Dezzy baby. We agree on that then. The answer isn’t to carry on building more and more houses in the south. The answer is to make some attempt to re-balance the countries economy. Surely that benefits everyone. And building a £50/80/100 Billion pound train set isn’t actually doing that

Based on what he said I may actually consider voting Labour next time. I certainly wasn’t going to vote tory.

But, saying that, I actually work within the energy industry and all the hand-wringing by the big firms must be taken with a large amount of salt.

😀

Oh, hang on, we’ve got one of those already. And look, it’s working:

If artificially inflating a bubble for already overpriced properties, in one very specific area of the country, is your definition of working, then I suppose it is, yes

How quickly Do we seem to forget the years of muppet based gov spending by Labour. Each time the Tories drag our sorry backsides out of the u bend just in time for the general masses to have utter memory loss as to who put us down there in the first place. Then Tories sell off state services and we all lose.

Politics in its current form (which seemingly hasn’t changed since the creation of the Labour Party)utterly leaves me cold. Bunch of useless weirdos that you avoided like the plague when you went to school with their sort and now they get over paid to pick at the bones of what was once our great empire.

Reality check! We are a small voice on a big blue ball and there are more pressing issues we can all fix with a bit of common sense. No more nanny state, no more taxation of this, that and the other. No more sweeping statements about saving this and freezing that followed by hand bags at dawn until the media get bored.

Politicians, please just quietly get on with sorting our country out, so people can have jobs and pride in themselves. Everything else is window dressing. Stop it and sort it out.

Well, you northerners don’t live in the overcrowded south where they take already overcrowded towns and expand them.

Yeah it’s pretty desolate up here. There’s so much room the roads are free of traffic, there’s no need for tower blocks and everyone lives in a nice semi with front and rear gardens, a garage and a driveway 🙄

The answer isn’t to carry on building more and more houses in the south

They’ll be built where the jobs are i.e. south, as builders need to sell them.

We can all band around ‘re-balancing the economy’ as a phrase, but I’ve seen little evidence of anyone achieving it. In fact taking money from the energy companies is not going to help, as all it says to business is beware if you do well in the UK the government will take your profits, hardly attractive to investors.

How quickly Do we seem to forget the years of muppet based gov spending by Labour.

GO agreed to match labours crazy spending before the US sub prime market went tits up and collapsed causing the global crisis- it was not the labour party which caused the worldwise slump in western capialsim now was it ?

What next – You going to argue the Tories would have regulated the finacial services industry tighter than Labour did to avert this

DP

Yeah it’s pretty desolate up here. There’s so much room the roads are free of traffic, there’s no need for tower blocks and everyone lives in a nice semi with front and rear gardens, a garage and a driveway

Exactly!

Well Binners we have come on a long way since the crisis. A crisis that had its roots in the combination of abundant (excess) liquidity and (artificially) low interest rates. Today we have…..oh hang on, ……abundant (excess liquidity) combined with (artificially) low interest rates. How times have changed, That’s progress for you!

So for the next irony. Labour goes for the inequality argument and we all know how income inequality has increased steadily since the 1970s. But what is the inconvenient truth here? Well between 2010/11 and 2011/12 I come inequality has fallen. But how, these Tories have policies designed solely to penalise the very rich (Reeve’s £150k club) and hurt the poor. And yet, Income is now shared more equally. Why? The household income of the richest households has fallen 6.8% while the poorest has risen 6.9%. But those nasty tax brakes? Well the top households now pay more tax, the lowest the same and the seicond lowest less. Funny old world!

Of course, where low income households have suffered is indirect taxation – generally regressive forms of tax. So will the Tories outsmart Labour with cuts in indirect taxation next week?

(Balls should keep quiet about the ONS since its their data on income inequality that puts the argument in some doubt!)

How is Milliband going to fund all this? Cheaper child care costs? guaranteeing jobs for the long term unemployed? It all sounds great and who wouldn’t want that in an ideal world. But it isn’t an ideal world and it will all ultimately cost us more either in taxes or by borrowing more money. You can tax the rich more, but that wont work. Why hit even harder the very people that either run or own the companies that employs everyone? This is a policy that didn’t end well in the ’60’s and ’70’s, and it wont end well in the future.

Threre is one of two things going on here:-
1. its a cynical tactic by Ed to win votes, get into office, then not deliver on all these policies cause he know’s damn well he can’t affort them.

2. He really is deluding himself that he can acutally deliver all this without getting us more into debt and screwing up the nations finances even more than the last Labour Government did.

Either way its not a good prospect. Don’t believe the hype, he’s lying or completely and utterly incompetent.

Don’t believe the hype, he’s lying or completely and utterly incompetent.

plus ca change for all governments, no?

Junkyard, I doubt the Tories would have increased regulation, but equally I doubt they would have spent quite so much money propping up the ridiculous levels of welfare state spending.

What country out there can afford to carry a large number of people through their entire lives purely because they kept on popping out more kids?

There is a massive difference between wanting to work but can’t, and those that expect the state to support them because it’s their right, having been born here.

Nobody is blameless and nobody is doing anything different to solve any of it! They just carry on playing the same old games they did when I was a child in shorts in front of the TV on a wet Sunday afternoon.

It’s time to stop empty promises rhetoric, throwing muck over the fence and all the other parlour tricks. Just get down to some serious work of sorting it out.

You can tax the rich more, but that wont work. Why hit even harder the very people that either run or own the companies that employs everyone?

You can tax the rich more

No need to tax them more, just force them to pay the tax everyone else does. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember reading that the tax lost to tax avoidance is something like 3.5 billion. I’d say that’s plenty to pay for childcare, apprenticeships, jobs etc…

Evidence that you don’t think about the real world. People don’t walk to work. 99% of people don’t cycle to work and wouldn’t even if they could.

In my part of the world 12% of commuters cycle, and 17% walk.

How is Milliband going to fund all this? Cheaper child care costs? guaranteeing jobs for the long term unemployed?

It leads to more people in work who then pay tax and spend more in the shops. In fact, cheaper child care will lead to a net surplus for the treasury.

I think 3.5 billion is the amount lost to actual illegal tax evasion, tax avoidance is estimated to cost more like 25 billion.

It’s a bit silly trying to compare supermarkets and energy companies. Energy companies sell one product and rely on a common infrastructure to deliver it, hence the opportunity for price fixing and profiteering is much greater than a supermarket and so requires regulation to prevent it. You can’t compare this to a supermarket industry which has completely independent operations selling thousands of products.

So how come the market with more opportunity for price fixing makes lower profits? The profit margins on the infrastructure you mention, natural monopolies, are already regulated. Also, energy companies sell a lot of “products”, not all of them retail products. Check out one of the big sixes websites.

Remember that the energy companies ‘profits’ are only the profits from the end-user selling.

Where do you reckon the energy firms get their power from? They buy/sell every half hour (some say it may be a cartel) but they make the stuff as well as sell it.

A bit like Starbucks saying they can’t pay their taxes because they make a loss. Yes the front-end makes a loss while their internal coffee sellers make a mint selling coffee to themselves.

On the supermarket front I can choose to buy my beans from Aldi, my bread from ASDA, my fruit from Sainsbury’s. And I can choose to change every time I go out every week. Not so with energy providers.

force them to pay the tax everyone else does

Easier said than done I think.

spent quite so much money propping up the ridiculous levels of welfare state spending.

Interesting thought process so which part of the ridiculous welfare state spending do you propose to do away with?

You can buy gas from centrica, electricity from sse, boiler insurance from another if you choose to. You probably won’t find it the cheapest way though. And certainly in the energy company I used to work for, profits announced were for the whole group, not just retail.

Seriously, think about everything it takes to generate and distribute electricity so that you can turn the lights on in your house at any time. Power is so essential sometimes it feels like paying for oxygen but I genuinely don’t think it’s expensive – and that’s me just lost my discount too!

It’s ironic that millipede has come out with this “policy” in the same week that a U.N. Report gave the uk an AAA rating for energy based on three main criteria, one of which was pricing.

Ed has overlooked that retail energy in the UK is actually cheaper than most of Europe as well as the need for around £110b of infrastructure investment over the next 20 years which I would guess the government will now have to subsidise owing to the flight of investors this attention grabbing but poorly thought out election pledge will almost certainly result in. “Ed” doesn’t appear to understand that a profit of several hundred million is pretty poor in an industry that has massive working capital to be serviced – and in his populist rhetoric conveniently overlooked that at least one of the big six made a loss on retail energy last year.

Of course, the new policy is in some respects helpful because it shows is that Ed is pretty clueless – this shouldn’t come as a great surprise to anyone though because as far as I can tell he’s never had a “job” outside politics.

How Do UK Retail Energy Prices Compare to Rest of Europe?

Berm bandit. It’s easy to say we should help all those that need it but the reality is that in not too many years there really won’t be enough to go around. If more has to be spent to prop up the debt, how long before China will have to bail out Western Europe? No, I don’t think they’d bother either, so carrying on regardless and waiting for the next guy in the line to pick up the tab is frankly a stupid idea.

It’s easy to say we should help all those that need it but the reality is that in not too many years there really won’t be enough to go around.

Rubbish. There’s easily enough money to go around to sort out pretty much all the social problems that exist in this country and globally, it’s just a question of policy and priorities. Sadly in this country and globally that policy is to have a massively unequal system where the rich cream off the vast majority leaving the scraps for the rest to fight over. It’s got nothing to do with there being a finite amount of money (which isn’t the case anyway), just one of how the world chooses to organise itself and share it’s resources.

Dazh

Really? Oh well in that case I’ll be off then.

Hang on…..

So how come kids die everyday and end up wrapped in cloths and left at a rubbish tip? Not in Africa…right here in the UK! How come so many elderly die of cold and malnutrition every winter?

Time to take responsibility for our own failings and flaws. Blaming inequality of the distribution of wealth is like labelling a fox a cruel for killing and eating baby robins. It’s not anything except the normal order. I am not at the top or the bottom of the pile but I think a lot of us can see that spending somebody else’s money without the means to pay it back in order to help more and more people that work the system is just plain wrong!

You can buy gas from centrica, electricity from sse, boiler insurance from another if you choose to. You probably won’t find it the cheapest way though. And certainly in the energy company I used to work for, profits announced were for the whole group, not just retail.

And I can choose week-by-week who to spend with?

And in the electricity company I worked for the discount we got wasn’t as good as if we called our own call centres and asked for the latest deal.

Great, so lets take a look at the company group profits as a good start. Obviously since they are in penury the profits should be about £10m or so? Strange how Eon had > €1200m, EDF > €16100m etc. (Quick google gave those). Yes, they’re absolutely going to go to the wall if they can’t put their prices up whenever they feel like it.

What’s also strange is that I have just received my weekly moneysavingexpert email with power companies offering very long capping of price. A bit like what Milliband was offering, no?

“How is Milliband going to fund all this? Cheaper child care costs? guaranteeing jobs for the long term unemployed?

It leads to more people in work who then pay tax and spend more in the shops. In fact, cheaper child care will lead to a net surplus for the treasury.”

No, this doesn’t work and didn’t work with the last government. The government borrows money to fund non-jobs, to keep people off the dole who then spend their money on foreign products and services, so in effect the government is getting into more debt to flow money into Sony, BMW and banks who provide mortgages etc.

When are we going to learn that we’ve been shielded from the true cost of living by government borrowing. What we’re seeing now is the real costs of living.

The tax evasion issue is being dealt with, but is a drop in the ocean compared with the Welfare State and NHS bill. We’re a sinking ship and Milliband wants us to take on more water.

So how come kids die everyday and end up wrapped in cloths and left at a rubbish tip? Not in Africa…right here in the UK! How come so many elderly die of cold and malnutrition every winter?

Like I said, it’s a question of choices and policy about the sort of society we have. We choose to have one where this sort of thing can happen.

Time to take responsibility for our own failings and flaws. Blaming inequality of the distribution of wealth is like labelling a fox a cruel for killing and eating baby robins. It’s not anything except the normal order.

Yes, the human nature argument. Funny though that time and time again throughout history in many places that ‘human nature’ seems to contradict itself. Again, it’s not about nature, it’s about choices.

I am not at the top or the bottom of the pile

Trust me, globally speaking, you’re at the top of the pile.

but I think a lot of us can see that spending somebody else’s money without the means to pay it back in order to help more and more people that work the system is just plain wrong!

So everyone on benefits or who requires help from the state and is the beneficiary of wealth re-distribution is a sponger? Right. I get where you’re coming from. 😯

No, this doesn’t work and didn’t work with the last government.

Except it does work, as experience from other countries tells us.

Yes Adam, you can change week by week. The same way you could change your broadband or mobile phone provider every week. It’d be stupid, but no-one’s stopping you from doing it.

The two companies you chose are multi nationals, the clue is in the euro figures. Not so relevant for a discussion of the UK energy market.

I’ll ask you this then, what is an acceptable profit for an energy company to make? Remember that tax is paid on these profits and in the course of their daily business these companies directly and indirectly support tens of thousands of jobs. No profit = no investment = no jobs.

Remember that tax is paid on these profits

Quite right. Just look at how much corporation tax Npower pay.

Oh.

Dazh

You had it in the bag until the end and you went and made an assumption.

Nope, many very worthy people need help, but quite a few work the system..

It just seemed that the Labour Party held their heads high as they blindly let this happen. It’s entirely likely that now there are many that should get help can’t due to the system supporting itself and failing all those that now are on their own.

Welfare has to exist for obvious reasons. But, why should it be that it is open to such abuse too?

I hope for a better way soon, but the current bickering style of British Politics is just not working…

Given – as a demographic – pensioners are loaded, then we really ought to just means test the state pension and anyone living in a house with more bedrooms than they “need”, doesn’t get it.

Given most of the welfare bill is spent on state pensions, then this ought to (1) save money on the direct payments and (2) force some liquidity into our precious housing market (by making the buggers sell up), reducing prices and preventing pensioners from sponging off their kids and grandkids.

Instead, we’re going to try to limit one revenue stream of some of the utility companies…. sheesh.

^^^ I dont disagree this generation of pensioners who got free education, rode the housing bubble and generally get good [work] pensions – generally far better than their contributions would have ever supported seem to be free from us touching them at all. They are certainly part of the problem and certainly being “subbed” by us.
I have not understood how they are untouchable but I suspect it is because they vote and they are more likely to be Tories rather than it being a moral reason

Blaming inequality of the distribution of wealth is like labelling a fox a cruel for killing and eating baby robins. It’s not anything except the normal order

You are equating a global economic system created by morally aware human beings with the actions of a wild animal feeding itself an somehow suggesting they are equivalent 😯
Frankly that is absurd
I agree its normal for a wild animal to feed itself however it does not need to be normal that we tolerate billionaires and accept the price is starving children. Its within our control the fox has to eat we dont have to do this. Whether we want to is another question.

The tax evasion issue is being dealt with

Yes of course it is you can see CMD going hammer and tongues and all out to hit the rich you really can 🙄

but is a drop in the ocean compared with the Welfare State and NHS bill.

Estimates of tax avoidance and evasion are fraught with errors but the ranges are HMRC @ £32 billion
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reducing-tax-evasion-and-avoidance
to over £100 billion
The nhs costs £104 so not a drop in the ocean by any stretch.
Its certainly more than we pay in unemployment benefits even using the HMRC figure.

PS the NHS is part of the welfare state so I am not sure which vulnerable group of your fellow citizens you think are “worse” than the tax avoiders tbh who will , tend to be very rich and equally “parasitic” but costing us much much more money.

Junkyard we are still mammals. However absurd it might seem, our awareness has not exactly won through at any given point in history anywhere.

On another point, has anyone really got a definitive understanding of economics? Really? Why does it seem like such guess work and bluff?

On another point, has anyone really got a definitive understanding of economics? Really? Why does it seem like such guess work and bluff?

It’s one of those disciplines that, because it superficially works in numbers, claims to be a science (and therefore speaks the truth). In reality, it’s just financial history.

No it doesn’t’ work Ransos. What other countries are you talking about? Greece? Italy? Portugal? Spain? France? I don’t think we need to learn any lessons from those countries.

How can any government earn tax revenues from public sector workers? If I give you £100 and you give me £20 back, I’m not up by £20, I’m just down by £80. It cannot work. We need a cash influx, not out flux.

Every penny that a public sector worker spends either finds its way back to the government as tax, or goes out of the country. But what the government gets back is less than what they paid out. Not a great business case which I’m sure would be kicked out of the Dragon’s Den.

Junkyard we are still mammals

Yes but even an idiot like you has more awareness than a fox * 😉
We are mammals but we are not like the rest
For example I choose to be vegan[ lets not go there] …hard to see another mammal making such a “moral” choice.
we have some Martin luther king and civil rights, Ghandi, suffragettes, equality for homosexuals. It may be along journey but we are driving the vehicle and not “nature”

No one understand economics and it does not have laws like other sciences have laws. It has patterns they almost understand at best.
PS dont tell them boom and bust is inevitable though

IMHO its a right wing club as well as I doubt it attracts anyone left wing to it – Sociology appears to be the left wing version as there is almost no rigth wing folk in that discipline
For the economists no offence like but I dont rate it that much .FWIW i think even less of my science degree

*Said sarcastically and not meant to cause offence if you object say so and I wont do it again and will apologise