On 17/11/2017 14:16, tim... wrote:


"Graeme" wrote in message
...
In message , tim...
writes

and yes it IS what I did

As did I Tim, and probably most who are reading this, and are of our
age group.Â* I started in a shared furnished flat, then bought my first
house, not in the best part of town.Â* Moved in with nothing new.
Everything, from cutlery and crockery to bedding and towels to
furniture and carpets was scrounged from friends and family.Â* The
spare bedroom was bare floorboards and no furniture, but I didn't
care.Â* It was home. An ancient B&W TV. Later, a twin tub.#

a washing machine!

luxury

2 hours down the laundry each week for most of us

tim



Or 2 hours on a succession of green line buses down to Epsom
to use Grandmas washing machine (and sunday dinner too).

On 18/11/2017 14:50, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
JNugent wrote:
The difference between a pensioner and an unemployed worker is that the
pensioner's position can confidently be expected to last for the rest of
their life (winning the Lottery excepted). It is as good as it is ever
going to get (save for that Lottery).

Plenty OAPs work too. Perhaps part time. And not always through choice.

Unemployed workers are in a different position: they can improve their
economic position by getting a job, or working harder, or getting a
better job. Their current position is not "as good as it gets".

Not quite sure how that matters when it's a question of providing someone
with enough money to live on. Unless you really do believe there are vast
numbers who choose to be truly unemployed. As opposed to those who claim
benefit while working for cash, etc.

If there's a chance to better yourself you would be more likely to be
prepared to postpone holidays, clothes purchase, house repairs &c. You
also have a chance to replenish savings spent on replacing a car if you
are earning.

--
Max Demian

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:17:56 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:38:58 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:

In article ,
Mark wrote:
Go for the basics. The basic OAP for a single person (assuming full
contribution years) is £119 The basic uneployment benefit if under 25 is
£57. Both can be supplemented by means tested benefits if eligible.

Now either one is super generous or one is parsimonious.

IMHO neither are generous.

Quite. Thus if you agree 119 isn't generous for a single OAP to live on,


That £119 figure is incorrect.

The current pension starts at £155 (plus inflation increases since it
was introduced) and anyone on the old pension and only receiving the
base amount will be getting other benefits.

just how is half that generous for a younger person?

The young person's benefit is supposed to be a stop-gap, not a life
style choice, and if they cannot afford to live on their benefits then
they have the option of getting off their arse and working.

So do retired people, and many do. It's not an ideal situation, but
it's the way of the world.

And I find it as depressing as hell that there are people out there that
think we should encourage young people not to work by paying them enough
in benefits so that they never need to.

I don't accept that idea. There is plenty of incentives to work right
now.

That is not being kind or benevolent but as evil as **** and is taking
away any and all possibilities for improvement and a better life.


--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On 18/11/2017 11:29, Fredxxx wrote:
On 18/11/2017 11:00, Graeme wrote:
In message , Fredxxx
writes

Average salaries meanwhile have risen from £2,170 in 1973 to £28,200
in 2016, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

This means that on average people needed 4.5 times their salary in
the late 1970s to buy a home while today, they need 7.3 times.

Interesting statistics, and fairly depressing, too, for youngsters
today.Â* Back then, the usual maximum mortgage was 2.5 times main
salary, plus once second salary.Â* Then again, very few people would
have been able to borrow more than eighty % of valuation.

There are some here who are in denial of the consequence of the double
whammy where immigration has increased demand and the price of housing
and at the same time an influx of workers has depressed wages.

It's probably the best indicator of why we're leaving the EU.

It is the no. 1 reason why people voted to leave the UK.

On 17/11/2017 10:39, wrote:
2. Because as the programme showed, interviewing workshy deadbeats takes up a lot of time and effort, hence cost.

Was it this program where someone remarked that people only go to
the Job Centre to get benefits. Those that want to work go to an Agency.

On 17/11/2017 11:36, Robin wrote:
Employees can bring a claim for unfair dismissal on grounds of
discrimination ( age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and
civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief,
sex and sexual orientation).Â* And other things such as exercising their
rights not to work Sundays.

But if the worker is totally useless, the employer cannot easily
get rid of him (or her). This is why they like to use agencies.

On 18/11/2017 12:33, Mark wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 12:22:17 +0000, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/11/2017 10:32, Fredxxx wrote:

On 18/11/2017 02:02, Rod Speed wrote:
"Fredxxx" wrote:

[ ... ]

How many loaves of bread would that have bought?

Thats a lousy measure of income even for low paid people.

Well, we all have to eat.
Perhaps you would prefer a house price comparison? We all have to live
somewhe

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/m...-50-years.html

House prices have risen from an average of £9,767 in 1973 to £205,936
today according to figures from Nationwide.

Average salaries meanwhile have risen from £2,170 in 1973 to £28,200 in
2016, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

This means that on average people needed 4.5 times their salary in the
late 1970s to buy a home while today, they need 7.3 times.

I wonder how much of that is due to the explosion of housing for sale in
London and the South East? A disproportionate increase here drags up the
national average without the effect being as big for individuals.

Huh? Housing prices have risen excessively in most/all areas, not
just London and the SE. Take for example my area. The average house
price is £329,075 and the average income is about £25K, which makes it
about 13x salary. And this is nowhere near London or the SE.

I bought a modern 3-bed house (four years old) in Q3 1977 for £7,000.
This was in the S Lancs plain. Today, the same house might be worth
£65,000 (but only if a subsequent owner has installed a better kitchen
plus central heating). The house is completely acceptable as a
residence, with a large corner plot and parking for several cars.

I am very surprised that such a house could be bought for this kind of
amount, anywhere, unless it had very serious problems like subsidence.

£65,000 is still only about 2.5 times the average salary for the
sub-region (according to various online sources which estimate local
earnings at between £25,000 and £26,000). Without those improvements,
you'd expect a price lower by about £10,000 and a 2.2 ratio to average
local earnings.

Around here you couldn't get a shed for £65K and average earnings are
around the same.

Your comment only illustrate how out of touch you are with house prices
across the UK. £120,000 for a 2-3 bedroom terraced house is commonplace
in the North of England and most of Scotland (exc. close to the centre
of the large cities)

On 17/11/2017 12:21, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
I'm not up-to-date with what's on offer, but I thought benefits for
those who are in theory able to work are only available if they can
show they are actively looking for work.

They do. They just go into the job centre and go through the motions of
looking for a job or make electronic enquiries about jobs that they
are impossibly unqualified to do, just to avoid 'sanctions'.

The females have the ultimate get-out-of-jail weapon. When the
youngest child reaches the age that mother is supposed to go
back to work, she just accidentally meets up with the 'absent'
father(s) and starts another sprog.

On 17/11/2017 13:09, tim... wrote:
she didn't say whether she signed it or sent them off with flea in their
ear.

Yes she did, and pointed out the broken glass in the window
from a disgruntled benefit cheat who she had said 'NO' to.

On 17/11/2017 13:56, pamela wrote:
On 13:26 17 Nov 2017, alan_m wrote:

On 17/11/2017 12:21, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I have brought many new graduates into the computing industry.
Back when I started doing this in the 1980's, it took about 2
years before they started paying back - until that point they
are consuming more management/training resources than they
contribute back in work. So unless they stay for probably 4-5
years, they were only a drain on the company. This was within a
large UK company (GEC).


But back then the GEC/Marconi way was to de-skill the graduates
first by giving them completely menial tasks and then at the end
of the second year re-train then in the inefficient corporate
ways.

Sounds like joining a religious cult! Your old values are wiped
out and then new ones installed.

These days you may find that with certain ways of recruitment to
weed out the dross before employment, sponsored formal training
and giving work experience in holiday periods before full time
employment gets you well motivated graduates that give
productive output in a very short time. Long gone are the days
when an engineering graduate will have (or want) the same job
for life or even possibly stay with their first company for more
than a couple of years.

Companies have partly brought that upon themselves by mass firings
of loyal workers who, rightly or worngly can no longer rely onthe
company rtaining them through thick and thin.

Even with more highly paid skilled jobs poor management will
give you an inefficient work force.

When I worked for GEC in the early 1990s failed engineers became
managers who were then promoted to a level of incompetence.

I've seen that too many times: promote someone out of the way so
they don't mess things up any more.

+1

Nothing has changed. Now they can also become elected councillors
or (Euro) MPs as well.

On 18/11/2017 14:34, Andrew wrote:
On 18/11/2017 08:10, Graeme wrote:
In message ,
harry writes

My first house cost £400 in 1970.

Crikey.Â* Where was that?Â* My first house, 1975, was £10,250, Bristol.
I sold it for a modest profit two years later, and moved to Stoke
Poges, where I bought a maisonette for £12,500.Â* Another two years
later (1979), I sold that for £25,000 which was a handsome profit.
Moving to Colchester, that bought me a three bed detached house.

I sold my last one for £400,000. (Downsized)

Downsizing is on our minds.Â* Would certainly release some useful capital.

I'm afraid that I'm hoping Spreadsheet Phil will carry out a one-off
change to stamp duty to make the seller pay and not the buyer.

This will help the FTB, and claw back some of the massive over-valuation
that the UK housing stock has reached.

Australian-style restrictions on ownership of residential
property by non-doms and ltd co's would help too.
The whole of Chelsea and Kensington will be on the market the next day then.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:09:59 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:58:54 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:23:33 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 13:47:26 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 10:32:33 +0000, Fredxxx wrote:

On 18/11/2017 02:02, Rod Speed wrote:
This means that on average people needed 4.5 times their salary
in the
late 1970s to buy a home while today, they need 7.3 times.

What puzzles me though is that they do manage it though, to pay that
amount, and if they couldn't afford those prices they would surely fall.

Unfortunately for the average is there are enough rich people to pay
the excessive costs, otherwise the prices would fall and ordinary
people would be able to afford to buy.

What is a "rich person" in your opinion?

That's a good question. Someone with considerably more money than the
average person.

That's silly. The median wage is around £27,000 or £28,000 I think and
earning £30,000 for example, does not make you "rich".


There is such a divide between people with lots of
money and people without.

What is your idea of "lots of money"?

Corbyn earns an MP's salary plus as allowance for being leader of the
opposition plus he has pensions and he says he is not rich.


I ask because if all these rich people are snapping up all the averagely
priced homes, then there must be a heck of a lot of them, so why does
that not make the average income a higher value?

Because companies can get away without giving generous pay rises. And
the average price for homes is rising. As I said before there are
"sufficent" numbers of wealthy people to push up the price of housing,
otherwise it wouldn't be happening.

That is your theory indeed, but where is your proof? Where is your proof
that people on an average income are not able to afford houses in their
greater area? So within commuting distance to their work.

My friend's daughter and husband and two kids live a short distance from
me in a bigger house than I have. She is a copper, he is a postman and
also designs logos. They have two cars and they had a holiday abroad in
the summer.

Are these people rich?





When I bought my first home, a tiny flat that needed a complete
refurbish, I put down a 20% deposit but still struggled like hell to
afford to pay the mortgage and the bills, especially when interest rates
went through the roof when my unavoidable outgoings were greater than my
income for a few months.

A lot of us had exactly the same issues. I had to let out the spare
room in my first house in order to afford the rising mortgage
payments.

I do not know in what way, but something clearly does not stack up when
a simple comparison of average wages and average house prices is used to
decide whether or not homes in general are affordable.

It's down to the rich buying houses as an investment IMHO.

You are referring to buy-to-let?

That's part of it but people do buy houses purely as an investment and
do not let them out, but keep them empty.

We all know that happens in London, really expensive houses though that
are outside of the average person's league, but I have never heard of
that happening around here - even in the nearby city.

Do you actually have proof this is a wholesale issue that is pushing up
the average prices of average properties?

On 17/11/2017 14:01, pamela wrote:
Being disabled with a minor condition can be a key to the benefits
system. So can having lots of kids. Also, being retired is now more
comfy than it used to be.

Hence the astonishing rise in the number of kids being 'diagnosed'
with autism or ADHD.

This opens wonderful pathways to riches to single mothers making
a career out of milking the benefit system.

On 18/11/2017 14:38, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Mark wrote:
Go for the basics. The basic OAP for a single person (assuming full
contribution years) is £119 The basic uneployment benefit if under 25 is
£57. Both can be supplemented by means tested benefits if eligible.

Now either one is super generous or one is parsimonious.

IMHO neither are generous.

Quite. Thus if you agree 119 isn't generous for a single OAP to live on,
just how is half that generous for a younger person?

The proof is in the pudding: if it weren't generous and provide them
with comfortable enough life, then they would be forced to try and find
work (which they are not doing).

On 18/11/17 14:55, Mark wrote:
I'm sure (almost) everyone wants a higher standard
of living but there aren't an unlimited amount of better paid jobs
available.

Excepting terminal political stupidity, Britains problem is that it has
too many people and too few natural resources.

employment, as any labour government knows, is assured by employing
people to dig holes and fiull them in again, or 'public sector workers'
as it's known.

But no amount of make-believe jobs grows potatoes, or builds housing,
and the competition of land space is for both.

Higher wages for builders also push up housing costs. As do extreme
environmental regulation, and land shoratges.

In the end the nations wealth is what it can produce that is actually
wanted. Not how many parking attendants the council employs to tax
motorists to pay the attendants wages.

We have too many people on too little land and too many jobs that are
makework and not productive in some way.

Limiting immigrations is but one step.

We also need to cut down on stupid public sector work. People don't need
to go to university. They dont need to be lectured in gender politics.
Nor do they need to spend their lives making other peoples lives miserable.

If half the people the council employs learnt how to fill potholes,
instead of dealing with claims from people who have smashed wheels in
them the roads would be a better place.



--
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the
gospel of envy.

Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

On 18/11/2017 12:01, Mark wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 10:32:56 -0000, "tim..."
wrote:



"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:12:08 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 15:39:21 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 12:32:13 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

Thanks for the review and I will try to watch on catch up later.

It is what many of us already know but it still has to be demonstrated
sometimes, to remind people what is really going on here and I am
particularly interested in your observations about the minimum and
living wage and agree that for youngsters with no work skills in their
first employment, it is too high. As are benefits.

Or maybe the pay rates for skilled people is too low? If benefits are
really too high this creates a poverty trap if wages are low. However
I very much doubt that benefits are 'generous' now, if they ever were.

Define "generous". To me, if you can live on it long term without the
need to ever work then it is "generous".

What if you can't live off it or a job paying minimum wage?

then (assuming an able bodied person) your expected life-style is
unrealistic

Ah - you mean the unrealistic lifestyle of eating food and having
somewhere to live.

Find me one of those people who doesn't smoke and drink regularly...

On 17/11/2017 14:06, pamela wrote:
On 13:31 17 Nov 2017, alan_m wrote:

On 17/11/2017 12:32, Yellow wrote:


Instead we all have 10th hand cars that we'd help each other to
keep running, we had holidays in Blackpool if at all and would
only go to the pub on pay day. And we *all* lived at home with
our parents while we saved for a house deposit rather than
wasting it on rent!

+1 And most of my friends at the time were doing the same.

Blackpool? Black-pool? That's pure luxury. We took out holidays
in a paper bag, if we were lucky. Etc.


This program was filmed in Bognor Regis, which always was a
backwater, not known for large reliable employers.

Apart from the Council and British Rail, I can only think
of Butlins and Wileys the technical bookseller.

I was always surprised how many East Europeans had moved to
Worthing.

On 18/11/2017 04:35, Rod Speed wrote:
Not all of them tho. One mate of mine got a new car
while still in school. Not much of a car, Ford Anglia.

Not with his own money then.

On 18/11/2017 00:30, JNugent wrote:
Pensions should be generous.

Why ?. They should be related to how much tax and NI
you paid or derived from your own savings.

Why should someone get a 'generous' guaranteed pension,
unrelated to how much effort they made when working,
and then choose to go and live elsewhere in the world ?.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:50:29 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:09:59 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:58:54 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:23:33 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 13:47:26 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 10:32:33 +0000, Fredxxx wrote:

On 18/11/2017 02:02, Rod Speed wrote:
This means that on average people needed 4.5 times their salary
in the
late 1970s to buy a home while today, they need 7.3 times.

What puzzles me though is that they do manage it though, to pay that
amount, and if they couldn't afford those prices they would surely fall.

Unfortunately for the average is there are enough rich people to pay
the excessive costs, otherwise the prices would fall and ordinary
people would be able to afford to buy.

What is a "rich person" in your opinion?

That's a good question. Someone with considerably more money than the
average person.

That's silly. The median wage is around £27,000 or £28,000 I think and
earning £30,000 for example, does not make you "rich".

I have not claimed this. £30K pa. is not considerably more than £28K.
But it not just income that divides the rich from the average person.


There is such a divide between people with lots of
money and people without.

What is your idea of "lots of money"?

What's yours?

Corbyn earns an MP's salary plus as allowance for being leader of the
opposition plus he has pensions and he says he is not rich.

Neither does Boris Johnson on his minister's salary of £100K. So what
is your point here?

I ask because if all these rich people are snapping up all the averagely
priced homes, then there must be a heck of a lot of them, so why does
that not make the average income a higher value?

Because companies can get away without giving generous pay rises. And
the average price for homes is rising. As I said before there are
"sufficent" numbers of wealthy people to push up the price of housing,
otherwise it wouldn't be happening.

That is your theory indeed, but where is your proof?

Proof! House prices are rising.

Where is your proof
that people on an average income are not able to afford houses in their
greater area? So within commuting distance to their work.

Where is your proof that this does not happen?

My friend's daughter and husband and two kids live a short distance from
me in a bigger house than I have. She is a copper, he is a postman and
also designs logos. They have two cars and they had a holiday abroad in
the summer.

Lucky them.

Are these people rich?

You tell me.

When I bought my first home, a tiny flat that needed a complete
refurbish, I put down a 20% deposit but still struggled like hell to
afford to pay the mortgage and the bills, especially when interest rates
went through the roof when my unavoidable outgoings were greater than my
income for a few months.

A lot of us had exactly the same issues. I had to let out the spare
room in my first house in order to afford the rising mortgage
payments.

I do not know in what way, but something clearly does not stack up when
a simple comparison of average wages and average house prices is used to
decide whether or not homes in general are affordable.

It's down to the rich buying houses as an investment IMHO.

You are referring to buy-to-let?

That's part of it but people do buy houses purely as an investment and
do not let them out, but keep them empty.

We all know that happens in London, really expensive houses though that
are outside of the average person's league, but I have never heard of
that happening around here - even in the nearby city.

It happens in many areas.

Do you actually have proof this is a wholesale issue that is pushing up
the average prices of average properties?

Do you have proof that it does not?

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On 17/11/2017 14:07, pamela wrote:
On 13:58 17 Nov 2017, Dan S. MacAbre wrote:



Get a job! Just kidding.


I have a job, which I like very much :-) Computer programming,
which isn't like real work at all; and short hours so I can pick
the lad up from school. Perfect, really.

Computer programming sounds like a breeze.

ISTR an old RF engineer at GEC air radio group, who always referred to
us software engineers as "typists". ;-)

Not like real work and short hours. Great!

Indeed, more like an intellectual form of masturbation, but if someone
is willing to pay well for having buttons pushed, who am I to argue?



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:54:44 +0000, JoeJoe wrote:

On 18/11/2017 14:38, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Mark wrote:
Go for the basics. The basic OAP for a single person (assuming full
contribution years) is £119 The basic uneployment benefit if under 25 is
£57. Both can be supplemented by means tested benefits if eligible.

Now either one is super generous or one is parsimonious.

IMHO neither are generous.

Quite. Thus if you agree 119 isn't generous for a single OAP to live on,
just how is half that generous for a younger person?

The proof is in the pudding: if it weren't generous and provide them
with comfortable enough life, then they would be forced to try and find
work (which they are not doing).

Who isn't?

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On 18/11/2017 15:30, Yellow wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:55:23 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:32:29 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 09:47:10 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:12:08 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 15:39:21 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 12:32:13 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

Thanks for the review and I will try to watch on catch up later.

It is what many of us already know but it still has to be demonstrated
sometimes, to remind people what is really going on here and I am
particularly interested in your observations about the minimum and
living wage and agree that for youngsters with no work skills in their
first employment, it is too high. As are benefits.

Or maybe the pay rates for skilled people is too low? If benefits are
really too high this creates a poverty trap if wages are low. However
I very much doubt that benefits are 'generous' now, if they ever were.

Define "generous". To me, if you can live on it long term without the
need to ever work then it is "generous".

What if you can't live off it or a job paying minimum wage?

We are discussing unemployment benefits not the minimum wage, and the
solution there is to get a job - obviously.

We are discussing both.

You might have been, but I was discussing unemployment benefits in the
posts you replied to. But whatever. :-)


The minimum wage and unemployment benefits
are linked and cannot be considered in isolation. Obviously there
should be incentives to work, but that means work should pay well, not
that benefits should be squeezed so that people cannot manage.

The problem we have, which I am sure you recognise, is that some
unemployed people would rather just take the benefits if the were enough
to live on comfortably in the longer term.

So it is a balance.

And I believe that is the goal of Universal Credit (if they can ever get
it right!) to improve the transition into work by letting people lose
their benefits at a slower rate.


But if you are in work and decide you want a higher standard of living,
whatever your income, the answer is obviously to earn more.

Not easy for most. I'm sure (almost) everyone wants a higher standard
of living but there aren't an unlimited amount of better paid jobs
available.

Always an "ah but" when this is discussed.

Benefits are too low - so get a job - but jobs do not pay enough - so
work more hours or train for a better job - but there aren't enough
better jobs....

Except there are. There is a skills shortage in lots of areas but people
have to start somewhere by getting off benefits and taking a job! And
from there you can progress. But if you stay unemployed and on benefits
you will never progress, never get a better paid job, ever.

My mate left the police last year after 30 years. Sat at home and lived
off his pension for 6 months and got more and more depressed.

Picked himself up, went to college for 6 months to train as a heating
engineer (as in Gas Safe), had plenty of job offers when he finished,
and now earns a very decent wage.

The proof that benefits are too high is that there are young and healthy
people who are perfectly comfortable living off them.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:47:13 +0000, Andrew
wrote:

On 17/11/2017 13:56, pamela wrote:
On 13:26 17 Nov 2017, alan_m wrote:

On 17/11/2017 12:21, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I have brought many new graduates into the computing industry.
Back when I started doing this in the 1980's, it took about 2
years before they started paying back - until that point they
are consuming more management/training resources than they
contribute back in work. So unless they stay for probably 4-5
years, they were only a drain on the company. This was within a
large UK company (GEC).


But back then the GEC/Marconi way was to de-skill the graduates
first by giving them completely menial tasks and then at the end
of the second year re-train then in the inefficient corporate
ways.

Sounds like joining a religious cult! Your old values are wiped
out and then new ones installed.

These days you may find that with certain ways of recruitment to
weed out the dross before employment, sponsored formal training
and giving work experience in holiday periods before full time
employment gets you well motivated graduates that give
productive output in a very short time. Long gone are the days
when an engineering graduate will have (or want) the same job
for life or even possibly stay with their first company for more
than a couple of years.

Companies have partly brought that upon themselves by mass firings
of loyal workers who, rightly or worngly can no longer rely onthe
company rtaining them through thick and thin.

Even with more highly paid skilled jobs poor management will
give you an inefficient work force.

When I worked for GEC in the early 1990s failed engineers became
managers who were then promoted to a level of incompetence.

I've seen that too many times: promote someone out of the way so
they don't mess things up any more.

+1

Nothing has changed. Now they can also become elected councillors
or (Euro) MPs as well.

Or government ministers.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On 18/11/2017 12:14, Mark wrote:
It may mean living on what is considered a minimum standard for
nowadays. For example, in the past, many people lived in houses with
no heating. I did. Would you expect people to do this nowadays?

I live a house with no heating. It's my house.

I ripped out the Baxi Bermuda G/F back boiler in 2003 after finally
discovering the state of the flue blocks in the wall (partially blocked
with cement 'snots', and a huge hole in the initial 45 degree block
allowing the cavity to become the 'flue'.).

I've become so used to just living in one well-insulated upstairs
room for 5 months of thr year, I forgotten what it was like.

On 18/11/2017 15:54, JoeJoe wrote:
On 18/11/2017 14:38, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â* Mark wrote:
Go for the basics. The basic OAP for a single person (assuming full
contribution years) is £119Â* The basic uneployment benefit if under
25 is
£57. Both can be supplemented by means tested benefits if eligible.

Now either one is super generous or one is parsimonious.

IMHO neither are generous.

Quite. Thus if you agree 119 isn't generous for a single OAP to live on,
just how is half that generous for a younger person?

The proof is in the pudding: if it weren't generous and provide them
with comfortable enough life, then they would be forced to try and find
work (which they are not doing).


Those receiving state pensions are not expected to be looking for work-
they've (at least in theory) 'done their bit' and should be enjoying
retirement. Hopefully, many will also have other pensions to support this.

Those simply not working from choice should not expect those who do work
(or have worked and are still paying tax) to support them beyond a basic
level.

Not working from choice includes refusing available jobs, making
themselves unemployable etc. In fact, those who decide they don't want a
job shouldn't get any benefits.

We've far more EU migrants working in the UK than there are unemployed
people. Clearly being unemployed is more attractive than the jobs the EU
migrants are filling.





--

Suspect someone is claiming a benefit under false pretences? Incapacity
Benefit or Personal Independence Payment when they don't need it? They
are depriving those in real need!

https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:43:59 +0000, Andrew
wrote:

On 17/11/2017 12:21, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
I'm not up-to-date with what's on offer, but I thought benefits for
those who are in theory able to work are only available if they can
show they are actively looking for work.

They do. They just go into the job centre and go through the motions of
looking for a job or make electronic enquiries about jobs that they
are impossibly unqualified to do, just to avoid 'sanctions'.

The females have the ultimate get-out-of-jail weapon. When the
youngest child reaches the age that mother is supposed to go
back to work, she just accidentally meets up with the 'absent'
father(s) and starts another sprog.

Stop reading the Daily Mail.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:09:12 +0000, Andrew Andrew97d-
wrote:

On 18/11/2017 11:23, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Go for the basics. The basic OAP for a single person (assuming full
contribution years) is £119

Not since April 2016. Much more now, and many people have Serps
entitlements too.

Plus free bus travel, heating and council tax discount for those
with less than ~£16,000 in savings.

How much is free travel worth in London ?.

I would love a pensioner's bus pass but am not old enough unfortunately,
and was wistfully thinking about them only the other day.

I concluded I would be prepared to pay a couple of hundred quid, if not
more, for such a wonderful perk that cannot actually be purchased at any
price.

On 18/11/2017 16:11, Mark wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:47:13 +0000, Andrew
wrote:

On 17/11/2017 13:56, pamela wrote:
On 13:26 17 Nov 2017, alan_m wrote:

On 17/11/2017 12:21, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I have brought many new graduates into the computing industry.
Back when I started doing this in the 1980's, it took about 2
years before they started paying back - until that point they
are consuming more management/training resources than they
contribute back in work. So unless they stay for probably 4-5
years, they were only a drain on the company. This was within a
large UK company (GEC).


But back then the GEC/Marconi way was to de-skill the graduates
first by giving them completely menial tasks and then at the end
of the second year re-train then in the inefficient corporate
ways.

Sounds like joining a religious cult! Your old values are wiped
out and then new ones installed.

These days you may find that with certain ways of recruitment to
weed out the dross before employment, sponsored formal training
and giving work experience in holiday periods before full time
employment gets you well motivated graduates that give
productive output in a very short time. Long gone are the days
when an engineering graduate will have (or want) the same job
for life or even possibly stay with their first company for more
than a couple of years.

Companies have partly brought that upon themselves by mass firings
of loyal workers who, rightly or worngly can no longer rely onthe
company rtaining them through thick and thin.

Even with more highly paid skilled jobs poor management will
give you an inefficient work force.

When I worked for GEC in the early 1990s failed engineers became
managers who were then promoted to a level of incompetence.

I've seen that too many times: promote someone out of the way so
they don't mess things up any more.

+1

Nothing has changed. Now they can also become elected councillors
or (Euro) MPs as well.

Or government ministers.

....in waiting

On 18/11/2017 15:19, Mark wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:46:10 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 12:14:02 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 11:53:55 +0000, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/11/2017 09:47, Mark wrote:
It may mean living on what is considered a minimum standard for
nowadays. For example, in the past, many people lived in houses with
no heating. I did. Would you expect people to do this nowadays?

It isn't
credible that people cannot live on it.

The benefits available don't sound too generous to me.
Although I cannot speak from experience, since I have never received
benefits, although I have been poor.

It's important to have some perspective on this. Looking back at recent
economic and social history, there was a time, within easy living
memory, when a phone (of any sort), washing machines, refrigerators,
carpets, frequent home-redecoration, meals out, an alcohol-based "social
life" and (especially) a motor vehicle were way outside the expectations
of the majority. And that was people who were on earnings greater than
social security benefits.

Things have changed. Nowadays you need a phone, washing machine,
fridge, and a motor vehicle. And, if you don't know why, I can
explain it to you.

That is of course a load of rubbish.

No it isn't.

Many people do not have cars and
not everyone can even drive so saying they are a necessity is clearly
incorrect.

For many they are. How do they get to the shops, job interviews etc
if there is no suitable public transport? Or are you a Norman Tebbit
fan?

As for washing machines, why is there a launderette in my
local parade of shops if everyone has them? So again, clearly not a
necessity.

Wrong. You may be fortunate to have a launderette, but most have gone
now. There are none near where I live, for example. I used to use
them.

You have the whole day/week/month to wash your cloths by hand in the
bath if you are unemployed.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:30:28 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:55:23 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:32:29 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 09:47:10 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:12:08 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 15:39:21 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 12:32:13 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

Thanks for the review and I will try to watch on catch up later.

It is what many of us already know but it still has to be demonstrated
sometimes, to remind people what is really going on here and I am
particularly interested in your observations about the minimum and
living wage and agree that for youngsters with no work skills in their
first employment, it is too high. As are benefits.

Or maybe the pay rates for skilled people is too low? If benefits are
really too high this creates a poverty trap if wages are low. However
I very much doubt that benefits are 'generous' now, if they ever were.

Define "generous". To me, if you can live on it long term without the
need to ever work then it is "generous".

What if you can't live off it or a job paying minimum wage?

We are discussing unemployment benefits not the minimum wage, and the
solution there is to get a job - obviously.

We are discussing both.

You might have been, but I was discussing unemployment benefits in the
posts you replied to. But whatever. :-)

Whatever :-)

The minimum wage and unemployment benefits
are linked and cannot be considered in isolation. Obviously there
should be incentives to work, but that means work should pay well, not
that benefits should be squeezed so that people cannot manage.

The problem we have, which I am sure you recognise, is that some
unemployed people would rather just take the benefits if the were enough
to live on comfortably in the longer term.

How many? And why should people who are genuinely seeking work be
punished for those few?

So it is a balance.

And I believe that is the goal of Universal Credit (if they can ever get
it right!) to improve the transition into work by letting people lose
their benefits at a slower rate.

If it ever works.....

But if you are in work and decide you want a higher standard of living,
whatever your income, the answer is obviously to earn more.

Not easy for most. I'm sure (almost) everyone wants a higher standard
of living but there aren't an unlimited amount of better paid jobs
available.

Always an "ah but" when this is discussed.

Benefits are too low - so get a job - but jobs do not pay enough - so
work more hours or train for a better job - but there aren't enough
better jobs....

Except there are.

I doubt it. And, even if there were, how many would be capable of
doing them? I've said this before and I will repeat it; I have worked
with people who are so useless, that it would be better to pay them to
do nothing rather than to screw up in a job.

There is a skills shortage in lots of areas but people
have to start somewhere by getting off benefits and taking a job!

That's a catch-22. Many employers don't want to train people and it
is risk for people to pay for training if they have little money.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On 18/11/2017 13:03, Mark wrote:
Not everyone has the choice to move to Lancashire.

Every EU citizen, all 350 million of them has the legal
*right* to move to Lancashire.

Why they would, and how they fund such a move is entirely
their problem.

Every week another busload of Roma people arrives in the UK
from all over the former commie blok countries. They are
badly treated there and have learnt that Britain is a
soft touch with a fantastic benefit system, together with
'free' education and NHS for their large-ish families, plus
a never-ending demand from all those people with 4x4 and other
luxury cars 'bought' with a PCP, to have them washed and
valetted on the cheap.

Who can blame them for coming ?.

On 18/11/2017 15:28, Mark wrote:
That's great. Many people are not so fortunate.

Fortunate for what ?.

Overcrowded roads, trains, schools and GP surgeries. ?.

Unless you sell and move to a county or country where
housing is cheaper, there is no advantage.

If you think roads in the Leeds area are bad, try using the
A27 for most of the day now ?. The dual carriageway
upgrade, completed in the early 1980's stops dead
just south of Arundel from there to a few miles
West of Chichester, it is a mostly single carriageway
crawl taking hours to get anywhere.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:12:44 +0000, Brian Reay wrote:

On 18/11/2017 15:54, JoeJoe wrote:
On 18/11/2017 14:38, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â* Mark wrote:
Go for the basics. The basic OAP for a single person (assuming full
contribution years) is £119Â* The basic uneployment benefit if under
25 is
£57. Both can be supplemented by means tested benefits if eligible.

Now either one is super generous or one is parsimonious.

IMHO neither are generous.

Quite. Thus if you agree 119 isn't generous for a single OAP to live on,
just how is half that generous for a younger person?

The proof is in the pudding: if it weren't generous and provide them
with comfortable enough life, then they would be forced to try and find
work (which they are not doing).


Those receiving state pensions are not expected to be looking for work-
they've (at least in theory) 'done their bit' and should be enjoying
retirement. Hopefully, many will also have other pensions to support this.

Those simply not working from choice should not expect those who do work
(or have worked and are still paying tax) to support them beyond a basic
level.

Not working from choice includes refusing available jobs, making
themselves unemployable etc. In fact, those who decide they don't want a
job shouldn't get any benefits.

We've far more EU migrants working in the UK than there are unemployed
people. Clearly being unemployed is more attractive than the jobs the EU
migrants are filling.

That's a false assertion. Many employers prefer to employ EU migrants
than UK citizens.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:19:32 +0000, JoeJoe wrote:

On 18/11/2017 15:19, Mark wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:46:10 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 12:14:02 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 11:53:55 +0000, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/11/2017 09:47, Mark wrote:
It may mean living on what is considered a minimum standard for
nowadays. For example, in the past, many people lived in houses with
no heating. I did. Would you expect people to do this nowadays?

It isn't
credible that people cannot live on it.

The benefits available don't sound too generous to me.
Although I cannot speak from experience, since I have never received
benefits, although I have been poor.

It's important to have some perspective on this. Looking back at recent
economic and social history, there was a time, within easy living
memory, when a phone (of any sort), washing machines, refrigerators,
carpets, frequent home-redecoration, meals out, an alcohol-based "social
life" and (especially) a motor vehicle were way outside the expectations
of the majority. And that was people who were on earnings greater than
social security benefits.

Things have changed. Nowadays you need a phone, washing machine,
fridge, and a motor vehicle. And, if you don't know why, I can
explain it to you.

That is of course a load of rubbish.

No it isn't.

Many people do not have cars and
not everyone can even drive so saying they are a necessity is clearly
incorrect.

For many they are. How do they get to the shops, job interviews etc
if there is no suitable public transport? Or are you a Norman Tebbit
fan?

As for washing machines, why is there a launderette in my
local parade of shops if everyone has them? So again, clearly not a
necessity.

Wrong. You may be fortunate to have a launderette, but most have gone
now. There are none near where I live, for example. I used to use
them.

You have the whole day/week/month to wash your cloths by hand in the
bath if you are unemployed.

In cold water, I assume you mean.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

On 18/11/2017 14:23, Mark wrote:
It's down to the rich buying houses as an investment IMHO.

Aha, a momentum supporter.

It's down to NuLab allowing in another 3 million or so which
has created the demand.

And you didn't need to be 'rich' between 1998 and 2007 to take
out a liar loan and buy a property far more expensive than
your income could support. Not a problem during Gords mother
of all housing booms.

Or you could buy up older terraced houses in University towns
and let them to students, or just let them full stop.
All nicely propped up with £20 Billion of housing benefit to
boost the rent, and thereby the 'value' of the house.

In article ,
Andrew wrote:
On 17/11/2017 20:07, tim... wrote:


wrote in message
...
On Friday, 17 November 2017 13:17:11 UTC, Yellow wrote:
Just watching the show Tim is talking about now and one fellow said
he wanted £12 or £15 an hour for a low skilled job or he wasn't
interested. First, how are these people living now?

They don't get out of bed in the mornings, and in the afternoons they
drink value lager and watch Jeremy Kyle.

they still have rent to pay or do they sleep under a bridge?

Housing benefit pays the rent.

Not these days in London. It has been capped to below market value.

--
*He who laughs last has just realised the joke.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:11:31 +0000, JoeJoe wrote:

On 18/11/2017 15:30, Yellow wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:55:23 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:32:29 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 09:47:10 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:12:08 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 15:39:21 +0000, Mark
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017 12:32:13 -0000, Yellow
wrote:

Thanks for the review and I will try to watch on catch up later.

It is what many of us already know but it still has to be demonstrated
sometimes, to remind people what is really going on here and I am
particularly interested in your observations about the minimum and
living wage and agree that for youngsters with no work skills in their
first employment, it is too high. As are benefits.

Or maybe the pay rates for skilled people is too low? If benefits are
really too high this creates a poverty trap if wages are low. However
I very much doubt that benefits are 'generous' now, if they ever were.

Define "generous". To me, if you can live on it long term without the
need to ever work then it is "generous".

What if you can't live off it or a job paying minimum wage?

We are discussing unemployment benefits not the minimum wage, and the
solution there is to get a job - obviously.

We are discussing both.

You might have been, but I was discussing unemployment benefits in the
posts you replied to. But whatever. :-)


The minimum wage and unemployment benefits
are linked and cannot be considered in isolation. Obviously there
should be incentives to work, but that means work should pay well, not
that benefits should be squeezed so that people cannot manage.

The problem we have, which I am sure you recognise, is that some
unemployed people would rather just take the benefits if the were enough
to live on comfortably in the longer term.

So it is a balance.

And I believe that is the goal of Universal Credit (if they can ever get
it right!) to improve the transition into work by letting people lose
their benefits at a slower rate.


But if you are in work and decide you want a higher standard of living,
whatever your income, the answer is obviously to earn more.

Not easy for most. I'm sure (almost) everyone wants a higher standard
of living but there aren't an unlimited amount of better paid jobs
available.

Always an "ah but" when this is discussed.

Benefits are too low - so get a job - but jobs do not pay enough - so
work more hours or train for a better job - but there aren't enough
better jobs....

Except there are. There is a skills shortage in lots of areas but people
have to start somewhere by getting off benefits and taking a job! And
from there you can progress. But if you stay unemployed and on benefits
you will never progress, never get a better paid job, ever.

My mate left the police last year after 30 years. Sat at home and lived
off his pension for 6 months and got more and more depressed.

Picked himself up, went to college for 6 months to train as a heating
engineer (as in Gas Safe), had plenty of job offers when he finished,
and now earns a very decent wage.

Great, but I must assume he had a decent pension which enabled him to
go to college.

The proof that benefits are too high is that there are young and healthy
people who are perfectly comfortable living off them.

That's not proof. It's an assertion.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

In article ,
Mark wrote:
We are discussing both. The minimum wage and unemployment benefits
are linked and cannot be considered in isolation. Obviously there
should be incentives to work, but that means work should pay well, not
that benefits should be squeezed so that people cannot manage.

But the notion that cutting benefits will force everyone into taking a job
is standard Tory mantra. Doesn't matter if it works or not. Or who it
hurts.

--
*Money isn‘t everything, but it sure keeps the kids in touch

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:42:52 +0000, Andrew
wrote:

On 18/11/2017 14:23, Mark wrote:
It's down to the rich buying houses as an investment IMHO.

Aha, a momentum supporter.

Wrong.

It's down to NuLab allowing in another 3 million or so which
has created the demand.

I'm no fan of NuLab.

--
If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?