大象传媒

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

An austerity programme will indeed make it difficult to grow its way out of a fiscal crisis. Perhaps tomorrow G Osborne could have a part time eye on Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland while he consolidates his public sector cuts offensive. Of course there will be a strategy for growth with gestures to NEETS and making it easy for tin pot employers to sack dissident workers, the newly pregnant and the inconveniently sick. Re-booting the economy however will not be on the agenda.

I wonder if they'll introduce the Lib-Dem's 拢10,000 tax threshold in its entirety tomorrow instead of phasing it in over the course of the parliament as originally planned. They could certainly do with something to tell people about on the doorsteps in the coming local elections after the climb-down over tuition fees. Not that it will do them any good.

Its also looking like further to the announcement last week from some councils that they were going to start using taxpayers money to underwrite house prices by paying the deposits of first-time buyers, George Osborne is getting in on the act as well.



Isn't this an admission that house prices are just too high and can't sustain their value on their own. And doesn't it also raise questions about the taxpayers who still won't be able to afford to live anywhere, trapped for example in high rent private housing, whose taxes will be used to push even this out of their reach over the medium term?

Are you sure you are monitoring the real end-game? When human spirit is being crunched beyond hope, the sound of numbers is drowned out.

Is what is happening in Portugal politicking or a further manifestation of the public anger that we are seeing in North Africa and the Middle East?

@muggwhump -

A 20% interest free loan for just 5 years for those able to stump up 5% deposit of a new home could be financial suicide for most people.

If you can't afford a house now then it will be more unaffordable in 5 years when that 20% needs to be repaid or lumped onto a mortgage.

But it may make some older properties reduce their asking prices if they are in areas close to new builds?

#4 muggwhump

A world where people can't afford to put a roof over their head (or spend most of their life paying it off).
A world where many people can't sell their labour & are trapped in abject poverty (or if working are exploited & humiliated on a daily basis).

This is the world of capitalism.

At least some on the 26th March in London will be saying that another world is possible.

Paul Krugman blog, January 3, 2011:

"Some readers have chimed in that the euro is essentially a political rather than economic project. Well, it鈥檚 both; that has been the European strategy ever since the Schuman declaration. The point is to deliver a series of economic integration plans that do double duty: they鈥檙e economically productive, but they also create 鈥渄e facto solidarity鈥�, moving Europe closer to political union...the strategy depends on each move toward economic integration being both a political symbol and a good economic idea. That was clearly true of coal and steel, the common market, the eurosausage, and so on. It is, however, by no means clear that the euro passes that test. Europe鈥檚 limited labor mobility (although there鈥檚 more than there used to be) and, crucially, lack of fiscal integration makes a common currency a dubious proposition at best. And that鈥檚 a problem for the broader European project. You build solidarity with economic measures that work, not with measures that don鈥檛. I don鈥檛 believe that a euro crackup would bring us back to the days of the Siegfried Line; but it would put a damper on those feelings of solidarity that are supposed to take the continent, step by step, toward true federation. If I were a European leader, I鈥檇 be very, very worried about this 鈥� and willing to take some serious risks, like the creation of E-bonds, in an attempt to turn this thing around."

"A world where people can't afford to put a roof over their head"

duvinrouge - Many other countries are doing just fine. This isn't a world issue. It's an issue with some lazy and stupid western countries who rested on their laurels for too long. We've tried the happy-clappy way where we say "wouldn't it be nice if we gave everyone a job via the state" under Labour and it was a complete mess. Resources were misdirected in the most dire fashion.

Is that 26th March thing organised by the same people who backed Cantona's "pull all your money out the banks" brigade? How did that go, btw?

Paul...you say "my eyes will be glued to George Osborne"
I was going to ask why, then I realized it's the 'day job'.
Saw Martin Wolf (FT) at the LSE last week, very impressive.
Mr Wolf put into context GO fiddling at the edges of the housing market, with his graphical exposure of the imbalances in the global economy.
In short, our problems are bigger than any UK Chancellor can affect.
Let's see the budget for what it has become, petty politics, headline grabbing.
Why don't we focus on the real problems, and the game changing loss of wealth in the West. We are like frogs being cooked real slow.

Paul,

Bin off the Osbourne side show, there are surely more interesting things to consider at the moment.

It just goes to show how utterly out of touch they and the media are to make a big 'exclusive' hoo ha today about a tax reduction worth 拢45 a year which the 大象传媒 is proudly splashing everywhere as a 'feel good' exclusive presumably.

Why thats an extra 1/2 a loaf of bread a week I can buy.

I am soooo excited !!!!!

Are these guys for real, is there no bounds to how stupid they think we are.

Ben

You mentioned Labour's attempts to give everyone a job paid for by the state but this was only a desperate attempt to actually mask the jobs literally flying out of UK and the West to the cheap labour hotspots of India and the Far East. It did indeed fail so now there is the double whammy of these jobs not being there and also the newly created ones being taken away.

The Tories simply plan to make us more competitive in the jobs market by erroding terms and conditions and wages as much as they can to prevent or at least slow down the continued outsourcing of jobs. Just wait till the Mode 4 legislation kicks in for the middle class professions of engineering and IT in particular and then the fun should really begin.

Portugal, in spite of some financial respite, looks like its in deep POLITICAL as well as financial trouble.
There seems to be an endless political spat over Portugal's austerity policies, threatening to derail progress on resolving the country's financial woes. This could mean the fall of the minority government. Market pressure on Portugal had eased Monday following European agreement on a package of measures. But Portugal's opposition parties are all refusing to agree with the beleaguered minority government's latest raft of tax hikes, spending cuts and borrowing.
When PM Jose Socrates said that he didn't need Parliament's approval for the new measures, the weeping & wailing could be heard across Europe and most certainly, uncertainty has rattled his center-left government's future.
Political tension is sky-high after a conference by the leader of the main opposition Social Democratic Party, Pedro Passos Coelho, who announced he would not support the government's latest measures. Other smaller opposition parties, angered that they had not been consulted, followed suit.
The government did a most unusual thing: it snubbed the country's conservative president by not informing him about the plan before announcing it in what is a reach of protocol.
So, we have a minority government at cross-paths with the President in the middle of a severe economic crisis, and none of this spells future resolution.
There have been 3 austerity packages over the past 11 months, each enacted after the country's borrowing costs surged and won through parliamentary approval, mainly due to the center-right Social Democrats.
The failure of the latest austerity measures is bound to cause market tensions in Portugal (likely all the PIGS), offsetting the EU's efforts to ease the crisis.
Portugal's next general election is due in 2013, but a motion of no confidence in Parliament will bring down the government.
The latest batch of measures included a freeze on all old-age pensions through 2013 and a special tax on pensions over euro 1,500 ($2,067), plus a scattering of other welfare reductions.
I hate this, utterly hate this.
The working people did not cause this.
The prime cause of PIG debt has been NAKED DERIVATIVE TRADING, unregulated, based mainly in either the United States or the central London Banking establishment. NAKED DERIVATIVES WERE ALWAYS GOING TO BE TROUBLE BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO REAL FOUNDATION IN ANY ASSSET - the underlying asset has been bundled and traded, bundled and traded...and is essentially worth nothing.
I am shocked that the EU has not taken more steps to outlaw derivative trading, put controls on the investment banks, call for stiff accountability and regulation , and haul the seller of these nefarious financial products into Court.
It's not too late, but some country in the EU - likely Belgium/Brussels - ought to get their hands out of their pockets and get tough with the investment banks.
I see this as mostly including a Financial Activities Tax on all Transaction thus that there can be no more under the table, unregulated, unacccounted for NAKED GAMBLING IN ANY CASINO.
A Financial Activities Tax establishes an audit trail, exactly what is needed.

#9 Ben

If you've ever watch The Life of Brian you'll remember the guy chained up in prison by the Romans who things that they are such wonderful people...

Step back & look at the broad brush of history.
Capitalism as a mode of production requires unending growth, but the world is finite.
Today we are seeing the supply side barriers being hit, e.g. oil supply & ecological crisis.

Capitalism as a mode of production is destined to be replaced.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Coltseavers - no idea what I wrote to upset the mods. Agree with the first paragraph. I think the Tories cannot turn around such a mess. Poor education will ensure correlation is not causation is not observed.

What is Mode 4???

General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a treaty of the World Trade Organization. The GATS agreement covers four modes of supply for the delivery of services in cross-border trade.

#13

naked derivaive trading..sounds like fun, is it a common practice in the city?

Ok - read it. Maybe I'm dumb but humour me.

"Just wait till the Mode 4 legislation kicks in for the middle class professions of engineering and IT in particular and then the fun should really begin."

Please elaborate! Thanks.

At a brief guess I'm thinking that you think the free movement of labour from the third world will force down the wages of specialists in developed countries?

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

Correction to burnallmoney's comment: it's not me who's being doing the research but a colleague who has had very little success in bringing the issue to the fore before it's all too late.

Incidentally, burnallmoney, Linda Kaucher (for it is she) says she was interviewed for Newsnight on Mode 4 a while ago but the info was never used. Any comment, Paul?

I'm very crabby with the politics of my country, especially with Social Democratic Party, since the party interests are in first line and the country interest in second. In the other hand, the procedure of Prime Minister was a catalyser of political crisis. In spite of UE pressing, he had the obligation to negotiate the Stability and Growth Program in correct time with the opposition. The people of Portugal should require honesty and good exercise of politics.

Lu铆s Lobo
Lisboa - Portugal

Any thoughts please Paul ! ! !

if you ask me no growth is too good for 'em, oh yes, too good for 'em....

MODELLED ON THE 'MODEL DEMOCRACY' NO DOUBT (#23)

Sounds as if they still talk reverently of the Great White Queen across the sea.

I was going to post about Mode 4 but to be honest the links to Carol Wilcox's previous posts are almost certainly more elloquent than i could come up with and cover pretty much all the angles.

I would just add though that a friend of mine is head of global procurement for a large UK engineering firm and I recently bumped into him at a Christening. When I asked what he had been busy doing he said all his time had been spent investigating and setting up 'joint-venture' engineering companies within India (think they had completed 3 with a 4th in the pipeline) so i immediately asked about the EU India free trade agreement and the Mode 4 legislation. He genuinely seemed quite shocked i knew about it but admitted his company were well aware of it and intendeded to utilise it fully once passed.

They believe India is a potentially huge market (which it is) but also that their labour costs for engineering work in the UK/EU will fall considerably if they are able to draft in staff from their overseas operations unrestricted - profits should rise sharply. It's therefore not only exisiting trans-nationals that are set to exploit this but many companies who are about to set up these new joint ventures.

India also has a massive IT sector and not enough jobs - with the privatisation of our public services numerous companies (Accenture, SAIC, CapGemini, Serco, Logica) are just waiting to snap up those contracts and maximise profit by undercutting UK staffs' T&C.s

Health reforms are also going to open up a huge window of opportunity for these transnationals.

Interesting times ahead.

Colt - ok interesting. If the Indian IT graduates are of the standard I normally deal with then I shall continue to rest easy, but I do agree with you that genuinely opening up this area will impact many people.

Ben

It aint about level of 'skills' - its about cheap.

Currently, in Mode 2 of the UK Points Based System, IT workers brought in as Intracorporate Transferees (ICTs) for less than 1 year, only have to be paid about 拢24 000, not the 拢40 000 towards which the UK press was directed (and which it dutifully reported). That's for over 1 year. Most are brought in now for less than - obviously!

Good old Vince Cable - trying to fool all of the people all of the time, has exempted 'things like ICTs' (Cameron's language in Parliament) from any numerical limits.

But wait - there's more.

That 拢24 000 figure can be made up of a wage far below the Minimum Wage, about 拢6000 a year (in effect Indian wages). And then the UK govt allows the rest to be made up in tax free 'expenses'.

Now since when were 'expenses' actually the major part of actual wages? Since it was handed to transnational corps to use this way to avoid tax!

Even if the worker finishes up with a reasonable sum by UK standards (which is a v high sum for an Indian worker - do you ever ask those guys at the other end of the phone, in India, what they earn?) these workers still work out cheaper and thus preferable to the employer than hiring here

WHY DOES THE GOVT HAVE A STRUCTURE THAT ADVANTAGES THE HIRING OF OVERSEAS WORKERS OVER UK WORKERS - ESP WHEN IT IS SUCH A LOSS TO THE TREASURY? FURTHER LOSSES TO THE TREASURY ARE FROM THE LOSS OF EARN/SPEND- MONEY IS TAKEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY RATHER THAN SPENT HERE FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY. AND IN WELFARE PAYMENTS TO DISPLACED WORKERS. HOW DOES THIS FIT WITH AN AGENDA THAT IS SUPPOSEDLY IMPOSING 'NECESSARY CUTS'???

But wait - there's more

Responses to questions by Lord Laird in Parliament this week show that the Home Office is aware of workers paid less than Minimum Wage, made up with 'expenses' - actually illegal - but doesn't inform the UKBA! How bad does it get?

Worse!

The majority of workers brought in as ICTs are actually then put into other firms - as Contactual Service Suppliers - so not only are companies like Tata bringing people in as cheap labour, thanks to the 'kindness' of UK regulation, but then huge profits are made from putting workers into all sorts of other firms, for a high daily rate, with the client firm offloading all employer responsibility.

Who misses out? The UK workers who are displaced in the process, and those who are still working, but having wages and conditions pushed down by this phenomenon. And our children and grandchildren.

But wait - there's more

If you look at Mode 5 of the Points Based System, which has had no public discussion re 'cap' or anything else, there, hidden among 'charity workers', 'religious workers' and 'sportspersons', you will see a category of 'international agreements' - once again - one of those 'things' rather than people. This category, like the Mode 2 ICT category, has no number limits either. What it does, sitting quietly in there with its non-reference to people is to fix UK labour migration policy to accept whatever we are signed up to in Brussels re labour migration.

Labour migration in EU trade commitments (Mode 4) is dependant on each Member States willingness to commit.

26 countries want strict limits

You can have 3 guesses - no just one guess - which Member State is going for no limits at all.

The same Member State which is telling its population and workers nothing about these commitments and is meanwhile covering its national regulatory framework in rubbish spin about 'brightest and best', and 'things' like ICTs, etc.

Although this is largely IT focussed now, not only does IT actually cut across all sectors, but the way is open for this mechanism for cheap labour from outside of the EU to affect many work areas.

It is a key part of the privatisation agenda. How can the private sector deliver cheaper? - via cheap migrant labour, a pathway denied btw to SMEs, further disadvantaging them as they are starved of credit anyway.

The labour migration mechanism, alongside the privatisation agenda is an agenda to favour and increase the power of transnational investors. A govt that obeys this agenda, while keeping it secret from the citizenry is - CORRUPT.