Your Excellency said:
Zomg, do you think we should abolish the minimum wage here in order to bring in more industry growth?
No way. The minimum wage protects vulnerable employees in low paid jobs from sharks. I would be in favour of freezing it for a couple of years, but never to get rid of it.
travisbickle said:
But the financial industry employs fuck-all people when you look at the amount it makes, the money is distributed in a small area of the country, the South East, and when things go tits up it puts our country into massive debt that it is then unwilling to help rectify.
I don't see how that makes any difference to how much the sector gives over in taxes. Also, you have to understand that London and the south east have cultivated a culture and the surroundings for people who work in the sector. Bankers want to live in London, that's why the industry stays in London.
The country is in massive debt because the government has been spending money it didn't have since 2001. The reason for our deficit in the UK is £30-40bn deficits in boom times, it is fiscal suicide to spend more money than you take in taxes during a boom on the premise that the boom will never end (end to boom and bust said Brown). Now we are reaping the 'rewards' of that fiscal ignorance. Countries that saved in the good times, ran a surplus are safe from all of this. Look at Canada, Australia or Sweden. That is where we would if Labour/Brown had run a a balanced budget instead of growing public spending faster than the economy.
Anyway, I don't see what the banking industry can do beyond what is already happening. They are deleveraging because they have been ordered to by the government (Labour and Con) despite what the Treasury say, I have seen memos telling banks to hold more capital.
pootle said:
That's the point I was trying to make, admittedly very poorly.
As examples, the UK makes lots of Nissans and plenty of engines for BMW but there's no way we can rely on them to keep increasing production here. As global corporations if they get a better deal anywhere else, off they go.
And as you say in any case the profits won't end up here.
Also, the reason people say Thatcher ruined manufacturing is because her government took the political decision to delete nationalised and state supported jobs. While many of those jobs weren't going to be sustainable long term there was no plan to ease the transition, no guidance or meaningful help. What happened was that the main employers in towns and cities were removed, leaving wastelands of unemployment, crime and hopelessness where before there had been jobs.
The same thing is still happening of course, but it's being done to one area at a time by individual companies for financial reasons rather than countrywide for political ones.
Yes, we need homegrown manufacturing. We need incentives from the government for companies to start businesses and to encourage the people to buy British. Now that we have somewhat secure oil supplies for the next 20-30 years from the new Falklands shelf it is imperative we don't waste this opportunities.
I agree about Thatcher, but the UK was going bankrupt. Her legacy of privatisation has lead to globally powerful companies like BG Group, but also to foreign takeovers of infrastructure. It's difficult to say whether this is a net positive or negative...
