New job protection plan

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
Regardless of whether they are smart enough to have a masterplan in play - which I'm not sure they are, Rees-Mogg, Gove and Cummings aside, I still can't see what advantage there is in accelerating the numbers who will require to lean on the welfare system for unemployment benefit, housing etc etc. Surely it costs less to better support their employers to keep them in a wage, especially given the fact that international travel restrictions are ensuring that the majority of that income just gets re-spent into UK PLC.

As Wattie says, extend and pretend. More lending from the central bank, the retail banks and the government, all entrapping the ordinary person. It will just mean more defaults as you can't get blood from a stone.

So you're left with massive unemployment, massive increases in empty commercial premises, defaults across every sector of lending. Not exactly a stellar reelection policy.

If I was Keir Starmer, i'm be grinning ear to ear. He may have facilitated marxism and antisemitism and taken the knee very naively but he's the acceptable face of it to many.

The trouble with politicians is that they don't ever have a reason to think beyond their term and they are almost entirely unaccountable for their actions. That's a broken system if ever there was one.

I feel for @spkennyuk and others who work in super exposed sectors however I also don't clearly see why the focus has been on hospitality within the press. There has been the eat out help out vouchers and the VAT reduction to 5%, but no help whatsoever for other sectors which add far more, per capita, to the economy. Doesn't make sense to me.
The problem with politicians is they all come from clueless privilidged backgrounds.
It’s like F1, the bought rise to the top.
None of the current MP crop have “nous”, no streetwise knowledge, no idea of what the population endure.
Removed from reality, just words.
Bit like Bankers. How many got arrested this week for ML shenanigans?
Zero.
Zero clue politicians in bed with their zero clue bankers and advisors
and now I think people are beginning to see this.
 
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GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
At the end of October hundreds of thousands will be made unemployed as there simply wont be the jobs there. No employer will employ someone to work even a third of their normal hours if they are only making 10% of what they were before the lockdown.

I work with a lot of hotel groups and have been told there will be 1m losing their jobs in that sector alone at the end of October. No one can work if the hotels aren’t making any money.
Another of my clients advised me yesterday that they will not open until Spring 2021.
 

outrun

Member
Messages
5,017
At the end of October hundreds of thousands will be made unemployed as there simply wont be the jobs there. No employer will employ someone to work even a third of their normal hours if they are only making 10% of what they were before the lockdown.

I work with a lot of hotel groups and have been told there will be 1m losing their jobs in that sector alone at the end of October. No one can work if the hotels aren’t making any money.
Another of my clients advised me yesterday that they will not open until Spring 2021.

Yup. But still, why focus only on hospitality. I have a client who is a leading architecture firm and they had a contract cancelled midway through on a £100m office building in central London. He's has to lay off 25 highly trained staff. No VAT support for them. No vouchers to for discount architect plans from the government. Or another friend who runs all the gyms and pools across the Uk for councils and before lock down had 18,500 staff. His businesses were the slowest to open and then when they did, visitor numbers are limited by the social distancing requirements etc. The councils are stretched for budgets and so are trying to renegotiate their deals. He has gone from a £250m turnover business on 10% profit to 17,000 staff on furlough, no real prospect of getting back to normal soon and clients that want to pay him less. There will be 10,000 redundancies in his business alone. No support for him. He can borrow money at nice rates but that's all.

And these are just 2 examples of thousands.

Madness. Just when you thought Brexit was as mad as we could experience in our lifetimes. I wonder what's next? Alien invasion? Meteor strike?
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
Yup. But still, why focus only on hospitality. I have a client who is a leading architecture firm and they had a contract cancelled midway through on a £100m office building in central London. He's has to lay off 25 highly trained staff. No VAT support for them. No vouchers to for discount architect plans from the government. Or another friend who runs all the gyms and pools across the Uk for councils and before lock down had 18,500 staff. His businesses were the slowest to open and then when they did, visitor numbers are limited by the social distancing requirements etc. The councils are stretched for budgets and so are trying to renegotiate their deals. He has gone from a £250m turnover business on 10% profit to 17,000 staff on furlough, no real prospect of getting back to normal soon and clients that want to pay him less. There will be 10,000 redundancies in his business alone. No support for him. He can borrow money at nice rates but that's all.

And these are just 2 examples of thousands.

Madness. Just when you thought Brexit was as mad as we could experience in our lifetimes. I wonder what's next? Alien invasion? Meteor strike?
It’s bollox.
Politicians send young men to die, in wars they decide to start. Most survive. Politicians don’t blink.
Now, we can’t have old people die and will sacrifice the global economy instead.
Oh, I know there’s some long term sick, isn’t there always?
How many have died through lack of treatment etc.
This is now a scamdemic.
A deliberate attempt to force some sort of centrally planned grab on freedoms or enforce a monitory reset.
 

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,795
Well quantitive easing has never worked in the past as banks just swallow it and pay themselves ever bigger bonuses, look at the cockup of trying to peg the € & £ and the bank bailout. I think this lot have got of far better but putting the same funds they would with QE and giving it to real people via furlough and SE payments and loans and even eat out to help out. Putting money into the working part of the economy where it actually does something real people can see and be if it from. Let’s face it if they just gave everyone £2k most people would pay of loans and credit cards with it and the banks would win again!

I'm no expert, but I think that is EXACTLY what they are doing: putting the money into people's pockets even if they are on short hours, or don't even want to eat out. I think it is a misunderstanding that QE is somehow 'giving money to banks to swallow'. In fact it is the opposite, it is (I think) issuing government debt (gilts) so the government has money to give away to citizens, and getting the banks to buy that debt on ridiculously low (sometimes negative) interest rates. So lovely free money for everyone. It's a Pon....
 

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,795
...I still can't see what advantage there is in accelerating the numbers who will require to lean on the welfare system for unemployment benefit, housing etc etc. Surely it costs less to better support their employers to keep them in a wage, especially given the fact that international travel restrictions are ensuring that the majority of that income just gets re-spent into UK PLC.

I think the 'cunning plan' is to share more of the government risk with employers (and employees) rather than just continue with a generalised hand-out. I know plenty of businesses who have furloughed staff unnecessarily as a way of mothballing people at the government's expense. This may provoke redundancies, but it may also provoke companies to start paying for these people and bringing them back to work. Also, the government has been propping up doomed businesses (with loans and providing furlough pay) when it might be better to protect viable businesses and let the bad one go (even at a cost). One of the problems with the Japanese economy (over the past 15 years) is that they kept many bad businesses afloat, with money that should have been spent on good businesses.
 

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,795
The trouble with this sort of discussion is that it tends to be all about how despicable it is for the government to allow people to be sacked by companies that can't afford their wages, or how absurd it is for the government to subsidise wages with borrowing, or how applauding it is that the arts are not being given cash, or how stupid it is to waste money on opera houses, and how dumb it is to suppose that closing pubs before people are really very drunk might reduce disease transmission, or how we should all be locked inside until it is totally safe, or how terrible it is that banks aren't just lending more money to anyone who needs it, or how evil it is for bankers to charge high fees to good customers to offset bad debts on bad loans......

And generally, this is ascribed to the stupidity or venality of politicians, bankers, workers, trade unions, posh people, rich people, premier league footballers, etc
But on the whole, nobody very has any positive proposals for how the problems that we face can and should actually be solved. So it is all a bit pointless.
 

spkennyuk

Member
Messages
5,931
I feel for @spkennyuk and others who work in super exposed sectors however I also don't clearly see why the focus has been on hospitality within the press. There has been the eat out help out vouchers and the VAT reduction to 5%, but no help whatsoever for other sectors which add far more, per capita, to the economy. Doesn't make sense to me.

The eat out to help out scheme didnt work in the way that was intended and actually had a detrimental effect on a large section of the hospitality industry.

Clues in the scheme name. If you were a eat in food outlet you got some benefit from it. The scheme ran monday to wednesday so on those days you struggled to find a table anywhere. Thursday friday saturday and sunday you could get as many tables as you wanted as the public stayed in more at weekend as they went out monday to wednesday instead.

The end result was eat in food places lost a big chunk of their weekend trade but made up for it monday to wednesday and had to switch staffing levels accordingly.

The knock on effect for wet only pubs was that less people were out at weekend so trade levels went down. Lots of people go out for a meal and then go to a pub afterwards. That didnt happen as on the days of the scheme they stayed in the foody places and spent a bit more than they usually would before discount and didnt move on to other pubs afterwards.

Give or take the food houses im in contact with gained around 20% overall gross. However the wet only places lost out by a similar amount.

As for the 5% vat rate again if your an eat in food outlet then its beneficial as it applies to food and soft drinks only.

Wet pubs only 5% vat on soft drinks only made such a small difference its hardly worth mentioning. Soft drink sales in a wet only pub are not a massive part of sales and will vary from pub to pub. Locally im seeing £10 to £20 a week difference in the rate of vat per week. Sure bigger venues will benefit more but even those the 5% vat rate will only apply to 5 to 10% of sales that are soft drinks. It doesnt apply to alcohol sales.

Your absolutely right about the amount of press on the hospitality sector. Sadly most of it is also inaccurate.

If the eat out to help out scheme had been run 7 days a week it may have been a different story as the additional trade if it generated more trade overall would have been spread out across the whole week and possibly helped out the wet only sector as well.

I know of four pubs in the local area that hit the wall in the last month along with a local chain of pubs that also failed during lockdown.

Its a messed up world and economy and any measures the government take to help the economy should help all business sectors.

Sadly there so many people that are furloughed at the moment that will loose their job in the coming months simply because their job is no longer viable in the current climate they just do not know it yet.
 
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D Walker

Member
Messages
9,827
Tough one. But I know people on the Furlough scheme who have no intention of going back to work. Indeed one lady I know just said she’s not coming back and the business is just paying her on furlough until it runs out. As it is at he moment every decision is a wrong decision (according to your side of the fence).
One things for sure, as long as people just keep doing what they feel like, it will be here for longer. Perhaps Wattie is right. Just let it rip through the population. If you’re left standing. Good oh.
I’ll get my coat.
 

safrane

Member
Messages
16,748
I do not want to see anyone loose their livelihood, but also I hate seeing taxpayers money spent on headlines.

We had only just recovered from the last financial melt down (well almost) and after 10 years of wage freeze I don't want to be left in the same boat again because we blew the budget.
 

ChrisQP09

Member
Messages
2,994
I think the 'cunning plan' is to share more of the government risk with employers (and employees) rather than just continue with a generalised hand-out. I know plenty of businesses who have furloughed staff unnecessarily as a way of mothballing people at the government's expense. This may provoke redundancies, but it may also provoke companies to start paying for these people and bringing them back to work. Also, the government has been propping up doomed businesses (with loans and providing furlough pay) when it might be better to protect viable businesses and let the bad one go (even at a cost). One of the problems with the Japanese economy (over the past 15 years) is that they kept many bad businesses afloat, with money that should have been spent on good businesses.
You Sir, speak much sense! You’re on the money with that liability theorem
 

Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
......

And generally, this is ascribed to the stupidity or venality of politicians, bankers, workers, trade unions, posh people, rich people, premier league footballers, etc
But on the whole, nobody very has any positive proposals for how the problems that we face can and should actually be solved. So it is all a bit pointless.
Pretty easy to solve.
You let the debt implode and don’t bail it out anymore.

Imagine if they taught kids in school that if you can’t afford to repay something, don’t worry, the solution is just to borrow even more. And repeat.

Zombie companies are now taking loans they know will not prevent them from failing and banks/Govt are happy to give em it!

The pain for those carrying loans they can’t afford will be immense, but then many shouldn’t have borrowed it in the first place. Workers prevented from working by a virus that in general, kills the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions are gonna be pretty upset when they end up with nothing.

Secondly, you flush out all the ******* bankers who lent them it (earning fortunes in the process) and all those responsible for the fx manipulations, money laundering, market fiddles and lock them up, confiscate all the bonuses and root out all their corrupt political mates too.

Don’t forget,
Governments let this happen on their watch, they ignored the warnings in order to pretend that economies were booming.
They have also created a two tier legal system. Laws for us and laws for criminal bankers who REPEATEDLY break the law....at the expense of the public and investors to line their own pockets.

Just this week.


19million breaches!!!!


1Billion!!! They probably made 20-30Billion doing it

How many bankers were arrested? Feck all, zero, nada, the game continues. Banks are serial law breakers.

Trusting these feckers to sort out a global debt mess they created is like leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

This sh1tstorm is the result.
 
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Wattie

Member
Messages
8,640
Tough one. But I know people on the Furlough scheme who have no intention of going back to work. Indeed one lady I know just said she’s not coming back and the business is just paying her on furlough until it runs out. As it is at he moment every decision is a wrong decision (according to your side of the fence).
One things for sure, as long as people just keep doing what they feel like, it will be here for longer. Perhaps Wattie is right. Just let it rip through the population. If you’re left standing. Good oh.
I’ll get my coat.
There’s no “perhaps” about it.
If things do not return to normal soon the global economy will be mortally wounded.
All that Unrepayable debt, financed by even more unrepayable debt, ad infinitum is already going boom.

Australian Banks yesterday encouraged by the Government to relax lending standards!!!!!!

"Flabbergasted." That's the universal response I've been hearing from consumer rights advocates to the Federal Government's proposed abolition of the responsible lending obligations. They simply can't understand what the Government is aiming to achieve by freeing banks from their legal obligation to check whether potential borrowers can afford to repay a loan before they are granted it. Other than a free kick for the banks."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09...nding-changes-home-loan-credit-cards/12702260

https://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock
 
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Rwc13

Member
Messages
1,668
Pretty easy to solve.
You let the debt implode and don’t bail it out anymore.

Imagine if they taught kids in school that if you can’t afford to repay something, don’t worry, the solution is just to borrow even more. And repeat.

Zombie companies are now taking loans they know will not prevent them from failing and banks/Govt are happy to give em it!

The pain for those carrying loans they can’t afford will be immense, but then many shouldn’t have borrowed it in the first place. Workers prevented from working by a virus that in general, kills the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions are gonna be pretty upset when they end up with nothing.

Secondly, you flush out all the *** bankers who lent them it (earning fortunes in the process) and all those responsible for the fx manipulations, money laundering, market fiddles and lock them up, confiscate all the bonuses and root out all their corrupt political mates too.

Don’t forget,
Governments let this happen on their watch, they ignored the warnings in order to pretend that economies were booming.
They have also created a two tier legal system. Laws for us and laws for criminal bankers who REPEATEDLY break the law....at the expense of the public and investors to line their own pockets.

Just this week.


19million breaches!!!!


1Billion!!! They probably made 20-30Billion doing it

How many bankers were arrested? Feck all, zero, nada, the game continues. Banks are serial law breakers.

Trusting these feckers to sort out a global debt mess they created is like leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

This sh1tstorm is the result.
Wow, what a great solution that would be. World financial markets collapse, global economy devastated, billions without jobs, billions lose their homes, billions lose their pensions, billions commit suicide because they have no future. Just so you can watch the value of your gold holdings rise and say I told you so.

And who is going to pay for the all the global misery your “solution” would create? Because somebody is going to have to. So your solution is no solution at all, just another rant from another one of the utterly selfish people on this planet.
 

nigw

Member
Messages
904
The eat out to help out scheme didnt work in the way that was intended and actually had a detrimental effect on a large section of the hospitality industry.

Clues in the scheme name. If you were a eat in food outlet you got some benefit from it. The scheme ran monday to wednesday so on those days you struggled to find a table anywhere. Thursday friday saturday and sunday you could get as many tables as you wanted as the public stayed in more at weekend as they went out monday to wednesday instead.

The end result was eat in food places lost a big chunk of their weekend trade but made up for it monday to wednesday and had to switch staffing levels accordingly.

The knock on effect for wet only pubs was that less people were out at weekend so trade levels went down. Lots of people go out for a meal and then go to a pub afterwards. That didnt happen as on the days of the scheme they stayed in the foody places and spent a bit more than they usually would before discount and didnt move on to other pubs afterwards.

Give or take the food houses im in contact with gained around 20% overall gross. However the wet only places lost out by a similar amount.

As for the 5% vat rate again if your an eat in food outlet then its beneficial as it applies to food and soft drinks only.

Wet pubs only 5% vat on soft drinks only made such a small difference its hardly worth mentioning. Soft drink sales in a wet only pub are not a massive part of sales and will vary from pub to pub. Locally im seeing £10 to £20 a week difference in the rate of vat per week. Sure bigger venues will benefit more but even those the 5% vat rate will only apply to 5 to 10% of sales that are soft drinks. It doesnt apply to alcohol sales.

Your absolutely right about the amount of press on the hospitality sector. Sadly most of it is also inaccurate.

If the eat out to help out scheme had been run 7 days a week it may have been a different story as the additional trade if it generated more trade overall would have been spread out across the whole week and possibly helped out the wet only sector as well.

I know of four pubs in the local area that hit the wall in the last month along with a local chain of pubs that also failed during lockdown.

Its a messed up world and economy and any measures the government take to help the economy should help all business sectors.

Sadly there so many people that are furloughed at the moment that will loose their job in the coming months simply because their job is no longer viable in the current climate they just do not know it yet.

It’s very easy to say that places ‘lost their weekend trade’ because of Mon to Weds dining, but I’ve read nothing that can prove this, as there’s no valid baseline. Nobody can validly compare Mon-Weds to the weekend, or by either period to either Covid or pre-Covid. It’s a unique situation.

The plan was clearly threefold...to bring in revenue, to enable establishments to revise their operations, and to get the public comfortable with the process (and risks) of dining out. There’s nothing to say that those that dined our Mon-Weds would have otherwise dined out at the weekend in the same numbers, and comparing to previous patterns makes no sense. In my opinion it’s been a successful intervention.
 

nigw

Member
Messages
904
This graph (Open Table data) shows a tentative first week, followed by weekend trade increased along with Mon-Weds, to a significant overall improvement. Still not possible to demonstrate causation by comparing days though.
 

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Silvercat

Member
Messages
1,166
There’s no “perhaps” about it.
If things do not return to normal soon the global economy will be mortally wounded.
All that Unrepayable debt, financed by even more unrepayable debt, ad infinitum is already going boom.

Australian Banks yesterday encouraged by the Government to relax lending standards!!!!!!

"Flabbergasted." That's the universal response I've been hearing from consumer rights advocates to the Federal Government's proposed abolition of the responsible lending obligations. They simply can't understand what the Government is aiming to achieve by freeing banks from their legal obligation to check whether potential borrowers can afford to repay a loan before they are granted it. Other than a free kick for the banks."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09...nding-changes-home-loan-credit-cards/12702260

https://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock
Seems to me that its time to 'run for the hills,' get some serious precious metal under ya belt, a shotgun or sniper rifle to fend off the mob and keep ya head down for the next 40 years..
For sure its going to he a rough ride for all countries over the next few years which could lead to political instability and a breakdown of our financial systems. Hope I'm wrong but I fear we have grim times ahead...