O/T New British passports

[animallittle3]

Do you know if the savings are per annum then you're right but usually in the tendering adjudicating process savings are calculated over the life of the contract I'd be assuming 5 years
But not to worry any job loss costs will be borne by the UK taxpayer in the form of unemployment & other benefits so in short someone else is paying

I have often wondered if German vehicles are cheaper than any one elses when tenders are invited for Police Fire Ambulance vehicles as you will not see many other than German vehicles used in Germany in this area
Same goes for France & Italy
Odd int it?

UK businesses have a number of issues they need to address , productivity is very low , that needs to improve , massively .

Wage stagnation is also a factor , if money is tight then obviously consumers aren't going to be buying products .

Chicken and the egg situation , investment to kick start business or carry on cutting back ?

The electorate will have the opportunity to decide at the next GE exile .

[KerrAvon]

UK businesses have a number of issues they need to address , productivity is very low , that needs to improve , massively .

Wage stagnation is also a factor , if money is tight then obviously consumers aren't going to be buying products .

Chicken and the egg situation , investment to kick start business or carry on cutting back ?

The electorate will have the opportunity to decide at the next GE exile .

There is a problem with productivity in the UK economy, but it’s ironic to see a TU man like yourself arguing for an increase. In a basic sense, productivity is calculated thus:

Productivity = Units of production/Number of workers.

It follows that to increase productivity the options are to increase output with the same number of workers or to maintain the level of production but with a reduced number of workers (or to increase production whilst reducing the number of workers – the capital owners preferred option). Given that demand (and hence the level of required production) is rarely under the control of the producer, the likely route to increased productivity is job losses – not the sort of thing I would expect to see you advocate, particularly as you support a party that favours the nationalisation of parts of the UK economy and the return of the bloated, overmanned, state owned monopolies of the past.

If Brexit operates to reduce the flow of labour into the UK then it may well be that business will be forced to try to maintain production on reduced staffing levels.

Wage stagnation will operate to reduce the level of demand in an economy in the short term, but the position isn’t the simplistic one that sometimes appears in these threads. Putting an additional sum of money in someone’s hand is of limited effect if it will be spent in an economy where the costs of production have been increased by that act of paying more. In other words, wage increases without an increase in productivity are merely inflationary. Perhaps of particular note for the purposes of this thread is that wage increases that increase the cost of production in this country will serve to make UK businesses uncompetitive in international markets.

As for the notion of investment to kick start business, the wheeze from Labour at the last election was to tax business to pay for their wish list of spending promises (including paying off the middle class with their tuition fees bribe). Do you think that would lead to investment – taking money out of business? It clearly wouldn’t.

The owners of capital expect a return upon it when they risk it in a business. If John McDonnell takes money away from them in increased corporate taxes, they will look to maintain their return by cutting costs (with cutting jobs being the easiest way), cutting capital investment and by becoming more tax efficient. When John takes enough, the companies that can will decide that moving their operations and tax base out of the country is the way forward.