peterms Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 2 minutes ago, Risso said: They've given Corbs a halo, what's your problem?! Ha! But why have they replaced his cock with a camera? What are they saying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted May 30, 2017 Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2017 @peterms, @snowychap thanks for the links. They're interesting, if sourced from a blog with a particular outlook. One thing one of Peter's quoted articles says I find interesting as a recommendation because it doesn't quite add up overall with labours policy aims. Labour says it wants to nationalise water provision, say. The reason for this is that private monopoly water companies, they say, over- charge customers so they can pay shareholders. same goes for rail. Now to the blog's advice from the quote Peter posted Quote Second, senior Labour politicians still seem unable to robustly defend their own position on this. You don’t respond to questions about why nationalisations have not been costed by saying you do not know what the share price will be. You say as long as we pay a fair price it does not matter what it costs, because the state is buying an asset that brings a return that more than pays for the borrowing. The logic of the argument is, I think, you pay (say) 1 billion pounds to nationalise wet water plc. and eventually you'll get the billion back from profits on selling the water to the public, via water bills. The difficulty I have with that argument is that the reason for nationalising was to cut costs to the consumer, which means either "efficiencies" ( cutting jobs, cutting wages, cutting standards, more water leaks, reduced investment in pipelines and sewers etc) or more popularly, no doubt, cutting prices to the consumer, meaning reduced return/profit. Which means the "asset's monetary value is reduced. It's an awful lot of faffing about, bringing water back publicly owned just to address alleged abuse of monopoly position by plc's. Wouldn't it be preferable to get OFWAT to regulate a bit more strictly? wouldn't that be a reduced burden on the civil service at a time where there's all the Brexit implications to administer and deal with, all the laws to roll up, new post eu laws to draft, plus all the other work labours policies will require of the civil service. Privatising water wasn't a good thing to do, but having done it, I'm not convinced the time and effort to renationalise is the solution. The same argument can be made regarding rail, to a degree, though it's perhaps reduced effort to just let franchises run their course and then do what the blue govt did on the east coast ( till the idiots re-franchised it). So really the advice can be picked at because the return is unlikely to ever address the borrowing if the consumer is also looked after via reduced bills, or it only will if jobs and wages etc. are squeezed, which isn't very labour, and not what they're promising. and the advice doesn't address the neutral in/ out columns of cost v asset gained, either. water bills are not really a major issue anyway, in terms of election are they? I think Labour is wedded to returning stuff to public ownership for reasons that are not really all about helping people, but more about a belief that we just should publicly own utilities and rail etc. Which is kind of ok, but bashes up against practicality and pragmatism in the current financial climate and Brexit climate. The economy is going to tank in the next 2 years but no one dare speak about that and none of the parties are accounting for a reduced economy and recession etc. in their manifestos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 hour ago, TrentVilla said: Frantic? Nobody is frantic, this sort of thing really irritates me. It's the sort of comment frequently used to misrepresent the position people take in order to try and make their view seem unreasonable, reactionary or OTT. There is nothing frantic about any comments on this topic in this thread nor in the media coverage. In fact the topic was initially raised by those seeking to defend Corbyn and put the blame on a bias BBC. If anything the discussion that's come after that is as much a result of the accusations of bias against the BBC as it is Corbyn having his Abbott moment. *Biased Sorry but that winds me up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 4 minutes ago, blandy said: The logic of the argument is, I think, you pay (say) 1 billion pounds to nationalise wet water plc. and eventually you'll get the billion back from profits on selling the water to the public, via water bills. The cost of the borrowing isn't the price that you pay for the asset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted May 30, 2017 Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2017 39 minutes ago, snowychap said: The cost of the borrowing isn't the price that you pay for the asset. I know. That's why I said no such thing. The price you pay is, in this hypothetical example mentioned in the blog post, the share price x the number of shares. In my reply I used an example where that came to 1 billion quid. There are then additional costs on top of that headline price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PompeyVillan Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 I've changed my mind on the leader's debate tomorrow. I did think Corbyn shouldn't attend but now I think he should. May has ran her campaign on the choice of individual and her own personality. If she refuses to appear and Corbyn does it undermines her whole strategy. And Sturgeon (Labour cryptonite) isn't going to be there either. In the debate format the discussion will be primarily around policy, where Corbyn is very strong. I did think initially it would hurt Labour, but the Momentum is with them, so seize it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 Hmmm, this is interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 30 minutes ago, dAVe80 said: Hmmm, this is interesting... How do they think they can tell what he earns from a few sets of abbrevisted accounts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 8 hours ago, PaulC said: It all sounds fantastic but when Corbyn doesn't know what it will cost to provide free childcare you have to question the realism of it all. I don't think he knows what he doing. It is poor I agree but on the wider subject of the manifestos (Forget about the parties for a moment). This is what they have collectively as parties, gone away and claimed to have listened to what people want and they come up with these. This is effectivley their big homework project for the last 2 or 3 years. They even worked in little groups of like minded ****-wits and this is what they come up with, poor, very poor IMO, they should know their presentation inside out. If I was going on the TV to answer questions about something i had written at work I would stay up all night and learn it and understand it or one could look a right fool ? Do they even add up, do they even care if they don't, they should all be a little bit ashamed that questions like this can be leveled at something they have had printed 1000''s of time (In colour) the words removed. There was a time (Maybe I am dreaming this) but a manifesto used to contain ideas to help everyone even a little bit or am I wrong in that "It was better years ago observation ?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 hour ago, blandy said: The difficulty I have with that argument is that the reason for nationalising was to cut costs to the consumer, which means either "efficiencies" ( cutting jobs, cutting wages, cutting standards, more water leaks, reduced investment in pipelines and sewers etc) or more popularly, no doubt, cutting prices to the consumer, meaning reduced return/profit. Which means the "asset's monetary value is reduced. It's an awful lot of faffing about, bringing water back publicly owned just to address alleged abuse of monopoly position by plc's. Wouldn't it be preferable to get OFWAT to regulate a bit more strictly? wouldn't that be a reduced burden on the civil service at a time where there's all the Brexit implications to administer and deal with, all the laws to roll up, new post eu laws to draft, plus all the other work labours policies will require of the civil service. Privatising water wasn't a good thing to do, but having done it, I'm not convinced the time and effort to renationalise is the solution. The same argument can be made regarding rail, to a degree, though it's perhaps reduced effort to just let franchises run their course and then do what the blue govt did on the east coast ( till the idiots re-franchised it). The problem with trying to regulate more firmly, control prices and so on is that the companies will game the system, issue legal challenges, cut necessary investment and so on. It involves a lot of burden on the civil service and other agencies, but on a continuing basis. If you control prices and profits are reduced, the corner-cutting intensifies, because of course ths only reason for companies to own these things is to gouge profits from the rest of us. I would rather just take them over, either at no cost when franchises expire, or at next to no cost by bond issuance at very low rates (or even better, direct money creation, but I'm not sure the public imagination is ready for that right now). Why mess about? Having taken them over, if there are aspects of the service we think can be better run by the private sector, like supply of rolling stock for railways or engineering equipment for waterworks or booking systems for airline flights, then use the private sector. Maybe not the last one. We privatised these things in the first place because of extreme ideology, not because it made sense. That's why so many other countries didn't go down that road, and their state-owned entreprises are taking over our infrastructure. It will take many years to unwind the crazed agenda of the evil Thatcher and her accomplices in crime. Let's make a start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 14 minutes ago, Risso said: How do they think they can tell what he earns from a few sets of abbrevisted accounts? Do the accounts not show the pay of the highest paid director? I haven't read them. But yes, he will certainly "earn" more than they would show, in any case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 It's a hard world out there, the prospect of playing VAT on your kids private school fees and all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 minute ago, peterms said: Do the accounts not show the pay of the highest paid director? I haven't read them. But yes, he will certainly "earn" more than they would show, in any case. Abbreviated accounts, ie those for small companies, don't, no. They only show the balance sheet and a few notes. What do you mean by "earn". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 Just now, Dr_Pangloss said: It's a hard world out there, the prospect of playing VAT on your kids private school fees and all. People make choices in life, and some people choose to send their children to private schools. Not sure whay that's such a problem, as if nothing else, they're not as much of a burden on the state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 Just now, Risso said: People make choices in life, and some people choose to send their children to private schools. Not sure whay that's such a problem, as if nothing else, they're not as much of a burden on the state. It's not a problem, so if someone doesn't like that prospect of paying VAT on it then they have two options (should it happen), put up with it or send their kids to state school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 1 minute ago, Dr_Pangloss said: It's not a problem, so if someone doesn't like that prospect of paying VAT on it then they have two options (should it happen), put up with it or send their kids to state school. That's really going to help the state sector isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 (edited) 1 minute ago, Risso said: That's really going to help the state sector isn't it? If the revenues raised are net benefit to society then it is fine. Edited May 30, 2017 by Dr_Pangloss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 16 minutes ago, Risso said: Abbreviated accounts, ie those for small companies, don't, no. They only show the balance sheet and a few notes. What do you mean by "earn". Then I wonder how they got to a figure not just for income, but net income. Maybe his missus shopped him. When I say "earn" abouf someone, I'm denoting that I strongly suspect the amount of money they receive is well beyond what they could reasonably be said to have earned, by the standards of what most people get in return for effort expended. It's a political usage, not a technical one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colhint Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 is it a net benefit though. Just googled the average cost of private education in England is £15500 so Vat on that would be £3100 Every child returning to state school costs £4500 to educate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 11 minutes ago, peterms said: Then I wonder how they got to a figure not just for income, but net income. Maybe his missus shopped him. When I say "earn" abouf someone, I'm denoting that I strongly suspect the amount of money they receive is well beyond what they could reasonably be said to have earned, by the standards of what most people get in return for effort expended. It's a political usage, not a technical one. Or maybe, they you know, made it up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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