The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[chrisp65]

Those production figures are not mutually exclusive though. Yes car industry workers are producing 2 more cars per person now than previously. But the total number of cars produced in the UK has almost exactly doubled between 2008 and now. 

So we have both more staff and higher production at present.

But even if we didn't, that would only be the UK and would not make a strong case for the argument. I can't believe the total number employed in the car industry has dropped in the last 10 or 20 years. The number of cars being produced in and for China and South Africa, Malaysia, India, Brazil etc.. It might not be the UK having an increase in employment, but companies aren't bothered by boundaries. The overall number of cars is rising. As are the number of people involved in the industry.

overall car production

Taking the most obvious and extreme examples in the table above. Since year 2000 car production in the USA has dipped very slightly, by a few hundred thousand units. I would expect, that due to increased automisation the number of people employed has reduced significantly. production down from 12.8 million to 12.1 million units.

Since the same year, 2000, production has gone from 2 million units to 24 million units in China. I think its safe to presume they've been recruiting. Similarly, production in India has quadrupled, its doubled in Mexico, quadrupled in Turkey and on and on and on...

 

I know that's only one industry. But I bet it's a picture that's repeated as new markets are opening up with new consumers AND new worker bees.

Agriculture is an obvious exception, unless you look at 'farming' and then compare that total with the new total in food production. We might not all be working the fields anymore. But I bet we're all designing soup tin packaging and driving Ocado vans and working in Morrisons. A smaller per centage of the population. But a much much bigger number in crude terms.

Fact is, right now, there have never been so many jobs. You can't be selective on what type of job in what year you want to make comparisons with.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by chrisp65

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, peterms said:

Never mind the numbers changing firm by firm, year by year.  This is the overall picture for the UK car industry:

Do you really doubt that there is a long-term trend that more can be produced with less people?

That is the point of departure for the piece you criticise.  You obviously dislike his proposed course of action, but surely the simple fact of productivity improvements meaning less requirement for staff is indisputable?

The UK car industry decline came about because Japanese and German and other companies made better, more reliable, more economical..etc. cars and our car industry was riven with industrial unrest due to atrocious management, some nobbers in the Unions and various other well rehearsed arguments.

In terms of producing more with fewer people - I don't think that's the picture. I think the picture is that the planet produces more with more people.

I think that's where the author of that article is falsely making a leap - if he's saying a car factory can now make more cars with fewer workers than 20 years ago, then he'd be right. Though that'sa lousy argument for UI. But we know that more people are working now on the planet than ever before. They (we) are rproducing more stuff.than ever before - more mobile phones, TVs, smart TV recorders, cars, planes and all the other stuff which is destrying the planet.

If you just go back to the UK, then Thatcher started the assault on Manufacturing and to a degree it's continued ever since. Rebalancing the economy back towards making more stuff in the UK would be a good way to go.

But it doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong. The article was claiming that UI was necessary to address all these apparently surplus workers circumstances. I totally refute the logic in that, and I've yet to see a word on how if it came in it would solve anything, without creating worse problems.

[blandy]

@chrisp65 Thanks. I thought it was just me :). I suppose in simple terms it's a mix of supply and demand - when demand increases more people get employed to make a thing. if somebody innovates or comes up with a new thing, then that new thing can replace an obsolete or fading older thing. Smart phones replacing old style mobile phones means more little glass screens and GPS chips and camera lenses and microchips. Fewer workers at Nokia and more at HTC or wherever.

The UK needs to be innovating, building, manufacturing...not paying people free money.

[chrisp65]

34 minutes ago, blandy said:

I suppose in simple terms it's a mix of supply and demand - when demand increases more people get employed to make a thing. if somebody innovates or comes up with a new thing, then that new thing can replace an obsolete or fading older thing. Smart phones replacing old style mobile phones means more little glass screens and GPS chips and camera lenses and microchips. Fewer workers at Nokia and more at HTC or wherever.

The UK needs to be innovating, building, manufacturing...not paying people free money.

The whole argument is built on sand.

Country's economies are not independent of each other, companies work across borders, there are more paid jobs now than ever before and the number is going up. The real problem is the opposite of the case being put forward. We have more people producing more shit for more people to throw away.  

 

But don't get me wrong. If we can tax Chinese robots enough for us all (on a planetary scale) to buy sustainable stuff and retire happy and fulfilled, great! 

[snowychap]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

But the total number of cars produced in the UK has almost exactly doubled between 2008 and now.

Where do you get that from?

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

overall car production

Your link here quotes figures that come from OICA and their figures for 2008 are:

Quote

2008 Production Statistics

....

Country            Total

UK                1,649,515

and for 2015:

Quote

2015 Production Statistics

....

Country            Total

UK               1,682,156

Edit: Am I missing something?

Edited November 21, 2016 by snowychap

[peterms]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Fact is, right now, there have never been so many jobs. You can't be selective on what type of job in what year you want to make comparisons with.

The author's point of departure was " The fundamental premise is that late capitalism cannot provide full employment in an advanced economy"

Yes, there have never been so many jobs.  But we are further away from full employment than we have been for some time, with zero hours contracts, people working part time who would rather work full time (many of those doing two or more jobs), and lots of people in self-employment and again underemployed.  That there have never been so many jobs does not disprove that we don't have full employment, or that full employment is likely to become more unattainable.

I'm surprised it's contentious.  It seems like an easily observable phenomenon, that has been much discussed, including here.

How we deal with that is a separate question.  UBI is neither the only nor a necessary response, and there's no need for people who don't support UBI to deny the reality of what the jobs market looks like now, and the direction of travel.

[HanoiVillan]

'There have never been so many jobs' is about equivalent to saying 'we've reached the highest ever number of years'

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Where do you get that from?

Your link here quotes figures that come from OICA and their figures for 2008 are:

and for 2015:

Edit: Am I missing something?

I can't find it. But you're right the UK figure is wrong. My guess is that I looked at half year figures. Also, I'm breaking in a new pair of varifocals today.

 

But the overall point is the same and stands. More people are producing more cars. Maybe not in the old car making plants in the traditional countries, but more.

[chrisp65]

40 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

'There have never been so many jobs' is about equivalent to saying 'we've reached the highest ever number of years'

I agree, it's bland. I'm no global capitalist economics writer. But then I didn't pretend to be, and come up with 'We have now reached a point in history where capital, the inventory of surplus value, is so large it struggles to find opportunities for further productive investment.'

I'm sure if companies have too much money to make it possible to invest they could give it to Elon Musk, I reckon he'd find a high risk high reward project for their money. What we've reached is a point in time where some very big companies have some very average bosses scared to take a punt. Maybe not 'scared', maybe they've just realised that doing nothing much is all they need to do to pick up their 5 million pound bonus every year.

But don't put a blanket judgement on jobs. Yes, there are way too many crap deals out there. But for some people they suit and shouldn't be simply disregarded. My missus wants to work 3 days a week because it suits her and the lifestyle she wants to lead. We could have a bigger TV and a shinier car, but opted for more walks on the beach. So don't dismiss short flexible weeks.

Then there's the full time mundane job. I know somebody that ran a Remploy branch. People would get up every morning, get themselves on a bus, and turn up at 9:00am to spend a day with friends drinking tea and putting plastic plumbing bits into little bags. The government decided such mundane jobs weren't required. 

There have never been so many jobs. The quality and worth of those jobs is another topic.

 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

I can't find it. But you're right the UK figure is wrong. My guess is that I looked at half year figures.

Sorry, are you saying that the OICA figures are wrong and the claim that UK automotive has doubled between 2008 and 2015 is correct?

Or are you accepting that UK production has gone from 1.649m vehicles to 1.682m?

[chrisp65]

11 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Sorry, are you saying that the OICA figures are wrong and the claim that UK automotive has doubled between 2008 and 2015 is correct?

Or are you accepting that UK production has gone from 1.649m vehicles to 1.682m?

It's a bit of both.I saw a figure and repeated it, but couldn't find it again when put under intense VT cross examination. But one thing I definitely got wrong, I quoted 2008 when I should have quoted 2009. It was 2009 that carmageddon happened. According to SMMT and OICA. Production in 2009 was under a million. This year it's forecast to be 1.7 / 1.8 million. The all time UK record was 1972 and even that was under 2 million. It's perfectly possible that 2017 will be the UK record for car production. There will be a handful MORE car workers in the UK in 2017 than there were in 2009. 

But again, that's a distraction from the overall point that there are far more people making far more cars than ever before. They just don't live in Dagenham anymore.

[snowychap]

45 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It's a bit of both.I saw a figure and repeated it, but couldn't find it again when put under intense VT cross examination. But one thing I definitely got wrong, I quoted 2008 when I should have quoted 2009. It was 2009 that carmageddon happened. According to SMMT and OICA. Production in 2009 was under a million. This year it's forecast to be 1.7 / 1.8 million. The all time UK record was 1972 and even that was under 2 million. It's perfectly possible that 2017 will be the UK record for car production. There will be a handful MORE car workers in the UK in 2017 than there were in 2009. 

But again, that's a distraction from the overall point that there are far more people making far more cars than ever before. They just don't live in Dagenham anymore.

It's not a distraction at all. You've selected an anomolous year for vehicle production in the UK and used that as a base year which seems more than a little bizarre.

And you're dotting around with year X here and year Y there and year Z here and from car production at one point (the under a million in the UK in 2009) to vehicle/automotive production (the US/Chinese production changes between 2000 and 2015) at another. It really isn't coming together. If you're going to draw conclusions from data (rather than find data that fits a point that you're already convinced of) then you need to have some consistency.

Your supposition may be correct about 'far more people making far more cars than ever before' but without the numbers to show it (i.e. that there were x million employed to make the 90 million vehicles in 2015 as opposed to the x million to make the 58 million vehicles in 2000 and then some breakdown by country), without looking at the changes in their multifarious contexts, without looking at it within the same time frame, and without also considering the stages of advancement of the industry in the various countries and differing economies it's not a very satisfactory way of trying to take something meaningful from the data.

Edited November 21, 2016 by snowychap

[chrisp65]

we both know I'm right

[snowychap]

Edit: There's no point.

For clarification: There's no point in discussing something with you @chrisp65 if the above is the level at which you intend to pitch your response.

Edited November 21, 2016 by snowychap

[peterms]

23 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

we both know I'm right

 

18 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Edit: There's no point.

[chrisp65]

smashed it 

 

 

 

[snowychap]

Grauniad:

Quote

Patients could be told to bring two forms of identification including a passport to hospital to prove they are eligible for free treatment under new rules to stop so-called health tourism.

The most senior official in the Department of Health told MPs on Monday that he was looking at making hospitals check patients’ papers to find out whether they should be paying, a proposal he admitted was “controversial”.

It would mean that those trying to access health services, including British citizens, might have to prove their identity before having operations and undergoing tests in hospitals, but it would not cover care received at GP surgeries.

Chris Wormald, the department’s permanent secretary, told the public accounts committee that passport checks were already taking place at one hospital in Peterborough which services a high immigrant population.

Wormald said: “On the general question of are we looking at whether trusts should proactively ask people to prove their identity – yes we are looking at that.

“Individual trusts like Peterborough are doing that and it is making a big difference – they are saying please come with two forms of identity, your passport and your address, and they use that to check whether people are eligible.

“It is quite a controversial thing to do, to say to the entire population you’ve got to prove your identity.”

Peterborough and Stamford hospitals trust covers an area that has received a high number of eastern European immigrants in recent years.

The senior civil servant told MPs that he accepted it was not part of “health service culture” but that it may be necessary to crack down on use of the NHS by visitors from abroad who do not have an automatic right to free care.

A National Audit Office report issued last month said the government paid out £674m to other European countries for the treatment of Britons abroad, but received only £49m in return for the NHS treatment of European citizens.

Wormald said he could not guarantee that ministers would meet their target to increase the amount the government claws back from European countries from the current £49m to £200m.

Other parts of the NHS have been experimenting with tougher identity checks. It was disclosed earlier this year that at least one hospital in south London piloted a scheme to cut what has been described as “maternity tourism”.

Expectant mothers going to St George’s in Tooting will have to provide papers showing they are eligible for free NHS care when they arrive for scans. Those unable to do so will be referred to the Home Office, and could face deportation.

Wormald said NHS trusts need to do far more to identify foreign people with no eligibility for NHS treatment if the target is to be met.

“Some trusts are looking to see whether they need to require people to prove their identity by bringing in a passport or some other form of ID – which is not the culture of the health service up to now,” he said.

“We are looking at whether more trusts should go down that route, as had been done in London and elsewhere, on people having to prove their identity.

“And we are looking at whether that is proportionate – whether in just some places, or the whole country.”

Wormald’s comments show that such an approach is being considered more widely. He said: “We are not here to criticise NHS frontline staff, but what we want is a culture of everybody who works in it to understand financial rigour. We need a culture where we are more careful with the tax pound.”

Asked whether the NHS will ever meet Jeremy Hunt’s target of clawing back £200m a year form European countries, he said: ‘I’m not going to guarantee whether we will meet it.”

A source close to the health secretary confirmed that the idea of passport identification had been floated and piloted and that plans for a nationwide scheme have not been ruled out.

But the source added that that the pilot was still at an early stage and that checks might only be applied in areas with shifting populations and large influxes of immigrants. “We have not yet made any decisions on this,” the source said.

A spokeswoman for Peterborough and Stamford hospitals NHS trust said: “In response to a national requirement, our trust devised a process for recovering money for the NHS from the treatment of non-EU citizens.

“This was looked at by the Cabinet Office and we understand our system may be used as a basis for other trusts to follow. We are delighted to have been identified as an exemplar of good practice.”

 

[StefanAVFC]

Quote

Expectant mothers going to St George’s in Tooting will have to provide papers showing they are eligible for free NHS care when they arrive for scans. Those unable to do so will be referred to the Home Office, and could face deportation.

Holy **** what a cheap move.

[snowychap]

8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

smashed it

Yawn.

[villakram]

35 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Holy **** what a cheap move.

Cheap... bloody communist!

Don't you know that the private sector is the most efficient way of doing things, bow down to the all knowing and most beneficially honorable King MARKET!