RobinBHM
Established Member
2019-2024 Tory govt put £80b of tax raises in place.
How does that fit with your trope
So what are peoples thoughts and any potential impact on yourself
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How does that fit with your trope
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
It's much more efficient and cost effective than e.g. USA public health services.
In fact before the various right wing attacks on state enterprises the NHS was regarded as a miracle of low cost management and high efficiency.
Needs higher investment in training/education and higher wages particularly at the low end. Also needs much greater spending on aftercare of various types, where privatisation has really bitten hard and worsened services.
Not everyone, only those who have not packed up shop and left for some other country like Portugal. If you hit a business with higher cost then how can anyone expect them not to pass on some of those cost to the customer, if taking on staff is more expensive then you don't recruit, if your margins are tight then you cut staff or invest in automation to replace staff and do not give any payrises to become more cost effective. The only thing that will happen for some businesses that are struggling is to streamline to survive, you are already hearing of companies consolidating business units into fewer and expecting the same output with fewer staff. Yes the statement that a working man will pay no more in income tax or NI is true, in fact for some they will pay nothing because they will lose their job.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
I wonder how this budget will be judged in 15 years time.
It could be seen as a turning point where Labour risked the loss of trust in breaking a major manifesto promise (Rachel Reeves admitted as much on Sky News earlier) to get the funding place to fix things. Reforms will need to be driven through in the housing market, NHS, welfare system, legal system etc to make sure increased funding can deliver benefits if this is to work.
The OBR have largely forecast more stagnation over the next five years and the answer to questions on this seems to be that growth then takes off in the next term. So Labour are banking on winning again and to do that voters will need to see some real improvement in 4/5 years time. OBR forecasts very often turn out to be inaccurate.
I didn’t vote for Labour but have no political allegiance (and am tired of the tribal nature of politics) so I hope it works. I’m sceptical about reform being driven through but hope to be proved wrong. Frothing at the mouth about left wing loonies, harking back to the past, incorrect sound bites about IHT and misquoting the OBR won’t change anything.
They (Labour) now need to get on with it and show some results while I get on with some woodwork.
It could be seen as a turning point where Labour risked the loss of trust in breaking a major manifesto promise (Rachel Reeves admitted as much on Sky News earlier) to get the funding place to fix things. Reforms will need to be driven through in the housing market, NHS, welfare system, legal system etc to make sure increased funding can deliver benefits if this is to work.
The OBR have largely forecast more stagnation over the next five years and the answer to questions on this seems to be that growth then takes off in the next term. So Labour are banking on winning again and to do that voters will need to see some real improvement in 4/5 years time. OBR forecasts very often turn out to be inaccurate.
I didn’t vote for Labour but have no political allegiance (and am tired of the tribal nature of politics) so I hope it works. I’m sceptical about reform being driven through but hope to be proved wrong. Frothing at the mouth about left wing loonies, harking back to the past, incorrect sound bites about IHT and misquoting the OBR won’t change anything.
They (Labour) now need to get on with it and show some results while I get on with some woodwork.
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Well, having a wife who was one the top people in the NHS I suppose the reason why the NHS spent a small fortune on external consultants and looking for help from the American medical institutions to try and make efficiency changes to match the effectiveness of their hospitals is validation of your perception. Or perhaps not!
The biggest issue affecting the NHS has been and continues to be government meddling, every couple of years the targets, direction, requirements kept changing. Bureaucracy is stifling, box ticking has become the way of life. Nothing like have a health minister who knows sod all about running a sweet shop never mind the largest company in the UK to make a complete mess of things. Thats any party they all have absolutely no clue. There are only probably a handful of full of people in the UK capable of running the NHS, and since the salary’s don’t match what they get in industry, we end up with the bureaucratic ineffective inefficient lumbering public service we all have to endure.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
Not sure who the OBS are but here’s the quote from the OBR report on growth …
“Having stagnated last year, the economy is expected to grow by just over 1 per cent this year, rising to 2 per cent in 2025, before falling to around 1½ per cent, slightly below its estimated potential growth rate of 1⅔ per cent, over the remainder of the forecast. Budget policies temporarily boost output in the near term, but leave GDP largely unchanged in five years.”
Let’s be accurate - they do not predict the economy will shrink.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
NHS should have been 100% state run without concessions to the private sector. Yes and Americans are attempting to screw profits from the NHS and in the process can only reduce quality down to USA levels, but increase costs/profits.
What, paying management more would make it more efficient? I thought this had been tried?
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Rhossydd
Established Member
You don't have to read it, you can just scroll by.
On the other hand there's been some staggeringly poor understanding of the issues that have been revealed and corrected here.
RobinBHM
Established Member
NHS compares well against the leading health services like France Germany, Italy.
That might be true of British Leyland and similar.
It is not true for public utility infrastructure, monopolies, energy, rail.
Healthcare: USA system is over 2x dearer than NHS, service is no better in many cases
Water: how is Thames water doing
Railway operators: terrible service and some going bust
Energy suppliers: most have gone bust
Councils are now bringing contracted out services back in house because they can deliver better service at lower cost.
And your gripe about the NHS is wrong, it’s cost per capita is generally lower than other health services and it’s management costs are generally lower
As always the devil is in the detail, a stance taken by political tribalism is rarely true
Thanks your right, OBR not OBS. Again your also correct that they forecast that the economy will stay at the same size. Now, we know inflation will move forward which they forecast, so for the economy not to shrink in real terms in must keep pace with inflation. So I agree, technically your correct, but in reality we will be in a situation where everything costs more and we have the same money with which to buy it which means we will be worse off. That’s just putting it into the simplest terms.
Governments (left/right blue/red) have only two attributes; they produce nothing and are fecklessness. They must borrow and tax.
They will invariably squander everything they take, and it follows that the more they borrow and tax, the bigger the burden that must carried and deeper the hole we will eventually find ourselves in.
The only hope is that in time space travel may be so accessible that people can escape their clutch, but in reality they will never allow that.
They will invariably squander everything they take, and it follows that the more they borrow and tax, the bigger the burden that must carried and deeper the hole we will eventually find ourselves in.
The only hope is that in time space travel may be so accessible that people can escape their clutch, but in reality they will never allow that.
Agent_zed
Established Member
To be honest I don't know enough about finances to know all the pro's and con's, and I'm only using your post as an example of numbers.
So the statement I see often is the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor (I'm not suggesting you said this), which in many instances I agree with. But using your example of a consultant having £1.25million in a pension, surely they are part of the rich with too much money.
I don't know how you change this without the problem that you highlighted i.e. that they just retire early, but I certainly don't have pity for someone with £1.25million in their pension being hit slightly more on tax.
There are lots of posts on here mentioning how businesses will have to close or reduce in size to save costs, but isn't the entire point that people at the bottom are paid more and the people at the top should reduce their salaries. I looked at a building companies finances recently and the directors were all on £500K+ with the top people on £1m. Yet these are the people who will lament about having to reduce their workforce because the company can't afford it. Perhaps if they didn't take 10x or more of the lowest salaries then maybe they wouldn't have to.
I worked in a secondary school and the head teacher and deputy was on £150k and £100K respectively! I was Senior IT tech on £23k (in 2020). I was scrabbling around repairing computers with old parts and the like. If they both dropped £10k off their salary the school could have bought new computers for the entire school. How terrible they would have to be on £140k and £90k salaries...
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Well yes we have been lulled into accepting these extremes of wealth distribution, but the weird thing is how many are happy to defend it even when they themselves are seriously disadvantaged.
Some common sense here from what used to be "The Daily Worker"
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-good-bad-and-ugly-labour-budget
Maybe she is playing a long game and softening the ground for further attacks on wealth? The gamblers and speculators who rule our lives can easily collapse economies at the drop of a hat - have to creep up on them cautiously!
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I still keep in touch with my consultant surgeon (head of department) from a few years ago (on a personal basis, not for health reasons) - he's retiring on his 60th birthday in December and he's glad to be out of it.
highwood122
Established Member
do you think that these tax free incentives are only for the investors benefit, if so you cant see past the end of your nose
Rhossydd
Established Member
I can't see how genuine freelancers can be hit by anything in this budget.
Hypnotic Chimera
Directional Consultant Extraordinaire
That just isn't true. As well as your previous comment on the NHS staff not being concentrated enough in medical practitioners. In truth, the NHS has LESS management staff than any equivalent sized organisation - it's a myth and a fallacy - a lie, basically, but "mud sticks", and "too many managers" has gotten into the national psyche despite being untrue.
Public Services need to be run like Public Services. They have to have an eye on efficiency, but not in the same way as a business does. Public Services, when "compared" to business, is not comparing apples with apples and it is a great myth that business practice, in any Public Service, is a positive thing for the Public Service concerned. The bulk of Public Services require to have surge capacity and without this surge capacity then fail to be adequate or functioning as a Public Service. Think "just in time" as a business proposition and relate that to the Fire Service. No thanks. Fire Service, Armed Forces, Police, Ambulance and NHS, to name but a few, all fail to be fit for purpose as Public Services if they are managed under business "just in time" processes for efficiency purposes. A fantastic case in point was the MEDICAL preparedness of the NHS for a Pandemic. The govt knew they were not prepared but just did nothing, probably because of "efficiency" measures.
So, the key point here is that Nationalised Services do indeed "consume" vast amounts of money. However, the payback is that we have Public Services that Serve the good of the nation. Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), when turned over to business interest, then fail to be retained as CNI.
- The UK is barely energy independent;
- And now has no Steel Manufacturing capability. (Despite many "govt bail-outs" attempting to retain that CNI.)
- Water - a fundamental human requirement that ought to be at the top of CNI - Private Equity has proven to be no more "efficient" than a Nationalised Service and under Private Equity the bills have not decreased - rather the money which could have been invested into infrastructure or offset Public bills has been extracted to enrich the already super-wealthy while raw sewage in our rivers has increased at an alarming rate. That is not "efficiency", it is rape of the countries assets. Nobody can be saying with a straight face or with any conviction or conscience that water, under Public Ownership, could not have delivered at least an equal Service and it would be fair to say it might have been cheaper and gotten more investment.
The ONLY way to find it easier to retain NHS staff - those already trained, skilled and qualified - was to improve their terms AND to place a stop on hiring "agency" staff at ridiculously over-priced unit costs ("Agency" staff are always trained NHS staff that have been poached by Agencies offering better pay alongside less responsibility). That is not a "efficient" use of taxpayer money and ought never to have become s prevalent. However, under Tory oversight, it is clear to see that they actively enrich their donors (you do know that Tory MPs and Ministers have written and published books on transitioning the NHS into a Private System, right?). The taxpayer is not served well by this corrupt methodology and this is one of the highest sources of money drain and inefficiency in the Service. If the taxpayer could afford to pay Agency staff, it could afford to increase wages for staff to be retained instead. A content workforce is the first stage to retention and also the first stage of recruitment. Nobody wants to enter a job that people already in the job are leaving in their droves because they are unhappy with their terms.
Those are "real GBP" forecasts (i.e. already inflation adjusted).
Hypnotic Chimera
Directional Consultant Extraordinaire
RobinBHM
Established Member
I’ve just read the executive report by OBR, and it doesn’t seem to say what you claim, in fact it says growth will rise from around 0 under Tories to 2% by 2025 under Labour.
It also states disposable income will grow.
1.15 Real household disposable income (RHDI) per person, a measure of living standards, grows by an average of just over ½ a per cent a year over the forecast. But the profile is uneven, with strong real wage increases resulting in growth of 1¼ per cent this fiscal year and next before RHDI per person stalls for two years in the middle of the forecast as real wage growth slows and taxes increase. Compared to our March forecast, the level of RHDI per person is just over 2 per cent higher at the start of the forecast due to data revisions, but 1¼ per cent lower by the start of 2029. The bulk of this difference (around 85 per cent) is explained by policies announced in this Budget
1.9 Real GDP growth is therefore forecast to pick up from close to zero last year, to 1.1 per cent this year, 2.0 per cent in 2025, and 1.8 per cent in 2026, before falling back to around 1½ per cent thereafter. Stronger growth in the near term, supported by the easing in monetary policy, pushes GDP above our estimate of potential output
1.8 Budget policies deliver a temporary boost to GDP in the near term and some crowding out of private activity in the medium term. We estimate that the policy package boosts real GDP by 0.6 per cent at its peak in 2025-26 as the fiscal loosening temporarily raises output above its potential level. This temporary stimulus fades to zero over the remainder of the forecast as we assume monetary policy acts to rein in any excess demand. Budget policies also have lasting impacts on the supply potential of the economy. The employer NICs rise is estimated to reduce labour supply by 50,000 average-hours equivalents, while the net fiscal loosening would crowd out some private investment in an economy with little spare capacity. At the same time, the increase in public investment boosts potential output by raising the public capital stock and incentivising some private investment. Taken together, Budget policies leave the level of output broadly unchanged at the forecast horizon. In the longer term, the net effect of Budget policies would be positive for the economy-wide capital stock and potential output if the increase in public investment were to be sustained
https://obr.uk/economic-and-fiscal-outlooks/#chapter-1
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