The Good News thread, local jobs, economy etc

[MooseBreath]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27010326

Wages to rise faster than inflation

[Rincewind]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27010326

Wages to rise faster than inflation

[Webbo]

If I do not like a subject in a thread I do not open it or make snide remarks in it. We all have that choice.

 

 

[Guest MattP]

6pm on a Monday night and Ken is shitfaced, you should be happy wages are rising, we need to collect more tax so people like you can get drunk all day before retirement age.

[MooseBreath]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27046681

Unemployment down yet again

Wages outstripping inflation

Finally we've recovered from labour's reign of incompetence and we're all getting richer again

[purpleronnie]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27046681

Unemployment down yet again

Wages outstripping inflation

Finally we've recovered from labour's reign of incompetence and we're all getting richer again

5 year low?  So there were less people unemployed when labour were in power then.

[MooseBreath]

5 year low? So there were less people unemployed when labour were in power then.

That's correct, back when we were borrowing an horrific amount of money to pay for jobs we neither needed nor could afford, and before the resultd of the financial crisis that labour presided over really began to bite.

[Guest MattP]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27046681

Unemployment down yet again

Wages outstripping inflation

Finally we've recovered from labour's reign of incompetence and we're all getting richer again

An incredible effort really from everyone.

Finally we are expanding the productive area of society again, if we can keep this up for ten years it's not an unrealistic target to actually surpass the Germans by 2017 and even I laughed at that suggestion at the time.

Has a politician's standing ever increased as much in a short space of time as Osbornes has?

Derided and widely taken the piss out of when going into office, now he's the darling of the press (Daily Mirror and Guardian excepted) and even being touted as a future prime minister.

[ADK]

An incredible effort really from everyone.

Finally we are expanding the productive area of society again, if we can keep this up for ten years it's not an unrealistic target to actually surpass the Germans by 2017 and even I laughed at that suggestion at the time.

Has a politician's standing ever increased as much in a short space of time as Osbornes has?

Derided and widely taken the piss out of when going into office, now he's the darling of the press (Daily Mirror and Guardian excepted) and even being touted as a future prime minister.

[purpleronnie]

That's correct, back when we were borrowing an horrific amount of money to pay for jobs we neither needed nor could afford, and before the resultd of the financial crisis that labour presided over really began to bite.

I guess the boom years couldn't last forever beware cameron.

[Guest MattP]

I guess the boom years couldn't last forever beware cameron.

Blair was clever, deregulate banks and let them lend what they want.

Barmaids on minimum wage buying Vuitton handbags, people getting mortgages they could never afford, needed a few quid? Get an overdraft. Need a job, create them in the public sector and raid the pensions and sell the gold.

We're expanding business here to create wealth, not begging, stealing, selling and borrowing.

It's like the anti Pearson mob, it's about time whatever your loyalties and thoughts on Gideon you should turn around and admit he's done a job job. You predicted triple dip recessions and mass unemployment.

You couldn't have been more wrong.

[leicsmac]

Blair was clever, deregulate banks and let them lend what they want.

Barmaids on minimum wage buying Vuitton handbags, people getting mortgages they could never afford, needed a few quid? Get an overdraft. Need a job, create them in the public sector and raid the pensions and sell the gold.

We're expanding business here to create wealth, not begging, stealing, selling and borrowing.

It's like the anti Pearson mob, it's about time whatever your loyalties and thoughts on Gideon you should turn around and admit he's done a job job. You predicted triple dip recessions and mass unemployment.

You couldn't have been more wrong.

 

 

Well, you know what they say about broken clocks, Matt.

 

I'll compliment Georgio a bit more when he gets the high-tech manufacturing business in the UK running and decreases the reliance on a purely service-based economy that would be vulnerable to another recession however long down the line.

[Rincewind]

Everything always looks better on paper when you use a magic pen.

It's like the fairy tale of the Emperors clothes. Everyone was told how wonderful they were but noone wanted to believe that he was really naked for fear of being punished.

[Guest MattP]

Well, you know what they say about broken clocks, Matt.

I'll compliment Georgio a bit more when he gets the high-tech manufacturing business in the UK running and decreases the reliance on a purely service-based economy that would be vulnerable to another recession however long down the line.

Wwkl make your mind up when you come back to the country would probably be a better idea.

[ADK]

You'd have to tell me why you think Osborne's policies have turned things around? You can't just use the fact we are emerging from recession as proof a particular chancellor is good. Do you think we would still be in recession under Brown? It's been a slow recovery really and we are only just starting to see wages start to break  even with inflation.

 

We know that public services have been hit massively. This could have a knock on effect 10 years down the line. It's easy to improve the present by cutting off future investment. Do you remember the state of public services at the end of Thatcher's reign? Considering the amount that has been cut from public investment, the growth in the private sector is quite mediocre.

 

We've also seen a housing bubble artificially created by the chancellors help to buy scheme, this is obviously going to end in tears with people ending up in negative equity and the taxpayer picking up the tab for unpaid debts.

[Guest MattP]

You'd have to tell me why you think Osborne's policies have turned things around? You can't just use the fact we are emerging from recession as proof a particular chancellor is good. Do you think we would still be in recession under Brown? It's been a slow recovery really and we are only just starting to see wages start to break  even with inflation.

 

It's already been explained, we are now seeing jobs, growth and wealth coming from the productive sector of society ie the private sector, one that pays its wages out of profit created and not out of the pockets of the citizens of a nation. You can't keep subsidising national industry, you end up running out of money, these are policies that have been tried and tried again and failed.

 

We used our good years not to pay off debt but to raise borrowing further, it was absolutely unbelievable what Brown did and we still arent paying off enough now (my one current criticism of Osborne but then again what chancellor can raise taxes to pay off debt, you would be kicked out, that's how selfish people have become).

 

You can't keep squeezing that productive sector of the economy to engorge in a pay off of the unproductive bit to keep your own people happy. I don't know how many times we have to fcuk up before people learn that.

 

How do you think pouring more money into public services equates to future investment?

[Guest MattP]

Everything always looks better on paper when you use a magic pen.

It's like the fairy tale of the Emperors clothes. Everyone was told how wonderful they were but noone wanted to believe that he was really naked for fear of being punished.

 

Where did he find the magic pen, it wasn't here in 2011?

[leicsmac]

Wwkl make your mind up when you come back to the country would probably be a better idea.

If I get back and still can't find work quickly I'll be coming for you for false bloody advertising. :-P

[ADK]

It's already been explained, we are now seeing jobs, growth and wealth coming from the productive sector of society ie the private sector, one that pays its wages out of profit created and not out of the pockets of the citizens of a nation. You can't keep subsidising national industry, you end up running out of money, these are policies that have been tried and tried again and failed.

 

How do you think pouring more money into public services equates to future investment?

 

You can't break it down so simply into "public sector = unproductive", private sector = productive". What do you define as productive?

 

Why is an NHS doctor unproductive and a private doctor productive?

Would the energy sector become "unproductive" if it was renationalised?

 

As for the future investment comment. Think of schools. Do they provide us with immediate gain? Could we save a lot of money if we simply refused to educate the next generation? Would that be a good idea? Same with hospitals. If we scrapped the NHS we could save huge amounts of money. Would it affect the workforce in any way? Prisons? Lets release everybody, it isn't productive to imprison people.

 

I'm pleased that the economy, and all western economies are in recovery, but I don't think the chancellor is responsible for that.

[Guest MattP]

You can't break it down so simply into "public sector = unproductive", private sector = productive". What do you define as productive?

 

Why is an NHS doctor unproductive and a private doctor productive?

Would the energy sector become "unproductive" if it was renationalised?

 

As for the future investment comment. Think of schools. Do they provide us with immediate gain? Could we save a lot of money if we simply refused to educate the next generation? Would that be a good idea? Same with hospitals. If we scrapped the NHS we could save huge amounts of money. Would it affect the workforce in any way? Prisons? Lets release everybody, it isn't productive to imprison people.

 

I'm pleased that the economy, and all western economies are in recovery, but I don't think the chancellor is responsible for that.

 

But that is the "productable" sector, without the Private Sector you won't have any money to pay for schools, hospitals etc, the Public Sector can't pay for itself, of it can, let it and we'll all be doing better.

 

Schools, as I've said before very important early on but now just a social engineering experiment from about the age of 14 it seems, I think we could do something a lot better, how many people would send their child to a state school instead of a private one if they have the choice?

 

The doctor analogy is flawed and doesn't need answering, it's the sector not the worker that is productive and unproductive.

[Webbo]

You'd have to tell me why you think Osborne's policies have turned things around? You can't just use the fact we are emerging from recession as proof a particular chancellor is good. 

Because we're coming out of the recession stronger than any other country, therefore he must be doing a better than average job.

[Alf Bentley]

Because we're coming out of the recession stronger than any other country, therefore he must be doing a better than average job.

 

So, presumably, up until recent months, when the UK was under-performing the likes of Germany and the US, he was doing a worse than average job, was he?

 

Here's a graph showing real GDP since 2008: http://europeansnapshot.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/us-eu-rgdpch-2012-11-15.png

 

As you'll see, from 6 quarters until 11 quarters after the crash, growth started recovering quite nicely.....so that would be 2009-2010, when Labour was still in power. Then, from 2010-11 onward, to coin a word, it "flatlines" for a couple of years. I wonder what could have caused that?! 

 

Recent months have seen an upturn in various indicators, but any fool can create a short-term boom. If those indicators are heading in the same direction in 2-3 years time, I'll gladly come and eat humble pie, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

Even the people who did the highly optimistic forecast that Moose has quoted stress that we're only just starting to see the first signs of anything other than a potentially unsustainable boom based on consumption fueled by people running down savings. Hopefully it will become a real recovery,  with investment, real pay growth and increased exports, but I wouldn't be handing Georgie Boy any garlands just yet....

[purpleronnie]

sssshhh it's the tories they can do no wrong it's always good news.

[Webbo]

16 quarters from 2008, that takes us to 2012 if my maths is correct, have you anything a bit more recent?

 

Obviously, if you stop the artificial growth caused by borrowing and spending and start cutting the money you can't afford it's going to take a while to improve. It's certainly not been the mass unemployment, triple dip recession that was predicted by many. If Gideon has done nothing else he proved certain "experts" wrong.

[MooseBreath]

You can't break it down so simply into "public sector = unproductive", private sector = productive". What do you define as productive?

Why is an NHS doctor unproductive and a private doctor productive?

Would the energy sector become "unproductive" if it was renationalised?

As for the future investment comment. Think of schools. Do they provide us with immediate gain? Could we save a lot of money if we simply refused to educate the next generation? Would that be a good idea? Same with hospitals. If we scrapped the NHS we could save huge amounts of money. Would it affect the workforce in any way? Prisons? Lets release everybody, it isn't productive to imprison people.

I'm pleased that the economy, and all western economies are in recovery, but I don't think the chancellor is responsible for that.

Education - ringfenced

NHS - ringfenced

Science - ringfenced

This government has made it abundantly clear that it realises the importance of investing in certain public sector areas which impact upon future growth. That's why every example of public spending you've used so far has been ringfenced.

The government has actually been criticised for not looking to cut the NHS, even by the guardian, because as everyone with a grip on reality knows, it is massively wasteful and a lot of money could be saved and then reinvested properly to improve the service.