When will indyref2 happen?

[sergie's no1 fan]

McBookie have odds of only 4/1 for a yellow washout at the GE. 4/1 for 59 SNP seats! 

[dogmc]

Don't see a whitewash for snp tbh. Anything over 45 would be v good and 50 + would be pretty astonishing. Think the hardcore unionist vote will go towards tories in rural borders n pkr. SLab will be lucky to even have one n I'm far from certain that lib dems can hold onto one either with carmichael as candidate.

[Baxter Parp]

2 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

I made the mistake of thinking that showing a simple illustration of how fragile seemingly fat cat businesses can sometimes be that you guys would at least get a sense of how doing things like increasing the minimum wage without engaging your brain can sometimes cause serious problems.

It seems however that hatred of the rich is so strong that many of you would tolerate thousands of job losses to screw over a couple of rich people. Fair enough. If that is your view then that is your view. I dont quite understand how adopting a policy which risks so many jobs somehow protects the poor but as I have said before, I think the hard lefty position on equality means all of us wallowing in the shite together.

The assumption that paying workers a fair wage will somehow result in thousands of job losses is absolute bunk.  As is the view that this would screw over the rich.

[Baxter Parp]

2 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Thinking that you can attack the former without damaging the latter is a sign of a lack of intelligence.

This post is a sign of a lack of intelligence, chummy.

[dogmc]

I made the mistake of thinking that showing a simple illustration of how fragile seemingly fat cat businesses can sometimes be that you guys would at least get a sense of how doing things like increasing the minimum wage without engaging your brain can sometimes cause serious problems.
It seems however that hatred of the rich is so strong that many of you would tolerate thousands of job losses to screw over a couple of rich people. Fair enough. If that is your view then that is your view. I dont quite understand how adopting a policy which risks so many jobs somehow protects the poor but as I have said before, I think the hard lefty position on equality means all of us wallowing in the shite together.

Denmark n California are two examples where very significant rises in minimum wage not only didn't lead to mass job losses but saw their economies improve. Can you give actual examples of significant raises in min wage leading to mass job losses or is it just a baseless assumption??

[Londonwell]

4 hours ago, Pride_of_the_Clyde said:

With apologies for interrupting the bakery discussion, I've been thinking over what yesterday's General Election announcement could mean for Scotland.

Let me first say that I'm confident that the PM has made this decision for Westminster-, Tory Party-, Brexit-centric reasons. That said, issue of Scotland remains a big challenge for her, one which will rise up her agenda as the terms of Brexit become clearer and one I think she'd concede privately she has insufficient understanding of currently.

So the consequences of this decision on Scotland will have been taken into account: and the feeling from the Tories is likely to have been that there is little for Scottish nationalism to gain in it.

The most likely outcome of the election at present seems to be another Tory government and another strong SNP return, though with fewer than 56 seats. The question of independence remains the dominant issue in Scotland.

I'm fairly sure that all of the above holds true so I think the interesting part is what lies beyond the election result.

Which brings me to the point of my post in this topic. I'm loathe to predict things but I think there is a real possibility that in short order Westminster would then offer an independence referendum, provided it takes place in 2017.

May will realise the hypocrisy of her contrasting statements/approaches to a referendum and to a GE but is likely to justify this by citing 'certainty' and that she's having the poll prior to EU talks beginning in earnest.

She may challenge the SNP to do likewise knowing that it would be difficult for the SNP to refuse, that the SNP still have some significant policy positions to determine, that the polls are slightly in her favour and to draw the stamina from activists and the appetite out of voters following council elections and a GE.

Should the SNP refuse, the offer would be off the table with the Tories safe in the knowledge that they had not ignored the democratic will of Scotland and that Holyrood elections now precede Westminster, at which another pro-independence majority is no given, never mind a pro-SNP majority.

As I say this it still seems moonbeams to think we'll see a 2017 referendum but I think that after yesterday there is now a logic to it being a possibility. Thoughts?

I've thought for a while that May's best chance of holding onto Scotland is to have a referendum as soon as possible. I don't think she will call for one in 2017 but let's wait and see what the results of the GE are.

She must surely already realise the hypocrisy of her arguments against holding a ref but I doubt she cares one jot. She's appealing to hardcore unionists, who will give her a by on these things.

[DiegoDiego]

29 minutes ago, dogmc said:

Denmark n California are two examples where very significant rises in minimum wage not only didn't lead to mass job losses but saw their economies improve.

Denmark has no minimum wage.

[Baxter Parp]

5 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Denmark has no minimum wage.

Even better: negotiated between unions and employer associations; the average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements was approximately DKK 110 ($18) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits

[DiegoDiego]

4 minutes ago, Baxter Parp said:

Even better: negotiated between unions and employer associations; the average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements was approximately DKK 110 ($18) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits

Trade union membership in Denmark is at two-thirds and falling. The very people minimum wages are supposed to protect are the most likely to not be members. Denmark is far from the utopia UK/US media makes it out to be.

(Also, that €18 per hour doesn't look so good once all the various taxes have been applied.)

[Baxter Parp]

14 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Trade union membership in Denmark is at two-thirds and falling. The very people minimum wages are supposed to protect are the most likely to not be members. Denmark is far from the utopia UK/US media makes it out to be.

(Also, that €18 per hour doesn't look so good once all the various taxes have been applied.)

Ok, which taxes? And two-thirds union membership is actually huge, are you kidding?

Edited April 19, 2017 by Baxter Parp

[DiegoDiego]

5 minutes ago, Baxter Parp said:

Ok, which taxes? And two-thirds union membership is actually huge, are you kidding?

Gross tax, state income tax, municipal income tax, state tax, health tax and church tax. A call centre worker can easily see 40% of their earnings disappearing before it hits their bank account. Don't let that health tax fool you either, Danes pay for their prescriptions and not at a flat rate like the English do. There are very few exemptions from VAT, so students pay 25% on top of already egregious textbook prices. It's hard to see what return Danes get from such high taxes, though their unemployment benefits are much better than ours and they have better public leisure facilities but you'd expect more from a country which controls 90% of the world's lego mines.

Trade union membership is huge compared to the UK, but 33% is a significant part of the workforce without any minimum wage, which is the topic at hand.

[Baxter Parp]

Just now, DiegoDiego said:

Gross tax, state income tax, municipal income tax, state tax, health tax and church tax. A call centre worker can easily see 40% of their earnings disappearing before it hits their bank account. Don't let that health tax fool you either, Danes pay for their prescriptions and not at a flat rate like the English do. There are very few exemptions from VAT, so students pay 25% on top of already egregious textbook prices. It's hard to see what return Danes get from such high taxes, though their unemployment benefits are much better than ours and they have better public leisure facilities but you'd expect more from a country which controls 90% of the world's lego mines.

Except poverty sits at 17.7% compared to 30% in the UK and an average minimum wage of £15.00 an hour shows no sign of causing the loss of thousands of jobs.  Peculiar.

6 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Trade union membership is huge compared to the UK, but 33% is a significant part of the workforce without any minimum wage, which is the topic at hand.

Doesn't occur to you that those are the people who don't need union representation, does it?  The rich, management, owners, landlords, that sort of thing?

[DiegoDiego]

28 minutes ago, Baxter Parp said:

Doesn't occur to you that those are the people who don't need union representation, does it?  The rich, management, owners, landlords, that sort of thing?

If you want to believe that those sorts make up a third of the workforce then go ahead. I lived in Denmark, I knew a lot of those people. I was one of them, my girlfriend was one of them and we both prefer life in Scotland.

I'm not arguing for or against a minimum wage, just trying to dispel this myth of the Danish utopia. Unless you're middle class with children it's a bit of a shit place to live. Our local pub was run by a biker gang as a drug parlour and on departure we sold our flat to a 27 year old who had spent six years in prison. Of the seven countries I've lived in only Finland stops it being the place I'd least like to return to.

[Fide]

Isn't Oaksoft just the cutest?

[Baxter Parp]

7 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

If you want to believe that those sorts make up a third of the workforce then go ahead. I lived in Denmark, I knew a lot of those people. I was one of them, my girlfriend was one of them and we both prefer life in Scotland.

I'm not arguing for or against a minimum wage, just trying to dispel this myth of the Danish utopia. Unless you're middle class with children it's a bit of a shit place to live. Our local pub was run by a biker gang as a drug parlour and on departure we sold our flat to a 27 year old who had spent six years in prison. Of the seven countries I've lived in only Finland stops it being the place I'd least like to return to.

Here are the top 10 happiest places on Earth, according to the World Happiness Report.

• Switzerland. Switzerland took the top spot from Denmark in 2015, rising from third to first place in this year's list of the world's happiest countries. ...
• Iceland. ...
• Denmark. ...
• Norway. ...
• Canada. ...
• Finland. ...
• Netherlands (Holland) ...
• Sweden.

[DiegoDiego]

5 minutes ago, Baxter Parp said:

Here are the top 10 happiest places on Earth, according to the World Happiness Report.

Aye, and next you'll be telling me Carlsberg is probably the best beer in the world. Seriously, spend some time there and you'll quickly see how meaningless that report is. Would you be happy living in a town the size of St Andrews which doesn't have a single place to go and watch the football on TV? Where a thirty year old two carriage train stops by every hour in a country with no bus alternative? Where you can't get a coffee between 3pm on Saturday and 10am on Monday?

[ayrmad]

3 hours ago, oaksoft said:

 

 

I made the mistake of thinking that showing a simple illustration of how fragile seemingly fat cat businesses can sometimes be that you guys would at least get a sense of how doing things like increasing the minimum wage without engaging your brain can sometimes cause serious problems.

It seems however that hatred of the rich is so strong that many of you would tolerate thousands of job losses to screw over a couple of rich people. Fair enough. If that is your view then that is your view. I dont quite understand how adopting a policy which risks so many jobs somehow protects the poor but as I have said before, I think the hard lefty position on equality means all of us wallowing in the shite together.

You don't half talk some pish, I'm very much pro business, unfortunately an awful lot of economists,CEO's,MD's,MP's etc only take notice of the parts of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations that suit their ends and totally ignore the sections that would involve increasing costs, in no way did Adam Smith promote imbalance such as we see in the UK today.

In your Gregg's example a 5% price increase would undoubtedly result in a drop in demand, how big, nobody knows, the extra income delivered to staff members would see staff members spending increase thus helping to protect the jobs of others and the economy while saving the taxpayer a wee bit on benefits.

Giving 20,000 staff an average wage increase of £1,000,a 5% price increase and a 2.25% dip in turnover would more or less leave Gregg's standing still with a happy more loyal workforce.

[senorsoupe]

If Scotland doesn't want to be fully independent, and doesn't want to be part of the UK then there is apparently a third solution, at least according to this guy!  The Solution is to join Canada!

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/scotland-as-canada-s-11th-province-author-says-it-s-a-good-idea-1.3375160

You would get more power and influence over national affairs than you do now, plus access to tariff-free maple syrup!  

[ayrmad]

1 minute ago, oaksoft said:

That's a f**k of a lot of assumptions right there in bold. Let me put it this way. If Greggs thought they could get away with upping prices 5% then like every other sane business they would be doing it already.

I already told you that I agree the principle of staff having more money and then spending it etc.

That is not the issue.

The issue is the RISK you introduce when you simply and blindly increase costs for companies LIKE GREGGS without thinking through the consequences of what happens if you get it wrong: companies who APPEAR to be fat cats but in actually fact are vulnerable to shock. You simply cannot blindly assume that they can increase profits.

Assumptions are all we have, it's not about whether Gregg's think they could get away with, if all companies in that sector had to increase prices for the same reason we're discussing the downside wouldn't be too drastic unless you're suggesting we're all going to stop eating shite for lunch.

As for vulnerability, how many small independent competitors are suffering from vulnerability due to some of the advantages of scale and tax laws etc that companies like Gregg's enjoy?

Small companies have less wiggle room when it comes inadvertent things happening.

[strichener]

2 hours ago, Baxter Parp said:

Here are the top 10 happiest places on Earth, according to the World Happiness Report.

• Switzerland. Switzerland took the top spot from Denmark in 2015, rising from third to first place in this year's list of the world's happiest countries. ...
• Iceland. ...
• Denmark. ...
• Norway. ...
• Canada. ...
• Finland. ...
• Netherlands (Holland) ...
• Sweden.

And every one of those countries has a suicide rate higher than the UK

Suicide Rates per 100,000 persons (Latest available from OECD)

• Switzerland - 12.2
• Iceland - 11.8
• Denmark - 11.3
• Norway - 10.8
• Canada - 10.5
• Finland - 15.8
• Netherlands (Holland) - 10.5
• Sweden - 12.3

UK - 7.5

Maybe they ain't as happy as they say.