Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Only in the most superficial way, look under the bonnet and you can see it is causing more problems than it solves Keith. Ill conceived and expensive to administer, going unclaimed by many people, all deficit spending, holding down wages.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
" Ill conceived and expensive to administer"
This may certainly be true, but not the fault of any potential or actual claimant.
" going unclaimed by many people"
This is easy to say, but I doubt that any increase in the claimant numbers would lessen the impact of the first two points above, it is more likely that many more enquire of the possibility of claiming only to learn that it is not for them.
"all deficit spending, [holding down wages]"
I suppose it is a matter of taste as to how many eggs a pudding requires;one persons too many can be another's too few. Nonetheless, it IS deficit spending pretty much only because you say it is. No employer while in the process of 'down sizing' concerns themselves with any concomitant increase in the deficit spend. After all, their efforts are expended in reducing their contribution to Public Coffers, leaving only energy enough to complain. [Barry, much of the argument you use comes across as a process of petulance. Can it be that wages are artificially low because Governments are plain silly in their efforts at boosting income through Public Spending? Are employers to gather their toys from outside their pram, and release these reserves of underpaid wages just as soon as their employees are homeless and in want of sustenance?]
NEWS FLASH!
Should (and I mean 'if') employers increase wages, lo and behold, they shall discover that fewer and fewer of their employees will be in receipt of Working Tax Credits.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
barryw we will have to agree to disagree
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Keith - so ......
It is expensive to administer - fact
It is going unclaimed by a lot of people - fact
It is funded by the current account deficit - fact
The only area of disagreement can be whether it is holding down wages.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
all barrys facts
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
there is no way that employers would make up a shortfall in loss of tax credits, most couldn't afford to anyway.
it is pure and simply taking money away from the working poor.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
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Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
and that puts them in poverty,along with others who have got kicked up the jacksy today.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
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Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Barry, what about people who work part-time and receive some working tax credit?
If it were done away with, they'd either have to go into full-time employment, or sign on.
Part-time employment has risen significantly, and many mothers do part-time employment too, but they also have to fetch their children from school and cook dinners.
Part-time on a minimum wage requires out of necessity a working tax credit and even some housing benefit.
I'm still convinced you have not seen through what you are proposing here, and the dire consequences such a mistake would have, getting rid of the working tax credit. Many hard-working people would be flung into poverty, they would HAVE TO sign on. They would have to live of 100% housing benefit, child benefit and jobs-seekers allowance, and that does mean POVERTY!
NO-ONE would work part-time at the minimum wage if they got no working tax credit and no housing benefit, because they would be working for much less than on JSA, which is already poverty.
You surprise me, Barry. This is simple economics in its most essential form.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
tax credits are a hand up for some
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Some people it seems do not know what facts are.
Alexander - your understanding of what economics is, is as good as my understanding of brain surgery. Zero.
If benefits and handouts are the answer then you are asking the wrong question.
It seems that some people just think in only the most immediate and basic terms. That is pretty typical of the 'left'' and those who think government is the answer whereas government and politicians are the problem.
I start from the point that we would all be better off if we had a competitive and sustainable economy. You need only to look at international and historic comparisons to see the evidence. Governments trying to circumvent all this ultimately damage the economy and reduce the overall levels of wealth with less to go around. In this process you end up locking those on low incomes into just that rather than open up their opportunities.
Alexander if you really want to have an intelligent discussion then you need to find out more about the subject. Otherwise we end up going around and around in pointless circles. I recommended some reading to you - read it and educate yourself. Start with Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and educate yourself.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
what a put down
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Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
barry,is that another one of your facts.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Surely the concept of 'growth' is unsustainable in terms of finite resources?
Perhaps a typical failing of the 'right' in terms of foresight?
Speaking of which, perhaps Mr Osbourne could do with reading some books on economics and educate himself?
If only he had grown up in a developing country and been given a free scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he could have really been indoctrinated with Friedmanism, as opposed to just hearing it secondhand via Mrs Thatcher and Ronald McDonald.
Perhaps then politicians could regulate themselves; just in the same way the Press is in the wake of the Leveson Report? ...of course under the regulation of Mr Cameron and the government.
But then we must realise that our current leaders may be more concerned with serf-regulation than self-regulation. The latter being one of the most hilarious concepts in itself!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
DT1 - back in the 70's I remember a tv debate where your point of growth was made. Too long ago to remember the details but they then thought it had reached the tipping point but was really just excuses for the failure of Keynes economics.
Your resources argument for growth is based on a far too limited interpretation of growth. It is not just about consuming ever more and more of our limited resources and, even that, does not take into account the full potential of re-cycling. (Yes, I have serious queries about how re-cycling is being addressed currently, but that is another debate). That is even before space exploration opens up more avenues to extend our search for resources too. So that is a false argument. Growth is not all about production levels, it is about wealth generation and that goes beyond the factory gate to new technologies etc etc. Many people in many sectors these days are growing businesses and generating wealth without producing physical material goods.
Friedman's Free to Choose is another of my recommended reading to Alexander but to fully appreciate that you have to understand the basics of Hayek's Austrian school of economics.
The problem in the UK is that far too many of the establishment have been indoctrinated by Keynes on whose ideas our post-war economy was built much to our cost. Politicians love Keynes because he provides an excuse to intervene, to borrow and to tax and spend. The problem comes because they forget the other part of Keynes, the bit about balancing the current account and repaying debt.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Ahhh yes that kind of growth:
Put up gas price 6%, announce profit increase of 6%.
Silly me.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
It is never as straight forward as that DT1 in respect of pricing. And, no - that would not constitute growth.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Now I understand, growth like that created by our creative industries.
The creative industries that have proportinally grown faster over the past 20 years than the UK economy as a whole.
The same creative industries that employ people from backgrounds that Mr Gove now renders 'not important subjects'.
Ah yes.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
This should save us a few hundred billion quid over the next few years:
http://order-order.com/2012/12/06/ice-to-see-you-to-see-you-ice/
It's like I've been saying for ages a big reason for our economy going down the tubes is the climate change act and laws that constrict growth for the UK.
Unfortunately Cameron won't listen - He's a socialist don't you know.
