IDS and his £53 a week claim. I give you.....the Conservative Party

Except the 10th man hides his money in his back pocket where no one knows about it so doesn't pay anything at all.

 

Is this comment for me? If so I don't understand what it is you're saying?

 

Mine was aimed at Leebfc10.

I completely disagree with you on politics but you usually make well reasoned points and I enjoy reading them. They are of course completely wrong though

 

As I thought, no irony. You've pretty much proved everything I originally said, that the Tories would prefer it if Labour supporters "shamelessly denied" any responsibility, meaning their 'Labour Did It' sloganeering would carry a bit more weight with middle England. Unfortunately, they're doing no such thing! Chuckle, as you might say at this point. Labour did make a mess with the banks, but managed to get the economy moving, with massive improvements to a woeful NHS and the education system. Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but equally not leading the country towards oblivion like Gideon and Co. Huge increases in borrowing in their short time in office, the NHS heading up the shitter and an education system veering rapidly towards meltdown. It's a huge leap of faith from getting lots wrong to getting every bloody thing wrong. Chortle (does that work?)

Oh and don't feel flattered. The only place I've been hovering is the theatre this evening. You're one self-centred individual if you think someone's sat there for over 6 hours waiting for you to reply to a post.

 

Brilliant !!!!

 

There will be a tipping point for some though.

Just done a rough calc and if I were to pay the 'living wage' to those employees currently not on it (who are all paid well above the minimum wage at the moment) then it would cost my business about £3000 pa plus the extra employers NI etc. Where's that coming from ? At a time when margins and profits are taking a hit.

There'll be a debate about extra productivity etc granted, but the fallacy that ALL employers are lighting their cigars with £50 notes whilst treading on their impoverished employees is quite frankly b0ll0cks.

We're in the middle of a massive recession, where any sensible employer is watching overheads and costs like a hawk.

I'm sure there are some employers who take the piss, but there are plenty of others - ie me who have made massive financial sacrifices to keep their businesses going through this period, and to ensure that nobody loses their job, in the hope that when things pick up then we can all reap the rewards.

 

I agree.
Exactly what EN said.

 

It's actually in an off-shore trust.

 

One of the issues here is the recycling of money. I've just had a pay rise. I'm fortunate in that I don't really need the money and all that will happen is that I'm going to save it (in other words lend it to the bank who will pay me a small amount of interest). But I'm not going to spend it, the banks aren't lending, so the overall economic effect is relatively small. If, however, I needed the money to live on, I'd go out and spend it. In so doing the money would be recycled within the economy, people would be employed to service my needs and the government would have increased revenue through VAT etc, etc. Funnily enough, this is one of the things Keynes proposed in the 1930's, and it helped the USA's economy recover from depression. Interestingly, he was ignored by the British government and it was only 10 years after the 2nd WW that our economy begun to recover (despite our access to commonwealth markets). If Osborne's approach turns out to be the right one in terms of the economy as a whole then I might find myself voting Tory. Pretty confident I won't though!!

 

Why aren't people spending as much now ?

Is it because they are reducing their personal debt or because they don't have any money ? There's quite an adjustment going on imho.

 

It's ok Mickey, I get that you are so blinded (dare I say brainwashed) by your party allegiance that you'll never grasp the level of damage done by the previous Labour Govt. We can agree to differ.

However I do need to briefly address your somewhat snide references to my earlier 'chuckling' post. If you care to switch to threaded mode, you'll see that this post was in fact a reply to BFC Dave and his exasperation, having himself switched to threaded to follow my discussion with him. It quite clearly wasn't a response to you or anything you may have posted. With a thread as sprawling as yesterday's, I don't know how we'd properly follow all the individual developing discussions without using threaded.

Fear not, I'll add the word 'misconstrue' to 'irony' on the list of words we may need to cover again in future.

 

You do that. When you actually understand irony, though, be sure to let us all know. And don't forget 'patronising' while you're at it. I'm not sure you're ready for me to explain it to you....

 

I certainly don't claim that all employers are shitting on their workforce while eating caviar and smoking Cubans. There are hundreds of thousands of good employers all over the UK providing valuable jobs for the work force.

Maybe, for small businesses below a certain turnover who would struggle to meet the living wage criteria, the government could top up that little bit extra for employees wages. It makes a lot more sense to me to have people in work getting a small handout from the government than sat at home with the government providing them all their money through benefits.

Clearly this is a half baked idea and I haven't a clue about the figures or the fine detail or anything, but a living wage would do wonders for the happiness and motivation of the work force and would be the best way to stimulate the economy.

 

Fully agree

 

imho the biggest positive is a move towards a £10k pa tax free allowance.

It puts more money in individuals pockets without having to incorporate a system of benefits where the govt takes money off you to give it you back.

That thing about employers is a bit of frustration from me at some on here that think owning a business instantly gives you more money than Simon Cowell and the tax avoidance ability of Vodafone. They should try it a bit before commenting. Just like those that think a life on benefits is a piece of piss. The truth as always falls somewhere between.

 

Whilst not extravagant £53 per week is living a decent life style. And is considerably more than I spend a week

 

What for food, transport, clothing ? you must be a very frugal chap !

 

Isn't that what Tax Credits are designed to do?

 

living a £5 is easy. £3 for a meal and work, diesel get to work. Obviosuly when i get finished a couple of months my expediture will reduce as I will have no fuel costs

 

I genuinely cant understand how anyone can spend more than £5 per day