The UK Economy - Is it the 1970's again?

I take it you have voluntarily given all your workforce a wage rise well above inflation?

Seems that Unions are once again holding the country to ransom.

I am certainly not an economist but if everyone gets a wage rise above inflation won't that cause further inflation as the cost of goods and services also has to rise?

 

It’s all Rupp and sparkes fault and training at a school doesn’t help

 

High inflation, strikes, patients waiting hours in corridors because no beds, Ambulances taking ages to arrive to pick up people as they are full at the hospital's. Huge waiting lists for housing, Massive borrowing to try balance the books.
Sounds like today?
No it was the last time the Tories were in power any length of time before the country got rid of them. Seems we never learn

 

Biggest mistake the government makes is to give too much money away, money we don't have, paying all that money out during the pandemic and then for the workforce to thank them by going on strike for more, oh, and 1000+ more dinghy divers arrived today, madness doesn't even start......

 

This crisis is not of the unions making. This government and global pressures are behind it. To simplify the huge problems on the unions asking/negotiating for its members, is a lazy reply.

We may get nominal tax cuts, either via VAT or NI if the media is to be believed. Will this honestly help? Do you believe many, if any, will get pay rises above the rate of inflation?
I've had a real terms take home pay cut since 2020..yes I'm worse off just from working in the last couple of years before rising prices, energy... Probably because I'm a lazy British worker...Ah, Tory divisive tactics

This current crisis is real, I'm sure you'll agree. Do you have firm beliefs that this government will help the vulnerable, our elderly population, our poorer sections of society, the huge working classes? If the unions negotiate pay increases, good.

Inflation is the current hype word to frighten the hell out of the population. Let's divide our population further by division.

No matter what pay rise you or I get, the current energy crisis will be hugely behind inflationary pressure.

 

You really don't understand economics at all , do you? The economy is not like a household budget, despite what your darling Thatcher said.

Half the economy would have gone bankrupt in 2020/21 if they'd followed your advice. And then we'd be in an even worse state than we are now.

In times of emergency, like World Wars and once-in-a-lifetime pandemics, governments have to intervene, not stand on the sidelines as the economy sinks.

It took 60 years to pay back the government debt from WW2, but we still managed to create the NHS, massive social housing programmes etc and have boom periods in the sixties and nineties/noughties. Sometimes government debt has to happen. The fallacy is believing that it all has to be paid back quickly - that just leads to years of austerity and the crippling run down of all our public services - thanks Cameron and Osborne - leaving us in no fit state to deal with emergencies like the pandemic.

It was a massive mistake to hand out £35 billion to the government's mates for useless PPE, track & trace etc. But the furlough payments were essential and about the only sensible thing the Tories have done in twelve years of disastrous economic mismanagement.

 

I understand all that and agree re PPE contracts, but after the war the country knuckled down to rebuild our country whilst the present workforce are just taking the pee....

 

Are they? Many of them have worked their nuts off through unprecedentedly difficult circumstances only to be rewarded with spiralling inflation and astronomical fuel bills to come.

Edit
Lord preserve us from retired self employed people who think anyone that isn't working 18 hour days for peanuts is a shirker.

 

The same self employed that funded their own holiday pay for 30 years (= to 3 full years pay), forget about any sick pay, fund their supplementary pension and not know from one week to another the level of their earnings...
Wonder how many of you cradle to grave reliant upon the government to hold your hand would take that risk...?
Good job I ain't bitter..
Have a nice day....

 

That's the choice you make when you opt to go self employed. Not everyone wants, or is in a position, to take the risks involved in being self employed. Good luck to those that do, but I get really pissed off with self employed types' holier than thou attitude about it. Having the security of a regular wage doesn't make you a shirker or a sponger.

Everyone makes choices. I could have trained as a lawyer and almost certainly made stacks more money than as a social worker. And, yes, I knew that I'd get a reasonable pension at the end of it, which I have. But that was part of the trade I made. I was paid a pittance for the level of my education, training, experience and expertise. And I had several years during Osborne's reign of terror when I got no pay rise at all. I shudder to think how younger public servants with families are going to get by when the really big fuel hikes kick in. I can't blame anyone for taking action to try to get a living wage to feed their families.

 

Liz Truss says we need to graft harder. I suggest we follow her lead and start with 13 weeks paid holiday like she has.

And of course it was her decision to let the water companies cover our beaches in sewage

 

There must be other perks or why run your own business.

 

The Tories always borrow and leave the country in debt even borrowing for tax cuts to the well off. It took Tony Blair years to pay off the previous debt only for 10 years of Tories to now have the largest debt in our history and looking to increase it again

 

I'm on a ZHC so to all intents and purposes I am self employed. You're so out of touch it's unreal sometimes