes £7 look "generous".

As a person however, I applaud the aim of the minimum wage however and would like something more effective to replace it. What that would be, however, I don't know.

[bogbrush]

Why should you accept injustice? I understand your point - you have to live your life now, in the world as it is - but this is a rhetorical device I have seen used a lot. As friendly advice it is excellent, as a debating point it is total garbage.

You can make a difference to your own life through hard work, but it really is getting harder as labour is slowly devalued relative to capital. The reality is that most very wealthy people have done little or nothing to earn that wealth, and many very poor people have no real chance to do anything about it.

In fact we need more protest, more people unwilling to accept the status quo.

Tell me, does Roman Abromovitch's yacht not make you bitter? It might if you were Russian. Being angry about terrible injustice and inequality, and living a happy producive life are not mutually incompatible.

That's probably the biggest put-down of the value of debating I've ever read

I'm not bitter about things because what's the point? It's a useless emotion that does nothing to help you and makes you unhappy. If you can do something to change things then great - protesting if it produces a result, even long term is fine.

I don't suggest that someone can realistically make themselves very wealthy from little but they almost always can do pretty well; carve out a life, raise a family, have some loved ones around them. I agree with Stars views on land - not certain how they've be implemented but anyway - I just hate to see people arrive at the conclusion that a state-dependent

society is the solution. It isn't, it's purgatory.

[the wizard]

That's probably the biggest put-down of the value of debating I've ever read

I'm not bitter about things because what's the point? It's a useless emotion that does nothing to help you and makes you unhappy. If you can do something to change things then great - protesting if it produces a result, even long term is fine.

I don't suggest that someone can realistically make themselves very wealthy from little but they almost always can do pretty well; carve out a life, raise a family, have some loved ones around them. I agree with Stars views on land - not certain how they've be implemented but anyway - I just hate to see people arrive at the conclusion that a state-dependent

society is the solution. It isn't, it's purgatory.

Thanks? Anyway, I don't disagree with the advice.

[alexw]

Indeed, social mobility is now more of an aspiration than a reality in the UK and the USA.

American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers’ generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds.

The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family’s income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.

The findings suggest “the up escalator that has historically ensured that each generation would do better than the last may not be working very well,†says the study, which is scheduled for release today. The study was written principally by John Morton of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is leading the series, called the Economic Mobility Project, and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution. Other participating think tanks are the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and the Urban Institute.

In 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s, a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, the study says, 12% less than for men in their 30s in 1974 — their fathers’ generation — adjusted for inflation. A decade ago, median income for men in their 30s was $32,901, 5% higher than 30 years earlier. Ms. Sawhill said she isn’t sure why men’s wages have stagnated. “It seems there’s been some slowdown in economic growth, it’s possible that the movement of women into the labor force has affected male earnings, and it’s possible that men are not working as hard as they used to.â€

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/05/it.html

Ability to become a monetary success is largely depedent on these factors -

a) access to start-up capital

access to short-to-medium-term financing

c) some knowledge of what you're doing and how it is positioned in the marketplace and,

d) luck - the most important factor.

In a perverse way, housing bubbles are a great way to eke out some new entrepreneurs by giving them access to start-up capital and short-to-medium-term funding through equity financing.

However, as the price of housing rose unabated, this again restricted social mobility as the amount you need to own property rose out of the reach of the ordinary person and the finance that could be raised because of it.

Face it, the game is rigged against us all.

As an employer, I think the minimum wage has set back the cause of the working poor because it sets a floor for employers who know that the insane tax credit system will pick up the rest. Why should employers pay over the odds for staff if Nanny is going to subsidise the staff?

Why can I pay staff members £7ph in 2009 when that is what I was earning as an employee in 1998? Answer - the minimum wage makes £7 look "generous".

As a person however, I applaud the aim of the minimum wage however and would like something more effective to replace it. What that would be, however, I don't know.

7 GBP compounded at 4% over those 11 years, means that that individual "should" be earning 10-11 GBP per hour now.

[Sheer Heart Attack]

7 GBP compounded at 4% over those 11 years, means that that individual "should" be earning 10-11 GBP per hour now.

Thank you - I was wondering what that would be now.

The minimum wage is an arbitrary point (set low because of employer pressure) around which employers can tout for labour. I set my basic wages at 20% above and it makes me look like a good employer, despite the fact that the minimum wage has effectively deflated wages in these employment types by 33% against 1998 levels.

I wonder what my "1998 £7ph" would be now if the minimum wage had not been introduced?

The only possible way to make a minimum wage work for the poor is to set the increases against real costs of living - including housing/rent payments, tax payments etc etc. Even then, that way is fraught with problems.

The Govt have rigged the game against the working poor. All with the best intentions at heart - and we all know where those intentions lead, unfortunately.

[HPC001]

Thank you - I was wondering what that would be now.

The minimum wage is an arbitrary point (set low because of employer pressure) around which employers can tout for labour. I set my basic wages at 20% above and it makes me look like a good employer, despite the fact that the minimum wage has effectively deflated wages in these employment types by 33% against 1998 levels.

I wonder what my "1998 £7ph" would be now if the minimum wage had not been introduced?

The only possible way to make a minimum wage work for the poor is to set the increases against real costs of living - including housing/rent payments, tax payments etc etc. Even then, that way is fraught with problems.

The Govt have rigged the game against the working poor. All with the best intentions at heart - and we all know where those intentions lead, unfortunately.

I should really call it "maximum wage" now.

[mfp123]

Thank you - I was wondering what that would be now.

The minimum wage is an arbitrary point (set low because of employer pressure) around which employers can tout for labour. I set my basic wages at 20% above and it makes me look like a good employer, despite the fact that the minimum wage has effectively deflated wages in these employment types by 33% against 1998 levels.

I wonder what my "1998 £7ph" would be now if the minimum wage had not been introduced?

The only possible way to make a minimum wage work for the poor is to set the increases against real costs of living - including housing/rent payments, tax payments etc etc. Even then, that way is fraught with problems.

The Govt have rigged the game against the working poor. All with the best intentions at heart - and we all know where those intentions lead, unfortunately.

you have to bear in mind though that the minimum wage is just as it says - a minimum.

not a fair wage, decent wage, or steady wage, but a minimum. its the lowest possible wage you can get so its not going to provide you with an average lifestyle. for that, youd need an average wage.

Edited August 31, 2009 by mfp123

[HPC001]

£700 a month after direct taxation is not much to live on in London, for example, but a lot in Cumbria. Minimum wage is a centrally set figure with no real account of local variations. Still, I hear of employers wanting to pay their lower-level staff £3.50 an hour, to which I respond with: "Hire a 16 year old then. Oh wait, you think they're all feral chavs ".

[Guest sillybear2]

If anything a shrinking labour market should be celebrated, wouldn't it be great if we could produce all the things we needed with close to zero effort?

For a while maybe, but that would require intensive use of finite fossil fuels, so when our highly automated processes eventually fail and traditional skills and knowledge has died out we'll be plunged back into a new dark age in no time at all, not dissimilar to what happened after the Romans left these shores. Maybe we're already living in such a fools paradise.

[Stars]

For a while maybe, but that would require intensive use of finite fossil fuels, so when our highly automated processes eventually fail and traditional skills and knowledge has died out we'll be plunged back into a new dark age in no time at all, not dissimilar to what happened after the Romans left these shores. Maybe we're already living in such a fools paradise.

You have to extrapolated beyond the scenario, so what you are describing is not a downside of it.

IF we could produce everything with virtually zero effort then we wouldn't need fossil fuels or we could produce or replace them.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Stars

[ccc]

This is why the debate gets so tangled and is politically unresolvable

What is hidden from most commentator's view is that the state has taxation policies which raise the price of real estate and so raise working people's costs and by the same mechanism actually hands out what is effectively welfare to the rich in rents and capital gains. To put it around the other way - the originally installed welfare for the rich (real estate) makes the welfare for the poor and unemployed a political / social necessity...it holds it it in place by making abolishing it impossible.

We then introduce the correct observation that welfare is bad for people; but we can't do anything practical with the observation because we are only acknowledging welfare for the poor as welfare and so aren't even seeing four fifths of the problem.

Very good points. Never thought about it that way before. So we have covert benefits for the rich and overt benefits for the poor.

The rich though usually do something for their money. Admittedly for a lot of them - not very much. However they do generally work. So they put in some small effort into their covert benefits.

Those on overt benefits, and in particular those who have never worked, do absolutely nothing for their benefits.

[Guest sillybear2]

You have to extrapolated beyond the scenario, so what you are describing is not a downside of it.

IF we could produce everything with virtually zero effort then we wouldn't need fossil fuels or we could produce or replace them.

So I'm to assume your post-Utopia doesn't have to obey the laws of thermodynamics?

It's a zero-sum game, over the past century or so oil has made our lives easy, you don't need gangs of men with shovels when one chap in a JCB and a whole load of gifted chemical energy can do the work for us, this is our shadow slave. It's even better than the factors of production that originally kicked off the industrial revolution, with oil or natural gas you don't even have to pay men to dig lumps of carbon out of the ground.

Edited August 31, 2009 by sillybear2

[Stars]

So I'm to assume your post-Utopia doesn't have to obey the laws of thermodynamics?

No - it's just that running out of fossil fuels obviously isn't a downside of being able to make all we need with zero effort, because if we run out of something then we aren't making all we need with zero effort

There is no downside to having what we need with zero effort, is the point here.

Thermo don't come into it - there is no law of thermo that says we can't collect energy from the universe for all intents and purposes indefinitely (barring silly arguments about an eventual cold death of the universe)

Edited August 31, 2009 by Stars

[Guest sillybear2]

No - it's just that running out of fossil fuels obviously isn't a downside of being able to make all we need with zero effort. Because if we run out of something then we aren't making all we need with zero efort

There is no downside to having what we need with zero effort, is the point here.

Virtually zero human effort means lots of energy doing the job for us.

It personally takes me virtually no effort to drive 50 miles up the road and back, do you seriously equate this with 'zero effort' in the context of finite resources?

You're talking about running a modern industrial society with zero human effort or use of energy, and you say the the laws of thermodynamics "don't come into it?" I'm sure somebody has an OT thread about the latest perpetual motion machine or cold fusion device the Rothschilds are hiding from the world, I suggest you hop over there.

Edited August 31, 2009 by sillybear2

[Stars]

Very good points. Never thought about it that way before. So we have covert benefits for the rich and overt benefits for the poor.

The rich though usually do something for their money. Admittedly for a lot of them - not very much. However they do generally work. So they put in some small effort into their covert benefits.

Those on overt benefits, and in particular those who have never worked, do absolutely nothing for their benefits.

The rich aren't doing anything at all for the portion of their income which is this welfare (which is why i call it welfare) and importantly this welfare comes at the expense of higher costs for the poor. Also there are large numbers of rich who do nothing but milk this welfare. You could point to a poor person receiving some form of supplementary benefit and say he is working therefore he is deserving; he may be deserving of something, but he is not deserving of all he is receiving.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Stars

[Guest sillybear2]

But the rich aren't doing anything at all for the portion of their income which is this welfare and the importantly this welfare comes at the expense of higher costs for the poor.

Exactly, this is a rentier economy, controlling a resource then collecting rents and levies on something that would exist anyway, traditionally such unearned income was looked down upon because you haven't actually added any value, you have simply taxed somebody elses productive output. This is what the inclosure acts were all about, stealing a common resource then leasing it back to the peasants.

A government taxing your productive output to fund a benefits system or a private individual charging rents on inherited assets is much the same thing. There are parasites at the top and bottom of society, and the yobs and the snobs resent each other, if you can lessen the burden the idle plebs put upon the working population then higher rents can flow to the idle rich.

Edited August 31, 2009 by sillybear2

[Fudge]

The way employers get around the minimum wage is they dont pay people for all the hours done.

So an employer gets paid minimum wage for say 40 hours when they have done 55 hours work.

But on the wage slips it looks OK

40 X £5.73 =£229.2

but they dont get paid at all for the other 15 hours

so in actuality they are working for £4.17 per hour

£229 \ 55 = £4.17

In the past anything over 40 hours would have paid overtime at time and a half = £8.60 so would have earned gross

40 hours @ £5.73 = £229

15 hours @ £8.60 = £129

Total = £358

The dispute then is over the hours worked on time sheets and the agency saying if you dont like it take it or leave it

there are plenty more waiting to do your job.

[Stars]

Virtually zero human effort means lots of energy doing the job for us.

If we do all of it with our biceps we still have to find the energy

It personally takes me virtually no effort to drive 50 miles up the road and back, do you seriously equate this with 'zero effort' in the context of finite resources?

You're talking about running a modern industrial society with zero human effort or use of energy, and you say the the laws of thermodynamics "don't come into it?" I'm sure somebody has an OT thread about the latest perpetual motion machine or cold fusion device the Rothschilds are hiding from the world, I suggest you hop over there.

There really is nothing in the laws of thermodynamics which forbid us collecting enough energy from the world to sustain any kind of civilisation you or I could hope to visualise.

[spivT]

A superb article from Portillo, but what a bleak conclusion. In complete contrast to the hand wringing nonsense from Toynbee et al.

I watched the benefit busters prog on Ch 4 last week and was shocked that these people are given the option when offered work of turning it down. I then went out on Friday night with my partner. Couple of drinks followed by a (really rather good) meal and a bottle of nice wine. Servers in the pub, all Polish. Waiter and waitress in the restaurant, French. Taxi driver, middle eastern (did not specify where, but 3 months in the UK).

Then I remembered the programme on benefit busters and it occured to me that none of the people featured on that programme were capable of doing these genial, but menial jobs, as they were inadequately educated and inadequately versed in the social skills required to do pretty much any job to the required standard. I then reflected on my office. We have recruited 4 people in the last 3 years in middle grade accounting roles, suitable for part or recently qualified ACMA types. Our recruits were 2 Russians, 1 Polish, and 1 Dutch person. We have interviewed many many people for these roles and they are not bad paying roles for a 25 - 28 year old (all >£35k). The non-British candidates were streets ahead of their UK counterparts, in all respects, including in many cases their grasp of English..........

Unless our standard of education is ramped up ASAP we are doomed as a nation; this should be the Tory's number one priority.

Edit change 35 to 25

You sound like the accountancy professions' version of Arsene Wenger.

And you talk about Portillo being bleak.

[Guest sillybear2]

If we do all of it with our biceps we still have to find the energy

Err, exactly my point, that hardly counts as 'zero effort'.

There really is nothing in the laws of thermodynamics which forbid us collecting enough energy from the world to sustain any kind of civilisation you or I could hope to visualise.

We already collect our energy from the 'world' to sustain our unsustainable civilisation, that goes without saying, beyond fossil fuels our options are nuclear power (which also uses finite resources) or renewable energy or biofuels that have very low or negative EROEI. We can maintain our present or increased standard of living but probably at 20% of current population levels.

I guess we can pray for nuclear fusion or your cosmic rays to see us through.

Edited August 31, 2009 by sillybear2