Is the minimum wage a living wage? If not, why not?

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It seems companies don't pay a living wage so the state tops it up with various benefits - this in effect boosts companies profits (government doling out our tax to their profiteer friends?). So just who are the real benefit leeches.....I would suggest the employers using the state to top up the meagre wages they pay - not the employee who has no choice but to claim these benefits in order to survive.

Therefore the benefits system is there to make companies, and the rich, richer!

Hello Mel,

Are the Shareholders not one or two steps ABOVE the directors and CEO's of Companies?
The FIRST responsibility of any CEO or Company Director is to his SHAREHOLDERS!

The Government subsidies into public transport in this country - Air - fuel subsidies, Bus companies - Fuel subsidies again, and the Railway - well, the whole phookin' shooting match is subsidised, and the gubmint handouts go £ for £ to the Shareholder's offshore accounts.

Please do not cry for the directors etc of National Rail giving up their bonuses, they know full well that the cost of reparations after the two girls were killed and the court case, is going to need a wadge to sort. Many "Permissive Pedestrian Crossings" will have to be replaced by a bridge over the track! Pity (for the tax payer) that a former Tory Regime removed those in an earlier reincarnation!

Here in Britain today we have a thoroughly disgusting and disgraceful government which continualy makes sarcastic remarks about public sector workers - teachers, council workers, men who empty our bins and healthcare workers.

Yet this same government was reluctant, pushed, forced and shamed into saying anything about the head of a bank which is more than 80% owned by the government who was to recieve a £900,000 bonus.

The same bank which has sacked thousands of workers

This government is moraly bankrupt, it has not an ounce nor a gram of decency, it has no standards, no backbone and even tonight the chancellor has condemned those that oppose excessive rewards to city executives, he called it "an anti-business culture".

NO - Mr Osborne, its not an anti-business culture, its a call for fairness in society, and most folk want to know why its ok for them at the top to get handsome rewards whilst them at the bottom are been kicked in the teeth.

The Tories originaly opposed the minimum wage but they changed their mind - or hid what they realy believe in order to get elected, terms like Social Justice do not exist in Tory vocabulary, and they do not know the meaning of the word fairness, but mention money or profit and your realy onto their pet subject.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to arrange for a different Government.

Good post Witchfinder.

OW---"Arrange a different Government" ?

WHAT A FANTATIC IDEA!!!!!!!!!

Please, please go right ahead with this excellent proposal.

Just needs the Lib-Dems to vote according to their conscience.

Assuming of course they have a conscience

Here in Britain today we have a thoroughly disgusting and disgraceful government which continualy makes sarcastic remarks about public sector workers

Please can you give us some examples of this Witchfinder

Yet this same government was reluctant, pushed, forced and shamed into saying anything about the head of a bank which is more than 80% owned by the government who was to recieve a £900,000 bonus.

I don't agree with the bonus, but can you please confirm that Labour signed off on the RBS bonus contract in 2009 when Hester was employed, which contained no restraints on executives bonuses...Why did they allow this to happen?

"Restraints were left for the board of directors to determine bonuses.
They simply were wrongly trusted to carry out a fair and reasonable bonus stucture. However, we are not in a position to judge the importance of engaging the most expert available to put the bank back on course. Unfortunately, just like footballers, expert bankers are in demand, hense the high salaries and contracts.
Not good, not readily acceptable, however Hester has done a good job for the taxper in the long run it seems.

Not good, not readily acceptable, however Hester has done a good job for the taxper in the long run it seems

It really will have to be the long run Mel....£320 million was wiped of the value of RBS shares (Tax payers money) the morning Hester declined his bonus, with mob mentality over ruling contracts, there are obviously jitters around the banking world.
If I was Hester I would tell them to stick their job where sun don't shine and go back to his highly paid job he had before being convinced to take on the sinking ship

"If I was Hester I would tell them to stick their job where sun don't shine and go back to his highly paid job he had before being convinced to take on the sinking ship"

Few would blame him if he had done that. There has been a rather nasty bullying campaign against ALL Bankers, which should not include members of the rescue team brought in post-2008 to clear up the mess. There won't be many volunteers for any similar adventures in the future.

Contrast that with the Coalition government who have spent two years wringing their hands and crying about the mess inherited from the previous administration. Quelle surprise! Why didn't someone warn them, poor lambs?

Pay crap, get crap. The rediculosly low minimum wage shows that with people forced to take jobs they hate.

Give people a decent living wage and their efforts will assist growth and of course the Tory employers beloved hunger for profit

If we are to castigate and heavily tax bankers for taking huge salaries and bonuses, why not the same for all other overpaid over bonus owners and directors of the pther greedy huge profit making companies?

The deficit would be reduced in a flash!!!!

Lower down the scale, and with a lesser impact on the National Deficit, there are daily failures of small family businesses which no longer provide a living wage for their owners.

Such people are natural Tory supporters, but must now be wondering how they had got it so wrong.

OW........You and I both know that the bad times are not restricted to the UK. In fact there are many countires in a worse position than us and they may have a government of any colour.
If the recession was restricted to the UK only then we could quite rightly blame the government for all our ills, but as this is not the case we cannot.

It's up to the government to get us out of the mess and they will be judged on that in the end

Ah. It's a global problem at last...!

But let's not bring Gordon back just yet, eh?

oftenwrong wrote:But let's not bring Gordon back just yet, eh?

Why not. He bought down Emperor Ming, so why not Cameron. Ooops, sorry. That was Flash Gordon.

Bring back Gordon I say.

We debated on the old forum several thousand posts, continued here.

"The credit crunch, a global crisis or not"?

Many dissagreed (mostly Tories of course) now the boots on the other foot, it's a "global problem". Will the press castigate Cameron as the ujustly did with Brown? You bet your sweet life they won't!!!!!!

*king Brown along with the rest of the self serving troughites are the reason we're in this mess. The moment he binned his conscience (known as prudence) it was a free for all as far as the banks were concerned and he was the f*cking man at the helm.

That was a good posting when you put it on the old MSN thread two years or more ago, tlttf. Was it worth getting up for so early on a Sunday morning?

tittf

Its all very easy and so simple to say that the deficit was as a result of the previous government, but people with inquisitive minds and inteligent people will ask "why did the previous government run up a deficit".

And people who have the ability to think and question things will ask "what else could have been done other than to borrow money to save the banks and the economy".

It makes me mad, it makes my blood boil to hear Conservative ministers and MPs constantly claim that "it was the fault of the previous government".

The previous government acted decisevly and quickly ( as reported in the New York Times - Washington Post ) to rescue the financial sector and the economy from going into melt-down.

The economy of this country SHOULD BE RECOVERING, but unfortunately we are now governed by a bunch of incompetent people who havent got a clue, the economy of this country was in a better position in April 2010 than it is now - FACT.

WITCHFINDER.......Forget the financial crisis, Labour was f*cking up the economy well before that.
I get used to the fools on here denying everything that Labour does wrong and just burying their heads in the sand, but fortunately the majority of the population are not so easily fooled by the biased rantings of the incompetent Labour faithful. It is in Labours DNA to spend more than they receive, they just cannot help themselves as they think the answer to every problem is to chuck money at it rather than be a better, more efficient government.....see the report below from 07

Crowning the worst year for the trade deficit since figures for imports and exports were first collected in Stuart times, the government admitted yesterday that Britain was just under £56bn in the red in 2006.

Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that under Tony Blair, Britain's trading performance has been worse than under any of his Labour predecessors. Worse than under Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson, both of whom had to devalue the pound when the trade figures turned nasty, and worse than under James Callaghan, who was forced to seek help from the International Monetary Fund amid the sterling crisis of 1976.

More worryingly, the data showed that the trade deficit has been deteriorating steadily under the present government, with Labour inheriting a surplus of £1.8bn - or 0.2% of gross domestic product in goods and services - in 1997, the year it came to power. It was the only time the country has been in the black in the past two decades.

The latest figures show that the £1.8bn surplus in 1997 became a £7.1bn deficit in 1998 and the red ink has flowed more plentifully in every year since. Officials have yet to work out the 2006 deficit as a proportion of the economy but it will almost certainly be well in excess of 4% of GDP.
Only the strength of Britain's service sector saved the country from an even worse performance in 2006. The deficit in goods alone - primarily food, oil and manufactured goods - stood at a record £84.3bn last year, up from £68.8bn in 2005. The goods deficit is running at about 6.5% of GDP.
Up until 2006, the worst year on record for visible trade was 1974, when the four-fold increase in the price of oil following the Yom Kippur war and the three-day week left Britain with a trade deficit of 6.3% of GDP.
Crowning the worst year for the trade deficit since figures for imports and exports were first collected in Stuart times, the government admitted yesterday that Britain was just under £56bn in the red in 2006.

The UK ran a trade deficit with every one of its G7 partners apart from the United States in 2006, yesterday's figures showed. The deficit in goods with Germany was £15.5bn, with Japan £3.8bn, with Italy £3.7bn, with France £1.6bn and with Canada £1.1bn. There was also a £12bn goods trade deficit with China.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/feb/10/politics.economicpolicy

The numbers are subservient to the question, "Did they get away with it?"
So the apparent history of a disaster was no such thing, since people lived their lives quite happily in blissful ignorance.

Now we can't even do that, because the Tory-led government persists in rending it's hair shirt in public, forecasting austerity and unemployment for ever and ever amen.

TRADE DEFICIT

As an economic indicator the Balance of Trade is not relevant, and one very good reason why its not relevant is because there are successful economies who have permanent trade deficits.

Another thing to bare in mind is that a sudden shift or plunge into the red can often indicate an upturn in economic activity, this is not my own opinion, but a well known economic fact.

A sudden upturn in economic good fortune and / or activity often induces companies and business to import raw materials, machinery and equipment for manufacture and production; Falling unemployment and rising living standards can also increase a trade deficit through the import of luxury items, consumer goods, cars, clothes and electrical appliances.

AND FINALY ( on the subject of Trade Deficit )

It was during the Thatcher years that Britain slipped into a permanent trade deficit in manufactured goods - 1983 to be precise, the reason was that our manufacturing capacity shrank by one third.

This is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer "Nigel Lawson" said at the time.

"There is no adamantine law that says we have to produce as much in the way of manufactures as we consume. If it does turn out that we are relatively more efficient in world terms at providing services than at producing goods, then our national interest lies in a surplus on services and a deficit on goods"

If you look at employment in Britain most jobs are now in the services sectors, Finance, Retail, Healthcare........all areas where jobs are being shed. We don't seem to hear of many jobs in manufacturing be lost.......possibly due to the fact that there were not that many to start off with......

The latest figures show that the £1.8bn surplus in 1997 became a £7.1bn deficit in 1998 and the red ink has flowed more plentifully in every year since
I just wanted to repeat this again as it hasn't sunk in......As you can see it has nothing to do with the Thatcher years and there was a surplus before Blair came to power in 97.

It's common sense that is you keep spending more than you bring in, then you are going to get bigger and bigger debts. If you don't believe me try it with your own money for a year or so

Our 5-years-at-a-time Parliamentary system has the obvious drawback that
1. MPs are constantly worrying about keeping their seat at the next election, and
2. There is little incentive to produce economic plans that will come to fruition in ten or fifteen years time.

The only people who might rebuild Britain as a Manufacturing Nation would be the Manufacturers themselves - who would need to feel fairly confident that The ghost-of-the-return-of-Thatcher was not waiting in the wings.

The latest figures show that the £1.8bn surplus in 1997 became a £7.1bn deficit in 1998 and the red ink has flowed more plentifully in every year since


If you're going to talk bollox, at least pretend to have a "source".

Withfinder....here is the answer to your 'Providing Services' point. This is from the same article in the Guardian

Only the strength of Britain's service sector saved the country from an even worse performance in 2006. The deficit in goods alone - primarily food, oil and manufactured goods - stood at a record £84.3bn last year, up from £68.8bn in 2005. The goods deficit is running at about 6.5% of GDP.

OW....I have provided a source

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/feb/10/politics.economicpolicy.

Now let's hear your Bollox

What bollox excuses will you come up with now?

Could do better. Error in link provided ....

Sorry - we haven't been able to serve the page you asked for

Any chance of an article less than five years old?

Well I have no problem getting onto it.....


Britain plagued by worst trade deficit since 1697· Government statistician admits UK is £56bn in red
· Figures have deteriorated every year since 1997

Share 10 reddit this Angela Balakrishnan and Larry Elliott
The Guardian, Saturday 10 February 2007 00.01 GMT Article history

Crowning the worst year for the trade deficit since figures for imports and exports were first collected in Stuart times, the government admitted yesterday that Britain was just under £56bn in the red in 2006.

Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that under Tony Blair, Britain's trading performance has been worse than under any of his Labour predecessors.

ETC, ETC

blue. Unless you get written permission first, please restrict anything you lift from newspaper articles in future to no more than 14-15 lines, or we could get into trouble for breaching copyright laws. If I edit your message, you’ll think I’m trying to censor you, and I have no wish to do that.

I think you are confusing our trade deficit with our debt. It’s quite clear from your article that one of the reasons for the trade deficit was when North Sea oil as good as run out and we had to import much more: "Britain's increasing dependency on imported oil as supplies from the North Sea run out has been one factor in the deterioration, with a surplus of £900m in 2004 becoming a shortfall of £3.7bn last year (2006).”

blueturando wrote Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that under Tony Blair, Britain's trading performance has been worse than under any of his Labour predecessors.


Phucking hell, I’ve heard it all now. So According to you, as displayed by your total belief in one article. You and the author may have some fact in the statement. But it would have a lot more meaning had either they or you, mentioned the period between Tony Blair and his Labour predecessors. None other than the filthy witch Margret Thatcher. She is the bitch who almost single hand idly put this Country into terminal decline. How was Tony Blair to have a better trading performance, when much of our manufacturing had gone down the swany. Do you honestly believe that Tony Blair took over from where Callaghan left off. You forget 9Conveniently) there was 18 years of Tory rule in between, and it was in those years that we lost out on much due to our Tory created inability to produce to export our way to improved growth.

Even with the lack of manufacturing, Tony Blairs government where directly responsible for ten years of unprecidented growth. Just think of what he would have achieved had we still had all of that industry, the bitch swept under the carpet.

So before you call me and others like me “fools” look to yourself first.

blueturando wrote:-
It is in Labours DNA to spend more than they receive

Brown used all of the £22.5 billion from the auctioning of mobile phone licences in 2000 to pay down our debt. He paid off the last instalment on our post-war loan from the USA. He brought our debt as a percentage of GDP down from the 43.76% Labour inherited in 1997 to below 40% and kept it there until the global credit crisis occurred in 2008.

If Labour’s policies were as bad as you intimate, why did Osborne say in 2007 that the Tories would not only match Labour’s spending plans but actually increase them? Or was that just another lie to get elected – like “no plans to increase VAT”, no cuts to Sure Start and the EMA, and most notoriously of all, that guarantee not to meddle with the NHS?

Brown used all of the £22.5 billion from the auctioning of mobile phone licences in 2000 to pay down our debt

What did he do with the money he got from our gold or the cash he got from raiding our pension funds

If Labour’s policies were as bad as you intimate, why did Osborne say in 2007 that the Tories would not only match Labour’s spending plans but actually increase them? Or was that just another lie to get elected – like “no plans to increase VAT”, no cuts to Sure Start and the EMA, and most notoriously of all, that guarantee not to meddle with the NHS?.

All Politicians lie to get elected......Please tell me one that doesn't!?

blue. I think the gold was used to purchase foreign currency reserves.

No existing pension funds were "raided", Brown abolished the dividend tax credit, which Lamont had already reduced in 1993. The saving was used to fund the Minimum Income Guarantee (which later became Pension Credit) in order to help the very poorest of Britain's pensioners.

Yes, no doubt all politicians tell lies, but some tell more than others. I remember the outrage from Tories at MSN when Brown claimed to have increased defence spending in real terms for ten successive years, and it turned out that in one of those years the spending only increased in money terms. How does that compare to Cameron's weekly lying binge at PMQT?

What did he do with the money he got from our gold or the cash he got from raiding our pension funds

Blue,
the Gold - 350 tonnes of it was used to shore up the € euro which was having a bad time of it!! (poor thing) the pension funds - some say the funds were raided, whilst others say they wern't (whichever way you look at it, it is the DEPOSITOR'S money, not the fund managers or the chancellor of the exchequer's.

ivan, it does make you think, just what Herr Cameron would have done with such a windfall, we all, including bluey know what Thatcher did with the North Sea Oil revenue. Do you think Herr Cameron would have put it into the NHS, Schools or even lower the tax burden on the poorest as I'm sure Bluey believes he would have. What is certain it wouldn't have gone into debt reduction, but I do wonder what the highest rate income tax would now be.

We have been hearing for ages from the Tory pratts how Labour are for borrowing and Tory's for saving,

blue. Unless you get written permission first, please restrict anything you lift from newspaper articles in future to no more than 14-15 lines, or we could get into trouble for breaching copyright laws. If I edit your message, you’ll think I’m trying to censor you, and I have no wish to do that.

Ivan....I give up with you guys!!!! There is a fair amount of copied and pasted articles that end on here with nothing said....so I led to believe it's not a level playing field. If you want a board just containing your cronies, say so and I will f*ck off